Jesse Jenkins

Visiting Scholar

2017-2018

Jesse Jenkins was a 2017-2018 visiting scholar of the Kleinman Center. Jenkins is currently an assistant professor at Princeton University with a joint appointment in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and Environment.

Jesse Jenkins was a 2017-2018 visiting scholar of the Kleinman Center when he was a postdoctoral environmental fellow at the Harvard University Center for the Environment and the Harvard Kennedy School. Jenkins is currently an assistant professor at Princeton University with a joint appointment in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and Environment and courtesy appointments at the School of Public and International Affairs and the High Meadows Environmental Institute. He is a macro-scale energy systems engineer with a focus on the rapidly evolving electricity sector, including the transition to zero-carbon resources, the proliferation of distributed energy resources, and the role of electricity in economy-wide decarbonization. Jesse leads the Princeton ZERO Lab (Zero-carbon Energy systems Research and Optimization Laboratory), which focuses on improving and applying optimization-based energy systems models to evaluate low-carbon energy technologies and generate insights to guide policy and planning decisions in national and sub-national jurisdictions transitioning to net-zero emissions energy systems. Jesse earned a PhD and SM from MIT, worked previously as a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, and spent six years as an energy and climate policy analyst prior to embarking on his academic career.