Photo by Frank Wojciechowski
By Colton Poore, Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment
November 19, 2024
Energy systems expert Jesse Jenkins was named to the TIME100 Climate list on November 12, following his nomination to the TIME100 NEXT list in October.
In both instances, Jenkins, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, was lauded for his influential role in evaluating and shaping the clean energy transition in the United States.
Jenkins leads the ZERO Lab at Princeton, which works to guide energy transitions through the evaluation of emerging low-carbon technologies and development of optimization-based models to improve climate policy decision-making.
Jenkins and his lab have collaborated on studies to quantify the system-wide emissions reductions resulting from the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. His group’s prescient analysis of an Inflation Reduction Act tax credit for low-carbon hydrogen production has guided national conversations about the credit’s implementation. Jenkins also played an instrumental role as a lead researcher in the landmark Net-Zero America study that provided five highly detailed scenarios by which the United States could slash carbon emissions its economy.
In addition to his research, Jenkins frequently provides expert commentary and analysis to news outlets to help the public understand climate policy and the clean energy transition. He also routinely engages with energy stakeholders in Congressional hearings, industry and academic meetings, and on social media, writing in an article that “it [is] our collective task to continue to bend the arc of global emissions toward net zero.”
Expanding his outreach efforts, Jenkins co-hosts the Shift Key podcast alongside Robinson Meyer, providing weekly deep dives into trending energy topics. Recently, Jenkins and Meyer have discussed what a second Trump administration might mean for climate policy in the United States as well as the climate policies of other high carbon-emitters such as China.
“There is one guiding principle that I think everyone can take to heart: focus on how to use the everyday choices in your life to exert the most leverage on our interconnected energy, economic and political systems and, hopefully, nudge things toward decarbonization just a little bit faster,” Jenkins wrote in the award citation.
Since joining the Princeton faculty in 2019, Jenkins has received six commendations for outstanding teaching from the School of Engineering and Applied Science. He earned a Ph.D. in engineering systems and a S.M. in technology and policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and he received a B.S. in computer and information science from the University of Oregon.