Jesse Jenkins
Research Areas
Short Bio
Jesse D. Jenkins is an assistant professor and macro-scale energy systems engineer at Princeton University with a joint appointment in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and Environment. He 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 and optimize low-carbon energy technologies, guide investment and research in innovative energy technologies, and generate insights to improve energy and climate policy and planning decisions.
Dr. Jenkins earned a PhD in engineering systems and masters in technology and policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, worked previously as a postdoctoral environmental fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, and spent six years as an energy and climate policy analyst prior to embarking on his academic career. Dr. Jenkins served on the National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine expert committee on Accelerating Decarbonization of the U.S. Energy System, was a principal investigator and lead author of Princeton's landmark Net-Zero America study, and leads the REPEAT Project (repeatproject.org), which provides regular, timely, and independent environmental and economic evaluation of federal energy and climate policies as they’re proposed and enacted. He has published over 40 peer-reviewed papers to date in high-impact journals including Science, Nature Energy, Joule and Applied Energy. Dr. Jenkins has delivered invited testimony to multiple Congressional committees, his research is frequently featured in major media outlets, and he is the co-host of the podcast Shift Key on the transition away from fossil fuels. His work guiding, shaping and evaluating American efforts to transition to clean energy was profiled in the Wall Street Journal, recognized with inclusion on the 2024 TIME100 Next list of the next 100 leaders shaping the future and TIME100 Climate list of the most influential climate leaders, Vox.com's 2023 Future Perfect 50 list of thinkers, activists, and scholars working on solutions to today’s (and tomorrow’s) biggest problems, and Environmental News Record's 2022 Top 25 Newsmakers list. Dr. Jenkins currently serves on the advisory boards of Eavor Technologies, Rondo Energy and Dig Energy and is a scientific and technical advisor to Energy Impact Partners and MUUS Climate Partners.Check out zero.lab.princeton.edu for more on ZERO Lab's research.
For an introduction to Jesse's work, he recommends the following resources:
- A short video, The Grid We Need to Electrify Everything, describes the central role of the electricity sector in deep decarbonization.
- Jesse's appearance on the Ezra Klein Show podcast, The Single Best Guide to Decarbonization I've Heard.
- For a wide-ranging discussion on Jesse's research and approach to macro-scale energy systems modeling and decision support, listen to his appearance on the Voltcast podcast in March 2021 with host and environmental journalist David Roberts.
Stay in touch with Jesse on Bluesky and Twitter, connect on LinkedIn, and view his publications here.