Jesse Jenkins

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 is also an affiliated faculty with the Center for Policy Research in Energy and Environment at the School of Public and International Affairs and an associated faculty at the High Meadows Environmental Institute. 

Jesse completed a PhD in Engineering Systems (’18) and SM in Technology and Policy (’14) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a BS in Computer and Information Science (’06) at the University of Oregon. He worked previously as a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, researcher fellow at Argonne National Laboratory, and spent six years as an energy and climate policy analyst prior to embarking on his academic career.

At Princeton, Jesse leads the 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. 

Jesse recently 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 are proposed and enacted. He has delivered invited testimony to multiple Congressional committees and his research is frequently featured in major media outlets. He regularly provides technical analysis and policy advice for non-profit organizations, policy makers, investors, and early-stage technology ventures working to accelerate the deployment of clean energy. He is currently an advisor to Rondo Energy, Eavor Technologies, MUUS Climate Partners, Energy Impact Partners, and Clean Air Task Force and is a partner with DeSolve, LLC, which provides decision support, analytics, and policy advisory services.

• 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. 

• The Paths to Net Zero, an article from April 2020 in Foreign Affairs, lays out how far we've come and the challenges that remain on the path to decarbonize global energy systems. 

• 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 Twitter, and connect on LinkedIn, and view his publications here.