Jessika Trancik: Jessika Trancik is a Professor in the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research examines the dynamic costs, performance, and environmental impacts of energy systems to inform climate policy and accelerate beneficial and equitable technology innovation. Her projects focus on all energy services including electricity, transportation, heating, and industrial processes. This work spans solar energy, wind energy, energy storage, low-carbon fuels, electric vehicles, and nuclear fission among other technologies. Prof. Trancik received her B.S. from Cornell University and her Ph.D. from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. She is currently an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute, and was formerly at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, and at WSP International/UNOPS (now Interpeace) in Geneva.
Contact: trancik at mit dot edu
Opinion and explanatory pieces
- Energy storage solutions explained in the UNA-UK’s Climate 2020 – 4/27/2020
- Prof. Trancik provides live (real-time) written commentary during CNN’s Climate Crisis Town Hall, article 1, article 2 – 9/5/2019
- Piece in the Financial Times: Reality is that most EVs emit less CO2 than petrol cars over their lifetimes – 11/18/2017
- Opinion piece in the Washington Post on global climate progress under uncertain US federal policy – 11/21/2016
- Piece on range anxiety in The Conversation – 8/16/2016
- Opinion article in the Christian Science Monitor: The hidden virtuous cycle of Paris climate pledges – 12/10/2015
Selected press
- Paper on the sources of cost overruns in nuclear power plant construction published in Joule and featured in MIT News, Ars Tecnica, Energy Futures, Forbes, Greentech Media – 11/18/2020, 11/21/2020, 11/25/2020, 12/1/2020, 12/8/2020
- Paper on storage requirements and costs discussed in Vox: ‘Getting to 100% renewables requires cheap energy storage. But how cheap?’ – 8/9/2019
- Paper on the reasons for solar energy’s cost coverage by Vox: ‘What made solar panels so cheap? Thank government policy’ – 11/20/2018
- Paper on solar’s cost decline in The New York Times, Ars Technica, Financial Times, MIT News – 11/28/2018, 11/26/2018, 11/24/2018, 11/20/2018
- MIT News faculty profile on Prof. Trancik’s work – 8/15/2018
- Jessika speaks to the Washington Post about US climate policy – 6/1/2018
- Jessika speaks with Science Friday about electric vehicles – 12/15/17
- Financial Times ‘Free Lunch’ cites Trancik Lab note on scale of state contributions to emissions reductions – 6/5/17
- Paper on personal vehicles and carboncounter.com in MIT News, New York Times, Guardian, Vox, NPR’s Morning Edition, others – 9/28/2016
- Paper on battery electric vehicles in MIT News, Washington Post, Guardian, Bloomberg, Pacific Standard, CNBC, and others – 8/15/2016
- Research on clean energy development trends and climate policy featured in MITEI Energy Futures magazine – 6/1/2016
- Article features Trancik Lab research that “Lays down the facts on solar and natural gas” – GRIST – July 10, 2015
- “Assessing climate impacts of energy technologies” article features research by Jessika Trancik – MITEI website – December 15, 2014
- Trancik discusses methane emissions research, “Living On Earth: EPA Rules Ignore Methane” – NPR – June 13, 2014
- “Climate change mitigation: Deposing global warming potentials”, metrics for technology assessment – Nature Climate Change – April 25, 2014
- Trancik’s research suggests that “Solar and wind innovations are reflected in booming patents” – USA Today – November 27, 2013
- “Researchers develop tool to set cost and emissions targets for energy sources” – ClimateWire – June 6, 2013
- Jessika Trancik’s research on how technology costs evolve shows that “Moore’s law is not just for computers” – Nature – April 25, 2013
- “Moore’s law vs. Wright’s law” – Forbes – March 25, 2013
- “Which technologies get better faster?” – MIT News – May 17, 2011
- More news…