Morgan Bazilian to Expand JISEA's Focus on Seminal Energy Systems Analysis

July 2012 — Morgan Bazilian will join the Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis (JISEA) as Deputy Director. In this new role, Bazilian will define and lead JISEA analytical activities and help develop and administer programs. He will also join the senior management team of NREL.

Bazilian is a former special advisor to the Director-General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) on international energy issues. He is regarded as one of the leading global experts on international energy policy, and has most recently been closely associated with the UN's Sustainable Energy for All initiative.

"Morgan will contribute to the further development of JISEA sponsorship and programs and provide thought leadership to expand the impact of our interdisciplinary research in global energy systems," JISEA Executive Director Doug Arent said. "He brings two decades of experience in the energy sector ranging from upstream oil and gas policy, to the design of fiscal instruments to promote clean energy."

"I am excited and deeply honored to join JISEA and help advance the institute's work to inform the transition of the global energy economy," Bazilian said. "We will continue to answer questions to enable a transition at significant speed and scale to achieve sustainability and avoid unintended impacts."

Bazilian holds doctoral and master's degrees related to the techno-economic aspects of energy systems, and he was a Fulbright Fellow. His book, Analytical Methods for Energy Diversity and Security, remains a key text on risk in the energy sector. He holds senior research affiliations with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and the Electricity Policy Research Group at Cambridge University.

In previous positions, Bazilian helped shape the United Nations' approach to energy for development, and managed the UN's interagency energy mechanism — UN-Energy. Before that, he held a political appointment as chief of staff for the Minister of Energy in Ireland and directed the clean energy division of Ireland's national energy authority. Bazilian had been the lead climate change negotiator for the European Union on low-carbon technology.