Daniel Kammen

Daniel Kammen is the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Energy and Climate Justice with joint appointments in the Whiting School of Engineering Department of Civil and Systems Engineering and the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. He is part of the Sustainable Transformations and Energy cluster and a leadership council member of the Ralph S. O’Connor Sustainable Energy Institute. As a world-renowned energy scientist, Kammen is an expert in renewable energy, climate policy, and sustainable development.

Having published more than 500 scientific papers, Kammen’s current projects focus on decarbonization of power systems worldwide, energy access and social justice, materials science for low-carbon economies, big-data approaches to clean transportation, and the electrification of health facilities across Africa. He has decades of experience developing scalable, equitable energy solutions, and designing policy frameworks that support sustainable development.

In addition to his academic work, Kammen has co-founded and advised more than ten companies, and serves on several boards, including the Tetiaroa Society, which is dedicated to marine conservation and cultural survival in French Polynesia. Kammen is part of the blueClimate Initiative, dedicated to accelerating ocean-based strategies to combat climate change, and he is currently working to open a unique Johns Hopkins University campus on the Kenyan coast where core research and teaching faculty will be based around a sustainable Blue Economy. He also works closely with Norwegian University of Science and Technology at the University Center in Svalbard on arctic sustainability and concerns over polar deep-seabed mining.

Kammen has served in numerous high-level advisory roles, including Senior Advisor for Energy and Innovation at the U.S. Agency for International Development, the first Environment and Climate Partnership for the Americas Fellow appointed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Science Envoy for Secretary of State John Kerry and President Barack Obama. He was also the inaugural Chief Technical Specialist for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency at the World Bank.

Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020 and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2025, Kammen has been a contributing and coordinating lead author on multiple reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Beyond research and policy, he is a member of the Diversity Scholars Network and co-hosts the Energy Matters podcast with Claire Broido.

Kammen received his bachelor’s degree in physics from Cornell University and earned his master’s degree and PhD in physics from Harvard University.