David J. Jhirad

DAVID J. JHIRAD, the HRH Prince Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz Professor of Environmental Policy, served as professor and/or researcher at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, Brookhaven National Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Boston University and the University of Massachusetts. He also held the positions of special adviser on energy and climate and vice president of research and evaluation at The Rockefeller Foundation and from 2003 to 2007 was vice president for science and research at the World Resources Institute. Dr. Jhirad served in the U.S. Department of Energy as deputy assistant secretary for international energy policy, trade and investment and as senior adviser to the Secretary of Energy; led U.S. bilateral relationships with all major energy producing and consuming nations; and represented the United States as vice chairman of the governing board of the International Energy Agency in Paris. From 1988 to 1995, as senior energy and science adviser to USAID, he worked in Latin America, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa on energy policies to ensure equity, environmental sustainability, energy technology innovation and infrastructure investment.

His most recent publications are Energy and Environmental Policy of Australia, co-author (2001) and Energy and Environmental Policy of Japan, co-author (1999). Dr. Jhirad’s areas of interest include energy and security, energy technologies, environmental issues, developing nations, foreign aid and global poverty, global climate change, governance, natural resources, nuclear power and U.S. energy policy.

Dr. Jhirad had his early education in India and England. He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics from Cambridge, and a doctorate in applied physics from Harvard, where he won the Bowdoin Prize for Excellence in the Natural Sciences. He passed away in 2013.