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March 10, 2026 • 6:00 pm - 8:30 pm est

Careers in Transportation: Women Leading the Future of EVs

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Dr. Erica Downs is a Senior Research Scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University SIPA, focusing on Chinese energy markets and geopolitics.

Dr. Downs has a distinguished career in Eurasian energy policy with a focus on China. She has over 20 years of experience working in the public and non-profit sectors. She previously worked as a senior research scientist in the China Studies program of the CNA Corporation, a senior analyst in the Asia practice at Eurasia Group, a fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution, an energy analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency, and a lecturer at the Foreign Affairs College in Beijing, China. Dr. Downs has published extensively in the areas of Chinese energy policy and politics, decarbonization and geopolitics. She holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. from Princeton University and a B.S. from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

Dr. Downs is also a non-resident senior research scientist at the CNA Corporation, an honorary research fellow at the Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy at the University of Dundee, a member of the advisory board of the Natural Resources Governance Institute and a former member of the editorial board of Asia Policy.

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The war in Iran looks like it should be a breakthrough moment for a clean energy sector that has been hammered on multiple fronts in recent years.

News and Publications with Erica Downs • Semafor • March 5, 2026
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