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The Center on Global Energy Policy Announces Next Group of Distinguished Visiting Fellows

The Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP) at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) announces the Center’s next group of Distinguished Visiting Fellows (DVF).

The DVF program, now in its fourth year, welcomes Ana Unruh Cohen, most recently the majority staff director of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis; Eric Garcetti, former mayor of Los Angeles and current nominee for U.S. Ambassador to India; Diego Mesa Puyo, Colombia’s former Minister of Mines and Energy; and Nigel Topping, the United Kingdom’s High-Level Climate Action Champion for COP26.

The Distinguished Visiting Fellows program at CGEP brings veterans of public and private sector life into the Columbia community. Distinguished Visiting Fellows serve as adjunct research scholars, collaborate on articles and op-eds published through CGEP, participate in public events at Columbia University, speak to campus and faculty groups, and may teach a course or supervise a student research team.

“We’re incredibly excited to welcome Ana, Eric, Diego, and Nigel to CGEP as our new Distinguished Visiting Fellows,” said Jason Bordoff, founding director of CGEP. “As Distinguished Visiting Fellows, these leading individuals with decades of experience working on energy policy in the public sector, will work closely with students and faculty across the university to provide a wealth of valuable experience and knowledge they’ve acquired in their careers. It’s an honor to have these former government officials join the program and contribute to CGEP’s mission of providing timely and actionable policy research.”

“I am looking forward to collaborating with the Columbia community to bring my years of Congressional experience together with their expertise to help develop policies to accelerate the global clean energy transition and response to the ongoing impacts of the climate crisis,” said Ana Unruh Cohen. “As a climate scientist who has spent her career working in policy and politics, I’m eager to engage with researchers and students and help them better understand policy development in Washington and how they can be a part of it.”

“As an undergraduate student at Columbia 32 years ago, I read the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in a classroom and it changed my life,” said Garcetti, who also graduated from Columbia SIPA. “Since then, I have dedicated myself to confronting our climate crisis through local action. I am excited to contribute to the work of SIPA’s Center on Global Energy Policy and the Columbia Climate School and to help elevate the groundbreaking local climate work underway around the world.”

“As a DVF at CGEP I look forward to working with Columbia’s network to accelerate the range of reforms–public and private, international and domestic–needed to ensure the world mobilizes the $2.4 trillion per year in climate finance by 2030,” said Topping. “This is critical work that will ensure emerging markets benefit from the full power of the transition to resilient net zero economies.”

“I’m honored to join CGEP as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow and share my experience as a senior policymaker with students, faculty and other members of the Center,” said Mesa. “I look forward to contributing to research and outreach around the energy transition, climate action and energy security in emerging and developed economies, with a special focus on energy policy, carbon pricing and policy frameworks for extractive industries.”

Learn more about the Distinguished Visiting Fellows program here. 

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Announcement • March 22, 2024
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