Dr. Steven Koonin

Dr. Steven Koonin served as Undersecretary for Science in the U.S. Department of Energy under President Obama from 2009 to 2011, where his portfolio included the climate research program and energy technology strategy. He was the lead author of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Strategic Plan (2011) and the inaugural Department of Energy Quadrennial Technology Review (2011). Before joining the government, Koonin spent five years as Chief Scientist for BP (British Petroleum), researching renewable energy options to move the company “beyond petroleum.” For almost 30 years, he was a professor of theoretical physics at Caltech. He also served for nine years as Caltech’s Vice President and Provost, facilitating the research of more than 300 scientists and engineers and catalyzing the development of the world’s largest optical telescope. In addition to the National Academy of Sciences, Koonin’s memberships include the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and JASON, the group of scientists who solve technical problems for the U.S. government; he served as JASON’s chair for six years. He is currently a professor at New York University, with appointments in the Stern School of Business, the Tandon School of Engineering, and the Department of Physics.

Skeptic: How did you get interested in energy?

Koonin: I was educated in New York City public schools and grew up in a middle-class household. I went to Caltech as an undergrad, MIT for my PhD, and then returned to Caltech as faculty for 30 years. I was the Provost for the last nine. I am trained in nuclear physics and quantum mechanics, and did a lot of wonderful research. In the late 80s, I joined JASON, which is a group of scientists and engineers who work on the most important problems for the U.S. government, many of them classified. I got exposed to climate science because the Department of Energy came to JASON and inquired about the application of (then new) multiple processor computers to climate modeling and using small satellites to conduct climate observations. I got intrigued by that and learned about climate science and energy. And then, in 2004, John Brown, who was the CEO of British Petroleum, called me up and said, “Steve, come join us as Chief Scientist.” Suffice to say, they didn’t need me to find oil and gas… They were pretty good at that! They needed help figuring out what beyond petroleum really means. I accepted, packed up the family, and moved to London, shifting from academia to the private sector. I helped BP quite a bit with their initial foray into renewables, particularly biofuels, but also wind and solar. After living in London for five years, my wife and I were ready for a new experience. And then my friend Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist now at Stanford, became the Secretary of Energy. He asked me to help out.