NEW BOOK: Climate Justice and the University: Shaping a Hopeful Future for All (Hopkins University Press, 2024). A radical exploration of how higher education can advance transformative climate justice.

Jennie C. Stephens is a feminist, climate justice scholar-activist and Professor of Climate Justice at Maynooth University’s ICARUS Climate Research Centre in Ireland. She was a Climate Justice Fellow at Harvard-Radcliffe (2023-2024) and Professor of Sustainability Science & Policy at Northeastern University in Boston. She is a fellow at the Global Center for Climate Justice, and her new book Climate Justice and the University: Shaping a Hopeful Future For All (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2024) proposes a paradigm shift to reimagine and restructure higher education to facilitate transformative social change toward a more just, healthy and stable future for all.

Her research, teaching, and community engagement focus on integrating transformative social justice, feminist, anti-racist, decolonial perspectives into climate and energy policy, fossil fuel phaseout, the renewable energy transition, energy democracy, gender in energy and climate, and climate justice in higher education. In her 2020 book Diversifying Power: Why We Need Antiracist, Feminist Leadership on Climate and Energy (Island Press), she argues that effectively addressing climate change requires diversifying leadership, redistributing wealth and power, and moving beyond mainstream male-dominated technocratic solutions to climate change. Throughout her career she has explored institutional and cultural innovation in energy and climate with a focus on societal transformation.

Jennie Stephens is on the advisory group of Feminists Communities for Climate Justice, is a member of the New England Grist Fixer Network, is part of the Climate Social Science Network, was a 2015-2016 Leopold Leadership fellow, and her book “Smart Grid (R)Evolution: Electric Power Struggles” (Cambridge University Press, 2015) explores social and cultural debates about energy system change (co-authored with Wilson & Peterson). Before joining Maynooth University in Ireland, Professor Stephens was on the faculty at Northeastern University, the University of Vermont (2014-2016) and Clark University (2005-2014). She did post-doctoral research at Harvard’s Kennedy School and she has taught courses at Tufts, Boston University, and MIT. She earned her PhD at the California Institute of Technology in Environmental Science & Engineering and her BA at Harvard University in Environmental Science and Policy.

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Upcoming Speaking Engagements

Bristol Conversations in Education. University of Bristol, UK, January 8, 2025

Atlantic Technical University Mayo, Castlebar Ireland, 22, January 2024

University of Galway Galway, Ireland January 23, 2025

Design Leaders Conference, The Lighthouse, Dublin, Ireland Jan 30 2025

Higher Education Climate Leadership Summit. Washington DC. February 3rd 2025

MIT, February 4, 2025. 4pm EST

Campus Climate Network, February 12, 2025. 5pm EST

University College Dublin, SPIRE Seminar, March 5, 2025

Inaugural Lecture, Maynooth University, March 6, 2025

Woodrow Lloyd Lecture, University of Regina, Canada, March 19, 2025

Spirit of Mother Jones Festival, Shandon, Cork Ireland, 24-26 July 2025.

Recent Publications

Fossil fuel industry influence in higher education: A review and a research agenda. WIREs Climate Change. September 4, 2024

Leveraging Ireland’s Climate Justice Leadership: Time to Abandon Organized Hypocrisy. eolas. August 2024.

Carbon Collusion: Cooperation, Coordination and Climate Obstruction in the Global Oil and Gas Network. Energy Policy, July 2024

An Urgent Call for Climate Justice. The Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability. Harvard. July 16, 2024

The Organized Hypocrisy of the State’s Climate Approach. The Irish Times, July 16, 2024

Carbon Collusion: Cooperation, Coordination and Climate Obstruction in the Global Oil and Gas Network. Energy Policy, July 2024

Divesting From Israel’s War Isn’t Naive. Students Did It With Fossil Fuels.  Truthout. June 2024

Reconnecting Economics Education with Today's Global Realities. Nonprofit Quarterly December 20, 2023

Financial innovation for climate justice: central banks and transformative ‘creative disruption. 2023. Climate and Development: 1-12. with M Sokol

Content Links

Climate Social Science Network (CSSN)

Realising Equality, Diversity and Inclusion for Energy sector transformation (REDIE). Collaborative Project Funded by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland.

Scholar Strategy Network (SSN)

Education

  • Ph.D. California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA (2002),  Environmental Science and Engineering

  • M.S. California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA (1998),  Environmental Science and Engineering

  • B.A. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (1997),  Environmental Science and Public Policy

Awards and Fellowships

  • Radcliffe-Salata Climate Justice Fellowship at Harvard, 2023-2024

  • Arab-American Frontiers Fellowship, National Academy of Sciences, 2017

  • Research Leadership Development Initiative, Northeastern, 2016-2017

  • Leopold Leadership Fellow, Stanford Woods Institute of Environmental, 2015-2016

  • Faculty Community Engagement Award, Colleges of the Worcester Consortium, March 2013

  • Excellence in Teaching Award, Department of International Development, Community, & Environment (IDCE), Clark University. May 2011

  • US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Fellowship for Graduate Study, 1999-2002

  • Achievement Rewards for College Scientists (ARCS) Fellowship, 2000-2002

  • National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Fellowship, 1998-1999

  • Harvard College Research Fellowship and Dean’s Research Award, 1996

  • Pforzheimer Student Fellowship, Radcliffe College, 1994-199

Academic Positions

  • Radcliffe-Salata Climate Justice Fellow, Harvard University 2023-2024

  • Visiting Researcher, Department of Geography, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, 2022-2023

  • Climate Justice Senior Fellow, Global Council for Science and Environment, 2022-2023

  • Director of the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, Northeastern (2018-present)

  • Dean’s Professor of Sustainability Science and Policy, Northeastern University (2016-present)

  • Director of Strategic Research Collaborations, Global Resilience Institute, Northeastern (2017-present)

  • Senior Associate Director of Northeastern Environmental Justice Research Collaborative NEJRC (2016-present)

  • Associate Professor, Blittersdorf Professor of Sustainability Science and Policy, University of Vermont (2014-2016)

  • Associate Fellow (2015-present), Tellus Institute, Boston MA USA

  • Associate Professor of Environmental Science & Policy, Clark University (2012-2014)

  • Assistant Professor of Environmental Science & Policy, Clark University (2005-2012)

  • Coordinator of Graduate Program in Environmental Science and Policy, Clark University (2007-2010, 2011-2012)

  • Research Associate Professor (2012-Present), Research Assistant Professor (2005-2012) Marsh Institute on Human Dimensions of Global-Environmental Change Clark University, Worcester, MA USA

  • Research Associate, Energy Technology Innovation Policy Group (2005-2011, 2013- present) Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, MA USA

  • Post-Doctoral Research Scholar, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs (2002-2005) Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, MA USA

  • Visiting Lecturer, Environmental Policy Group, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning (2004-2005) Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA USA

  • Adjunct Lecturer, Boston University, Department of Earth Sciences Boston, MA, USA (Summer 2003)

  • Adjunct Lecturer, Tufts University, Medford, MA USA (Spring 2003)