Jessika Trancik

Jessika Trancik is the Atlantic Richfield Career Development Associate Professor of Energy Studies at the MIT Institute for Data, Systems and Society (IDSS). Professor Trancik's research centers on modeling technology innovation and emphasizes the development of new datasets and theory. Her work focuses on evaluating the dynamic costs, environmental impacts, other aspects of technology performance, and setting design targets to help accelerate the development of these technologies in the laboratory. This work involves assembling and analyzing expansive datasets and developing new quantitative models and theory. Many projects focus on electricity and transportation, with an emphasis on solar energy conversion and storage technologies.

Trancik was an Omidyar fellow at the Santa Fe Institute and a fellow at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. She earned a B.S. in materials science and engineering from Cornell University (1997) and a Ph.D. in materials science from Oxford University (2002), where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar. She has also worked for the United Nations and as an advisor to the private sector on investment in low-carbon energy technologies. She has published in journals such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nano Letters, Environmental Science and Technology, and Environmental Research Letters.