Worldwatch Institute Staff

Biography

Janet L. Sawin, Senior Researcher & Director, Energy and Climate Change Program

Phone: +1 (202) 452-1992

Janet Sawin serves as the Director of the Institute’s Energy and Climate Change Program. She joined Worldwatch in 2002, shortly after earning Master’s and Doctoral degrees from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where she studied energy and environmental policy. Her doctoral thesis examined the impact of government policy on the development and diffusion of renewable energy technologies.

While at Worldwatch, Janet has participated in several international climate conferences, as well as the International Conference for Renewable Energies in Bonn, Germany in 2004, where she spoke on a panel about policy issues and impacts. She also contributed one of 12 conference background papers commissioned by the German government. Janet is currently a Steering Committee member for the AWEA-DOE National Wind Action Plan Project.

Before graduate school, she worked briefly on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and for the University of California’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Carleton College in Minnesota with a degree in Economics.

Selected Publications

“National Policy Instruments,” in Assmann, Laumanns, and Uh, ed., Renewable Energy: A Global Review of Technologies, Policies and Markets, Earthscan, October 2006.

American Energy: The Renewable Path to Energy Security, Worldwatch Institute and Center for American Progress, September 2006. (Lead Author and Project Director)

Biofuels for Transportation: Global Potential and Implications for Sustainable Agriculture and Energy in the 21st Century, report prepared by Worldwatch for BMELV in coordination with GTZ and FNR, May 2006. (Co-author)

Worldwatch Paper #169: Mainstreaming Renewable Energy in the 21st Century, May 2004.

Contributions to State of the World,W.W. Norton, including: “Charting a New Energy Future” (2003), “Making Better Energy Choices” (2004), “Changing the Oil Economy” (2005), “Cultivating Renewable Alternatives to Oil” (2006), and “Energizing Cities” (forthcoming, 2007).