I am a tenure-track Presidential Fellow in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the National University of Singapore.
My research focuses on energy and climate policy that combines engineering-based modeling with policy and economic analysis. Current research areas include clean energy transition and net-zero energy systems, technology innovation, and climate change impacts. My research has been published in leading journals including Nature, Nature Energy, and Environmental Science & Technology, and has been covered by The New York Times, The Economist, and other international media outlets. Before joining NUS, I was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. I did my Ph.D. in Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy at Princeton University and got my bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science from Beijing Normal University.
A bit about my personal academic journey: I didn’t actually choose environmental science for undergrad. Back in high school, I aspired to be a social scientist or a historian of ancient China. But I was assigned to environmental science after the college entrance exam (gaokao). I tried working in wet labs but I was very bad at experiments. It was when I started research in industrial ecology and environmental policy that something clicked, and I realized I could combine public policy with engineering-style research. So I pursued my Ph.D. and did my postdoc at the public policy schools at Princeton and Harvard. At NUS, my lab aims to bridge the gap between engineers and policy/economic analysts, and train the next generation of energy scientists and environmentalists with system thinking across disciplines to address the grand global challenges of sustainability.
We are now recruiting postdoctoral researchers, visiting students (starting 2026) and Ph.D. students (starting in Spring or Fall 2027). Please see the “Opportunities” page for details.