Jennie Stephens

In 2018, Stephens along with co-authors presented a critical review based on political power and renewable energy futures, and theorized connections between energy systems and democratic political power. Furthermore, she highlighted the opportunities that renewable energy opens in context of democratic energy development. She has discussed energy democracy in terms of goals, outcomes and policy instruments for sociotechnical transitions. Her research has enhanced the visibility of the energy democracy movement, and has evaluated the policy instruments advanced by its advocates.

With Matt Burke, Elizabeth Wilson and Tarla Rai Peterson, Stephens proposed a framework called, Socio-Political Evaluation of Energy Deployment, for the integrated analysis of legal, political, economic, and social factors that influence energy technology deployment decisions at the state level to increase awareness regarding the interconnections and enable accelerated change in energy infrastructure of society. In 2012, she conducted an analysis of a sustainable energy cluster for regional economic development in context of Central Massachusetts. Results of her study suggested that sustainable energy cluster initiatives have the potential to accelerate change in entrenched energy regimes by generating regional ‘buzz’ around sustainable energy activities, promoting institutional thickness, and developing trust among stakeholders in the region. Furthermore, she assessed innovation dynamics of carbon capture and storage (CCS) and enhanced geothermal systems (EGS), and emphasized the potential of these emerging energy technologies in terms of minimizing greenhouse gas emissions from electrical power generation in the United States.

Stephens conducted a study in 2008 to increase the consideration for the potential in context of institutions of higher education to be the change agents for sustainability in different cultures and contexts. She also highlighted the challenges associated with accelerating environmental change, resource scarcity, increasing inequality and injustice. In her study, she explored the theoretical framework of transition management (TM) to promote change in social systems, and to provide guidance in terms of informing and prioritizing future empirical research regarding the sustainability in higher education.

Following her Doctoral Degree, Stephens served as Post-Doctoral Research Scholar at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School from 2002 till 2005. During this time she also held brief appointments as Adjunct Lecturer at Tufts University and Boston University in 2003, and as a Visiting Lecturer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2004. She was appointed by Clark University as Assistant Professor of Environmental Science and Policy in 2005, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2012. She was twice appointed as Research Associate at the Harvard Kennedy School from 2005 till 2011 and then in 2013. In 2014, she joined the faculty of the University of Vermont (UVM) as an endowed Professor; she was the inaugural Blittersdorf Professor of Sustainability Science and Policy. At UVM, she was a faculty member in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources and also an affiliate at the Gund Institute. In 2016, she became the Dean's Professor of Sustainability Science and Policy at Northeastern University.

Stephens received her bachelor's degree in Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard University in 1997. She then enrolled at California Institute of Technology and earned her Master's and Doctoral Degree in Environmental Science and Engineering in 1998 and 2002, respectively. Her dissertation advisor at Caltech was Janet Hering, and while at Caltech she also completed a graduate minor in Science, Ethics and Society.

Jennie C. Stephens (born March 8, 1975, in Dublin, Ireland) is an academic researcher, professor, author, and social justice advocate. She is Professor of Sustainability Science & Policy at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. She is also affiliated with the Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, the department of Civil & Environmental Engineering and the department of Cultures, Societies & Global Studies.