Diana Ürge-Vorsatz

Ürge-Vorsatz's early country studies include the first comprehensive assessment of fuel poverty in Hungary. A household is defined as "fuel-poor" if its inhabitants have to spend more than 10% of their income on fuel to maintain adequate living temperatures. As of 2010, an estimated 80% of Hungarian homes were fuel poor, according to this definition. Such people may have to choose between heat and other basic needs such as food. Fuel poverty is therefore only one aspect of a broader and inter-related range of deprivations.

Ürge-Vorsatz became an associate professor at Central European University (CEU) in 2001, and a full Professor in 2007. Ürge-Vorsatz accepted the position of Director for the Center for Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Policy (3CSEP) in 2007.

Ürge-Vorsatz was a Fulbright Scholar within the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Los Angeles and Berkeley. She earned her PhD in Environmental Science and Engineering from the University of California in 1996. Her dissertation is titled "Evaluating US Residential and Commercial Electricity Conservation Potentials: an Analysis of the Lighting Sector."

Ürge-Vorsatz engages with the public through regular writing on environmental issues for Hungarian and European newsletters and newspapers. She participated in workshops such as the Fulbright Workshop on the Environment in San Francisco in 1994. She is the founder and moderator of HIX KÖRNYÉSZ, an electronic environmental science periodical.

In 1984, Ürge-Vorsatz won the Hungarian National Championship in orienteering.

Diana Ürge-Vorsatz was born in 1968 in Berlin. She grew up in Budapest, where she attended Radnóti Miklós High School. From 1986-1992 Ürge-Vorsatz attended Eötvös Lóránd University of Sciences (ELTE) in Budapest, earning a master's degree in physics in 1982 with specialization in both Astrophysics and Environmental Physics. During this time, Ürge-Vorsatz also studied as a visiting student at Brunel, the University of West London from 1990-1991, where she took graduate courses in environmental pollution science and conducted research in environmental physics. In the summer of 1992, following her Master's graduation, Ürge-Vorsatz attended a post-grad program in Environmental Science at Central European University.