Steven Koonin, PhD

The Honorable Steven E. Koonin is the Edward Teller Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. He has served as Under Secretary for Science at the Department of Energy (2009-2011), as Chief Scientist for BP (2004-2009),and as a professor at Caltech (1975 – 2004, the last nine years as Vice President and Provost). Koonin is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the JASON group of government advisors, as well as a Governor of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, having served in similar capacities for the Los Alamos, Sandia, Brookhaven, and Argonne National Laboratories. Other prior roles include a University Professor at NYU, a non-resident Senior Fellow at AEI, and a Trustee of IDA.

Koonin has a BS in Physics from Caltech and a PhD in Theoretical Physics from MIT. He authored the 2021bestseller Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters, the 1985 textbook Computational Physics, and some200 peer-reviewed papers in physics and astrophysics, scientific computation, energy technology and policy, and climate science.

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Biography

A theoretical physicist by training, Steven Koonin, Ph.D., has spent 40 years in the energy space, spanning academia, government, and the private sector. His current work at Stanford University's Hoover Institution focuses on energy systems, climate science, and science policy. He is widely recognized for his research in both computational physics and energy policy.

Koonin previously served as the Under Secretary for Science in the U.S. Department of Energy during the Obama administration, where he oversaw science programs, such as the national laboratory system; guided federal research initiatives on energy technology and advanced computing; and strengthened the integration of computational analysis into shaping energy policies. He came to the DOE as chief scientist at BP, where he worked to shape research strategy in energy technology and alternative fuels. Before his time as a public servant, he was the provost at the California Institute of Technology. He also contributed to influential research in theoretical nuclear physics and computational modeling.

He earned his bachelor's degree in physics from the California Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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