New MIT Climate Policy Center Picks Leader

The MIT Climate Policy Center, the Institute’s “front-door” to connect local, state, federal and international climate policy makers and media with MIT’s climate policy researchers, announced today Bethany Patten will serve as the Center’s inaugural executive director after a nationwide search.

MIT announced in early 2024 the launch of the Climate Project at MIT, an Institute-wide initiative to develop, deliver, and scale up climate solutions as quickly as possible. As part of this climate commitment, the school announced a $25M investment to jump-start the MIT Climate Policy Center.

Patten served as the Director of Policy and Engagement for the MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative where she co-founded MIT Climate Pathways Project. She will lead the Center’s team of world-class faculty, researchers and students to fulfill its mission to serve as a trusted, non-partisan resource for policymakers and media members who wish to advance evidence-based climate policy in the next decade.

Christopher Knittel, George P. Schultz Professor of Energy Economics at MIT Sloan, will serve as the Center’s first faculty director. 

“The MIT Climate Policy Center plays a critical role as the connective tissue of Institute-wide efforts to turn climate research into evidence-based public policy in the U.S. and globally. The Center will amplify MIT's strengths so that its climate efforts deliver far more than the sum of their parts,” said Knittel. “Bethany is a trusted and experienced climate leader that will fill the critical need in the coming years and decades for rigorous innovative new climate policy ideas. Her experience connecting with more than 15,000 climate policy makers and business leaders through the MIT Climate Pathways Project will be an invaluable network of opportunity.”

In addition to leading MIT’s Climate Policy Center, Patten is a Senior Lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management. She is recognized as a national sustainability leader and serves as a board member and treasurer for the Environmental League of Massachusetts and board member of the Climate Beacon Project. 

“Our job at The MIT Climate Policy Center is to become a primary resource for policy makers, connecting them with faculty and students who want to make the greatest possible contribution to advancing evidence-based climate policy in the 21st century,” said Patten. “It will be an honor to serve as the host for MIT’s ‘front door’ to climate stakeholders seeking solutions to the critical climate challenges we face globally.”

The Center will be focused on three main strategy areas: (1) Heightening awareness of MIT’s expertise and tools, (2) convening, informing and recommending leaders in government, industry, academia, media and the nonprofit sector to exchange knowledge and ideas around climate policy, and (3) analyze and translate climate policy research. 

The Center has already been featured as key advisors to Senator John Hickenlooper and Congressman Scott Peters teams on their “Big Wires Act,” Congressman Greg Casar on his GRID Act and Congresswoman Julia Brownley with her bill entitled “The Methane Border Adjustment Mechanism Act.”

The MIT Climate Policy Center will partner closely with other offices, labs, and centers at MIT, including the MIT Washington Office. Along with Patten and Knittel, David Goldston, the director of the Washington Office, played a key role in designing the new MIT Climate Policy Center.

International, federal, state and local members of the policymaker community can contact the MIT Climate Policy Center to identify existing research or to begin work with world-class researchers to develop targeted research projects that could inform the development of new rules, regulations or legislation.