Faculty
Jacquelyn Pless is the Fred Kayne (1960) Career Development Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship and an Assistant Professor in the Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Strategic Management Group at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Her research interests are in innovation economics, energy and environmental economics, strategic management, and climate finance. Her work explores how firms and policymakers can foster innovation for social progress — innovation that protects people and the planet — with a particular focus on energy and environmental innovation. One of her current obsessions is understanding how firms respond to externality interdependencies and the implications for the direction of innovation, policy, and strategy.
Jacquelyn teaches courses on innovation strategy and entrepreneurship, including a class on climate and energy ventures, and she was recently named a “Best 40-Under-40 Business School Professor” by Poets & Quants. In 2022, she was selected to be a Distinguished Fellow on Stakeholder Capitalism and ESG Investing by the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise.
Jacquelyn is also an Honorary Research Associate with the University of Oxford, a Research Affiliate of CESifo, and an Invited Researcher with J-PAL’s Science for Progress Initiative. Before joining MIT, she held various positions in the private and public sectors working on energy policy issues as well as helping high-growth technology companies design and manage their reorganizations.
She holds MS and PhD degrees in Mineral and Energy Economics from the Colorado School of Mines and a BA in Economics and Political Science from the University of Vermont, Honors College.
Featured Publication
"Are Complementary Policies Substitutes? Evidence from R&D Subsidies in the UK."Pless, Jacquelyn (Conditionally accepted, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy), MIT Sloan Working Paper 5788-18. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, July 2024.
Featured Publication
"To Starve or to Stoke? Understanding Whether Divestment vs. Investment Can Steer (Green) Innovation."Pless, Jacquelyn. In Entrepreneurship and Innovation Policy and the Economy, edited by Benjamin Jones and Josh Lerner, 107-147. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2023. NBER Working Paper.
Baumgärtner, C. Lennart, Laurin Köhler-Schindler, and Jacquelyn Pless, MIT Sloan Working Paper 7278-25. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, May 2025.
Lu, Yangsiyu, and Jacquelyn Pless, MIT Sloan Working Paper 6487-21. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, November 2024.
Meeks, Robyn, Jacquelyn Pless, and Zhenxuan Wang (R&R at Management Science), MIT Sloan Working Paper 6490-21. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, June 2024.
Pless, Jacquelyn and Sugandha Srivastav, MIT Sloan Working Paper 6962-23. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, January 2023.
Nearly 120 million smart meters had been installed by U.S. electric utilities as of 2022, but their impact had not been quantified until now.
Jacquelyn Pless and Rahul Bhui study what drives innovation for social good and how people make decisions.
The harm to the solar industry is already being done, said assistant professor Jacquelyn Pless. The constant back and forth over policy, she said, makes it extremely difficult for companies to plan ahead. "Policy volatility is really my bigger concern," Pless said. "Policy uncertainty alone can start to freeze investment, raise costs, and damage market confidence."
"I’m currently obsessed with understanding how externality interdependencies shape innovation incentives."
Jacquelyn Pless has studied which kinds of corrective actions are meaningful in a corporate context.
"Climate policy efforts are starting to see success, but inaction and delays have motivated stakeholders to search for complementary solutions."
