Varun Sivaram

Dr. Varun Sivaram is a physicist, bestselling author, and clean energy technology expert with experience spanning the corporate, policy, and academic sectors—most recently as Chief Technology Officer of ReNew Power Limited, a multi-billion dollar renewable-energy firm that is India’s largest. He was a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Columbia University Center for Global Energy Policy, senior fellow at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, and board member for Stanford University’s energy and environment institutes. Previously, he’s served as the director of the energy program at the Council on Foreign Relations, senior energy advisor to the Los Angeles Mayor and New York Governor, professor at Georgetown University, and consultant at McKinsey & Co. TIME Magazine named him to its TIME 100 Next list of the next hundred most influential people in the world, PV Magazine named him the “Hamilton of the Solar Industry,” Forbes named him to its 30 under 30, and Grist named him one of its top 50 leaders in sustainability. He is the author of Taming the Sun: Innovations to Harness Solar Energy and Power the Planet (MIT Press, 2018) and Digital Decarbonization: Promoting Digital Innovations to Advance Clean Energy Systems (CFR Press, 2018). A Rhodes and Truman Scholar, he holds a Ph.D. in condensed matter physics from Oxford University and undergraduate degrees from Stanford University.

Non-Hub Publication Highlights

Taming the Sun. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. 2018.
The Race to Invent the Artificial Leaf. MIT Technology Review. March 2018.
View a comprehensive list of Varun Sivaram’s publications.