Daniel Kammen
American scientist
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Daniel Merson Kammen (born 1962)[1] is an American scientist, renewable energy expert, and former government figure. Since July 1, 2025, he has been a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at the Johns Hopkins University .[2] Before joining Hopkins, he fully retired from the University of California, Berkeley where he was the Distinguished Professor of Energy in the Energy and Resources Group [3] .
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Harvard University (MA, PhD)
Daniel Kammen | |
|---|---|
| |
| Born | Daniel Merson Kammen |
| Education | Cornell University (BA) Harvard University (MA, PhD) |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | University of California, Berkeley |
| Website | Official website |
Kammen is noted as a coordinating lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their report, Climate Change 2007, assessing man-made global warming.[4] In 1998, Kammen was elected a permanent fellow of the African Academy of Sciences, and in 2007 received the Distinguished Citizen Award from the Commonwealth Club of California.[4] Kammen was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2025.[5]
Early life and education
Originally from Ithaca, New York, Kammen is the son of Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Cornell University professor Michael Kammen.[6] He received his bachelor's degree in physics from Cornell University (1984) and his master's degree (1986) and PhD (1988) in physics from Harvard University.[7] As a postdoctoral researcher at Caltech, Kammen began to transition to energy research, with a focus on the role of energy in developing economies.[8]
Career in government
On September 15, 2007, Kammen was appointed chief technical specialist for renewable energy and energy efficiency at the World Bank.[9]
In 2016, he was selected as a U.S. Science Envoy by the United States State Department.[10] He resigned from this position in 2017, citing what he believed to be President Trump's failure to denounce white supremacists and neo-Nazis.[11] His August 23, 2017, resignation letter went viral, as netizens noticed that the first letter of each paragraph spelled out I-M-P-E-A-C-H.[12]
Kammen has been mentioned as a potential Secretary of Energy in a Joe Biden administration.[13]
