Redistributing Power: Energy Democracy, Renewables & Community Resilience

Speaker: Jennie Stephens, Northeastern University

Energy democracy is an emergent social movement advancing renewable energy transitions by resisting the dominant fossil-fuel based energy agenda while reclaiming and democratically restructuring energy policy. By focusing on the potential for renewable-based energy systems to redistribute economic and political power as well as electric power, the energy democracy movement is shifting energy policy discourse and connecting it with social justice and community resilience.

Jennie C. Stephens is the Dean's Professor of Sustainability Science & Policy at Northeastern University's School of Public Policy & Urban Affairs and the Associate Director of Strategic Research Collaborations at Northeastern's Global Resilience Institute. Her research, teaching, and community engagement focus on social and political aspects of the renewable energy transition, energy democracy, reducing fossil fuel reliance, gender diversity, and strengthening societal resilience by integrating social justice with climate and energy policy. Before joining Northeastern University, she was on the faculty at the University of Vermont and Clark University. She earned her PhD and MS at Caltech in Environmental Science & Engineering and her BA at Harvard in Environmental Science & Public Policy.