Emily Grubert

Biography & Research

Emily Grubert is associate professor of sustainable energy policy in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame and a core-affiliated faculty member of the Pulte Institute for Global Development.

Grubert is a civil engineer and environmental sociologist who studies how we can make better decisions about large infrastructure systems, particularly related to justice-centering decarbonization of the U.S. energy system. Specifically, she studies life cycle socioenvironmental impacts associated with future policy and infrastructure and how community and societal priorities can be better incorporated into multicriteria policy and project decisions. Her major methods include scenario analysis, life cycle assessment, survey and interview research, and text mining.

Prior to joining the Notre Dame faculty, Grubert was an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and, by courtesy, public policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology (2019-2022) and the deputy assistant secretary for carbon management at the United States Department of Energy (2021-2022). She holds a Ph.D. in environment and resources from Stanford University.

Recent Work

• Fossil energy minimum viable scale (Science)
• "How to design better incentives for carbon capture and storage in the United States" (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)
• "Institute of Physics publishing expands open access environmental portfolio" (Research Information)
• "Enabling an equitable energy transition through inclusive research" (Nature Energy)

Honors & Awards

• National Academy of Engineering Grainger Foundation Frontiers of Engineering Program

News & Media

• "Coal is booming. Here’s what it means for climate pollution." (E&E News by Politico)
• "Looking Ahead to When Gas Stations Vanish" (Inside Climate News)
• "More data centers plan to build their own natural gas plants for power" (Marketplace) 
• "Shielding astronauts from cosmic rays, and planning the end of fossil fuels" (Science podcast episode)
• "As fossil fuel use declines, experts urge planning and coordination to prevent chaotic collapse"
• "California’s High Gas Prices Could Climb Further as Refineries Close" (The New York Times)
• "Researcher makes case for regulating carbon removal"