Welcome to my personal home page. I’m a senior fellow affiliated with the Climate Realism Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations and a professor emeritus at George Mason’s Schar School of Policy and Government, where I served on the faculty from 2004 to 2025. The primary focus of my work is clean energy and climate innovation policy. In addition to publishing academic work, I collaborate with think-tanks, non-profits, and other interested organizations to develop and advance policies. My recent partners include the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, ITIF’s Center for Clean Energy Innovation, the Bipartisan Policy Center, the Energy Innovation Reform Project, the Federation of American Scientists, and RMI.
On this site, you’ll find information about my prior teaching, publications, research interests, and service activities. You can find my full c.v. here and my bio here. I welcome contacts from scholars, students, and policy practitioners. You can follow me on Bluesky @profdavidhart and find me on Linked-In, too.
What’s New:
I joined the Council on Foreign Relations as a Senior Fellow in climate and energy, where I’m helping to lead the Climate Realism Initiative.
I’m working with the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions on several technology working groups, helping to develop policy recommendations that will accelerate innovation and deployment.
I welcomed the third cohort of early career researchers (assistant professors, postdocs, etc.) to an Energy and Climate-Tech Innovation Policy boot camp with support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Ph.D. student Chad Smith and I published the “U.S. State and Regional Energy Innovation Index” with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.
The founding board of the Foundation for Energy Security and Innovation, which I have supported, was named by the Secretary of Energy.
My series on a US industrial strategy for energy was published by the Bipartisan Policy Center.
I was named a lifetime fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science!
I published “Diversify, Domesticate, and Disrupt: Strengthening America’s Nascent Effort To Build a Resilient And Robust Solar PV Supply Chain” with the Energy Innovation Reform Project.
PhD student Hyeseon Na.and I published an article on “future avoided emissions.`”
I moderated a fireside chat on the main stage of the 2023 ARPA-E summit with Arati Prabhakar, President Biden’s science advisor.
Featured Work:
“To Boost Energy Innovation, Strengthen Policies That Pull Technologies Into the Market” Issues in Science and Technology, Fall 2024, 91-94.
“Recent Legislation in the United States: Consequences for the US and Global Energy and Climate Innovation Systems,” Environmental Research Letters (2023).
“Pathways to Decarbonize the PVC Value Chain,” with Ron Whitfield and Francis Brown, George Mason University Center for Energy Science and Policy and Center for Houston’s Future, September 2022.
Interview with Robert F. Service, “’Big Step Forward.’ Energy Expert Analyzes the New U.S. Infrastructure Bill,” Science, August 11, 2021.
“The Impact of China’s Production Surge on Innovation in the Global Solar Photovoltaics Industry,” ITIF, October 5, 2020 (link).
Energizing America: A Roadmap to Launch a National Energy Innovation Mission (Columbia University Center for Global Energy Policy) with Varun Sivaram, Colin Cunliff, Julio Friedmann, and David Sandalow, September 2020.
Something I’m Really Proud Of
In August 2012, I completed a year of service to the nation as assistant director for innovation policy at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. My work for the Administration focused on advanced manufacturing policy, including the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (now Manufacturing USA) and the Additive Manufacturing Pilot (now America Makes), based in Youngstown OH. Bipartisan legislation that permanently authorized Manufacturing USA was passed in December 2014.