Member Highlight of the Affordable Energy for Humanity
Daniel M. Kammen
Daniel Kammen is the James and Katherine Lau Distinguished Professor of Sustainability at the University of California, Berkeley, with parallel appointments in the Energy and Resources Group, the Goldman School of Public Policy, and the Department of Nuclear Engineering. His work is focused on decarbonization, energy access, and climate justice. He has served as Senior Advisor for Energy and Innovation at the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Kammen is a Coordinating Lead Author for the IPCC. He is the Co-Chair of the UC Berkeley Roundtable on Climate and Environmental Justice (http://ceej.berkeley.edu).
Kammen was appointed the first Environment and Climate Partnership for the Americas (ECPA) Fellow by Secretary of State Hilary R. Clinton in April 2010 and served as Science Envoy for Secretary of State John Kerry (2016- 2017).
His research is focused on the science and policy of decarbonized energy systems, energy access, and environmental justice. He has published more than 450 papers, which are available on his laboratory website, the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL, http://rael.berkeley.edu). His research is currently focused on: decarbonization of power systems around the world; energy access and social justice; materials science for low-carbon economies; big-data approaches to clean transportation, and the electrification of health facilities across Africa (HETA).
Kammen has founded or is on the board of over 10 companies and has served the State of California and US federal government in expert and advisory capacities. Kammen was the First Chief Technical Specialist for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency at the World Bank (2010 – 2011).
Kammen was educated in physics at Cornell and Harvard and held postdoctoral positions at the California Institute of Technology and Harvard. Before moving to the University of California, Berkeley, he was Assistant Professor and Chair of the Science, Technology and Environmental Policy Program at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.
Dr. Kammen has served as a contributing or coordinating lead author on various reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since 1999. The IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
Kammen serves on the Advisory Committee for Energy & Environment for the X-Prize Foundation. He is on the board of Native Renewables (Flagstaff, AZ); the Chabot Space and Science Center (Oakland, CA), The Human Needs Project/Kibera Town Center (Nairobi, Kenya).
Kammen was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020.
He is a member of the Diversity Scholars Network,
https://lsa.umich.edu/ncid/engagement-opportunities/diversity-scholars-network.html
Recent Work in Energy Access
Kammen and his colleagues focus on how health facility electrification (HFE) can transform healthcare delivery in resource-constrained settings using Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. This study centers on North Kivu, a conflict-affected region in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where reliable electricity is critical for effective healthcare services.
Context and Motivation:
The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the need for reliable electricity in health facilities, especially for vaccine cold chains. However, many health facilities in low- and middle-income countries lack high-quality electricity, compromising healthcare delivery and outcomes.
Research Focus:
The team aimed to measure and improve health outcomes by monitoring power quality and reliability (PQR) with IoT sensors. Their work addresses the urgent challenges health facilities face in electrification-deficient regions like North Kivu.
Methodology:
- IoT sensors were deployed in 25 health facilities to monitor voltage, frequency, and power outages.
- Over 15 months, the team collected data on equipment usage, patient intake, morbidity, and mortality.
- Reliability and quality scores were calculated to assess the power infrastructure's performance.