Christoph Meinrenken, Ph.D.

Christoph Meinrenken is Professor of Practice in Columbia's Faculty of Professional Studies, Principal Investigator at the Climate School, Academic Director of the M.S. degree in Information & Knowledge Strategy (IKNS), and Affiliate of the Foundations of Data Science Center at the Data Science Institute. Meinrenken also co-chairs the Columbia University Seminar on Complexity Science, Modeling and Sustainability.

Meinrenken's research focuses on computer modeling to elucidate and improve the techno-economic performance of low carbon energy systems. Recent and current research projects include electricity arbitrage in smart buildings (funded by DoE, NSF, NYSERDA, NIST), electrification of the transportation sector, synthetic fuels (funded by ABB, Electricity de France), and automated product carbon footprinting (funded by PepsiCo Inc., IBM). An expert in Life Cycle Assessment and enterprise-scale sustainability analytics, he has worked with the World Resources Institute, Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), and The Sustainability Consortium, and advised several globally operating consumer goods manufacturers.

Before joining Columbia, Meinrenken worked on modeling molecular spectra (MSE, Princeton University, 1996) and computational neuroscience (PhD Physics, Max Planck Institute, 2001). In addition to academic research and teaching, Meinrenken spent several years in the private sector, specializing in financial engineering and risk management.