Kathleen Araújo

Associate Professor of Sustainable Energy Systems, Innovation, and Policy;  Director, Energy Policy Institute
kathleenaraujo@boisestate.edu
Office: 208-426-4845

Mail address:
Boise State University
1910 University Drive, Boise, Idaho, 83725-1014

Dr. Kathleen Araújo is the Director of the CAES Energy Policy Institute and Associate Professor of Sustainable Energy Systems, Innovation, and Policy at Boise State University. She is responsible for the strategic oversight, research, and advising for the Institute — the policy body for the Center for Advanced Energy Studies, a consortium of public universities plus Idaho National Laboratory. Dr. Araújo specializes in strategic planning and decision-making associated with energy systems change. This includes targeted adaptations, such as with decarbonization-critical minerals security, and regional industrial restructuring, as well as unplanned shifts, including extreme weather and other disruption.

Dr. Araújo’s research contributes to the advancing field of energy transitions, where she writes on theory-building and practical considerations. Her first book, Low Carbon Energy Transitions: Turning Points in National Policy and Innovation (Oxford University Press), examines the social and technical history of country-level transformations with Icelandic geothermal energy, French nuclear power, Danish wind power and Brazilian biofuels following the 1973 oil crisis. Her second book, the Routledge Handbook of Energy Transitions (Routledge) is an edited volume overview of the state of knowledge for energy transitions.

In current work, Dr. Araújo has been evaluating regional revitalization strategies in traditional fossil fuel-based economies that are diversifying; critical mineral/material security for energy system change; regulatory change in emerging energy markets; and policies for resilience of critical infrastructure with respect to extreme weather. She is also Boise State’s program director for an on-line certificate in nuclear safeguards and security that is offered by a multi-institutional partnership.

More broadly, she has evaluated international regulation of cyber-nuclear risk and post-Fukushima nuclear safety, the role
of skills repurposing in clean energy clusters, and global sustainability complexities of biofuels. She has presented or led discussions in fora with the University of Cambridge, Arctic Circle Conference, and Fukushima Medical University. Dr. Araújo is also the Book Series Editor for Routledge’s Studies in Energy Transitions. 

She consults for industry and inter-governmental organizations, including the World Bank and the International Renewable Energy Agency. Dr. Araújo completed her doctoral studies at MIT and post-doctoral research at Harvard.