David L. McCollum is a Distinguished R&D Staff in the Mobility and Energy Transitions Analysis (META) Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and holds a Joint Faculty Appointment at the University of Tennessee’s Baker School of Public Policy. David’s expertise spans economics, engineering, policy analysis, and corporate advisory services, and his research attempts to inform state, national (developed and developing) and global energy and environmental issues on matters related to, among others, deep decarbonization, net-zero emissions pathways, energy-transport-climate policies, electric sector planning, end-use sector electrification (transport, buildings, industry), Sustainable Development Goals (including inter-dependencies), financing needs for the energy system transformation, and human dimensions of climate change. He employs energy-economic systems and integrated assessment models in support of this work (e.g., MESSAGEix-GLOBIOM, TIMES-MARKAL, REGEN, GCAM).

Before joining ORNL in September 2021, David was a Senior Research Scholar with the Energy Program at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria, and a Principal Technical Leader at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) in Palo Alto, California. He currently holds a secondary appointment as Guest Senior Research Scholar at IIASA, and previously was Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Imperial College London. The latter was in his capacity with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Technical Support Unit (TSU – Working Group III) for the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). David previously led activities within the Global Energy Assessment; IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5 – WG III); IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C; and other international, multi-stakeholder initiatives, such as for the World Bank and International Science Council (ISC). He is listed by Reuters as one of the world’s 250 most influential climate scientists.

David received a PhD and MS in Transportation Technology & Policy from the University of California, Davis (USA), Institute of Transportation Studies; an MS in Agricultural & Resource Economics from the same institution; and a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Tennessee (USA).