Jefferson W. Tester

Emeritus Board Member

Professor of Sustainable Energy Systems, School of Chemical Biomolecular Engineering, Croll Energy Fellow, Cornell University

Dr. Tester is the Professor of Sustainable Energy Systems in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and a Croll Energy Fellow at Cornell University.  He served as the founding Director of the Cornell Energy Institute from 2009 to 2017 and as Director for Energy in the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future from 2009 to 2014.  Prior to his appointment at Cornell in 2009, Dr. Tester was the H.P. Meissner Professor of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he served as Director of MIT’s Energy Laboratory (1989-2001) and Director of MIT’s School of Chemical Engineering Practice (1980-1989).  His research on renewable and conventional energy extraction and conversion and environmental control technologies has resulted in more than 285 scientific publications and 13 co-authored books, several of which focus on geothermal energy systems.  Professor Tester is a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and was a member of the IPCC’s Working Group on Renewable Energy Sources, and has served on advisory boards of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the American Council of Renewable Energy and Idaho National Laboratory.  Dr. Tester’s geothermal research interests range from fundamental work in sub-surface science to applications in geothermal utilization and end use, including thermal hydraulic modeling and tracer transport in fractured rock reservoirs, advanced drilling technologies using hydrothermal jets and techno-economic analysis of geothermal energy extraction and district energy systems.