Sue Tierney

Emeritus Board Member

Senior Advisor, Analysis Group

Sue is an expert on energy economics, regulation, and policy, particularly in the electric and gas industries. She has consulted to businesses, government, tribes, environmental groups, foundations, and other organizations on energy markets, economic and environmental regulation and strategy. She has also testified in civil litigation cases and in state and federal regulatory proceedings. Previously, she served as the Assistant Secretary for Policy at the U.S. Department of Energy. In Massachusetts, she was the Secretary of Environmental Affairs and Commissioner at the Department of Public Utilities.

She currently chairs NREL’s External Advisory Council and the board of ClimateWorks Foundation. She is a trustee of the Barr Foundation, and a director of World Resources Institute, Resources for the Future, the Alliance to Save Energy, the Energy Foundation, and the Keystone Center. She is affiliated with the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute, NYU’s Policy Integrity Institute, and Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions. She is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Climate Communications Initiative of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, and was recently a member of the NAS Committee on resilience of the US electric grid.  She recently chaired the Department of Energy’s Electricity Advisory Committee, was co-lead author of the energy chapter of the National Climate Assessment and served on the U.S. Secretary of Energy Advisory Board and the ACORE Board.

She has taught at MIT and at the University of California at Irvine. She earned her Ph.D. and M.A. in regional planning at Cornell University.