Valerie Karplus
Associate Professor | Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA, UNITED STATES
Valerie Karplus studies resource and environmental management in organizations operating in diverse national and industry contexts.
Biography
Karplus studies resource and environmental management in organizations operating in diverse national and industry contexts, with a focus on the role of institutions and management practices in explaining performance. Areas of expertise include regional approaches to low carbon transition, decarbonization of global corporate supply chains, and the integrated design and evaluation of energy, air quality, and climate policies. Karplus has taught courses on public policy analysis, global business strategy and organization, entrepreneurship, and the political economy of energy transitions. At CMU, she runs the Laboratory for Energy and Organizations at the CMU Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation.
Areas of Expertise (16)
Strategy
Political Economy
Globalization
Energy
Economic Development
Climate Change
Biotechnology
Asia
China
Economic Modeling
Emerging Markets
Environmental Economics
International Management
Resource Management
Sustainability
Water
Media Appearances (7)
Pittsburgh’s AI-Powered Renaissance
CMU News online
2024-10-09
"Pittsburgh brings the past, present, and future together in exciting ways, especially at the intersecting frontiers of AI and energy. Our energy and manufacturing capabilities, brought together with our deep strengths in AI and computing at our universities and in our emerging entrepreneurial ecosystems, turbocharge the region's ability to lead in clean energy innovation, to the benefit of our workers, communities, and the nation. CMU’s Scott Institute for Energy Innovation and Engineering and Public Policy Department are proudly engaged in campus and community-wide collaboration to realize this ambitious vision."
Healthy Spaces Podcast: Season 4, Episode 10 - Building Zero
Healthy Spaces Podcast online
2024-10-07
Trane Technologies VP of Sustainability Scott Tew sits down with Dr. Valerie Karplus, Ph.D. of the Scott Institute for Energy and Innovation at Carnegie Mellon University to discuss the importance of partnerships and research in developing and meeting ambitious sustainability targets.
CMU Researchers and Collaborators Kick Off INDABA Partnership on Decarbonizing Industry
Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation online
2023-06-19
“Prior to the start of the partnership, the academic collaborators and industry partners had been working in parallel towards the shared goal of finding viable decarbonization pathways,” said Karplus. “The meeting was filled with ‘aha!’ moments as we explored common interests and new research opportunities.”
'Retirement present': Outgoing Congressman Mike Doyle celebrates
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette online
2022-08-13
“Each secondary industry has an opportunity to figure out where the carbon is in their processes and kind of think through what changes are needed to reduce that carbon,” said Valerie Karplus, professor of engineering and public policy at CMU. “These types of investments can pay off as the world moves toward a low carbon system.”
Decoupling Won’t Kill a Green Future | Opinion
Foreign Affairs online
2021-03-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown the debate over U.S. economic “decoupling” from China into stark relief. Former President Donald Trump made the curtailment of economic ties with China a cornerstone of his trade policy, citing concerns about China’s handling of intellectual property rights, currency manipulation, and other unfair trade practices. Then came the pandemic, which found U.S. manufacturers at the mercy of distant and overstretched supply chains.
The Paths to Net Zero | Opinion
Foreign Affairs online
2020-04-13
For 30 years, diplomats and policymakers have called for decisive action on climate change—and for 30 years, the climate crisis has grown worse. There are a multitude of reasons for this failure. The benefits of climate action lie mostly in the future, they are diffuse and hard to pin down, and they will accrue above all to poor populations that do not have much of a voice in politics, whether in those countries that emit most of the world’s warming pollution or at the global level.
Reducing China’s CO2 Emissions Would Curb Deadly Air Pollution in the U.S.
Scientific American online
2019-07-26
"It reminds us that air pollution doesn't stop at national boundaries," said Valerie Karplus, a co-leader of the study and an assistant professor of global economics and management at MIT.
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Industry Expertise (3)
Government Relations
Public Policy
Energy
Education (2)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Ph.D., Engineering Systems
Yale University: B.S., Biochemistry and Political Science
Links (4)
Event Appearances (1)
Speaker
(2023) Focus Forward with Big Energy Morgantown, West Virginia
Articles (5)
Risks of decoupling from China on low-carbon technologies
Science2022 China plays, and will likely continue to play, an indispensable role in research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) and manufacturing of low-carbon technologies that are necessary to address climate change. For example, China’s scale-up capabilities that are underpinned by manufacturing process improvements, supply chain optimization, and deep government support have contributed to substantial reductions in costs for mature technologies such as solar photovoltaics (PV) .
State ownership and technology adoption: The case of electric utilities and renewable energy
Research Policy2022 Technology adoption is crucial to address pressing public policy issues such as climate change, but the role of ownership structure in adoption decisions is not well understood. The low-carbon energy transition in the electricity industry is a case in point. Following market liberalization, the electricity industry in many countries is now characterized by a co-existence of state-owned and private utilities.
Tensions between local interests and broader gains
Nature Energy2023 China’s electricity market reforms aim to improve the operational efficiency of the power sector, while simultaneously supporting reductions in energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. New research shows that the influence of local interests may limit gains to half of their estimated potential.
Political strategies for climate and environmental solutions
Nature Sustainability2023 Many of the barriers to progress in addressing environmental problems, such as climate change, are political. This Review illustrates how insight into politics can help policymakers craft strategies to address the ambition gap, the implementation gap and the international action gap.
Anticipating the impacts of light-duty vehicle electrification on the US automotive service workforce
Environmental Research Letters2023 Addressing climate change will require decarbonization of the United States (US) economy, which will lead to the decline of certain industries and the creation of new ones. With such shifts may come changes in the location, demographics, and skills of workers, and detrimental impacts may disproportionately fall on disadvantaged communities.
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