Published 08/28/2024 - Kelly Sims Gallagher, F00, F03, has been named the new dean of The Fletcher School. Renowned for her work in energy and climate policy, she possesses expertise that spans critical areas including U.S.-China relations, energy technology innovation, green industrialization, and global environmental governance.

As a professor of energy and environmental policy, the founding director of the Climate Policy Lab, and the co-director of the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy, Gallagher has been a driving force at Fletcher for more than 15 years. She has played a pivotal role in shaping the school’s academic landscape, first as a full-time faculty member, then as academic dean from 2020 to 2023, and most recently as interim dean since July 2023. Her appointment as dean is effective September 1.

Prior to her tenure at Fletcher, Gallagher directed the Energy Technology Innovation Policy research program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School, where she also taught classes on science, technology, and public policy and energy policy. The author of two books on industrialization and technological development, and co-author of a third comparing policymaking processes in the United States and China, she served in the Obama administration from June 2014 to September 2015 as a senior policy advisor. In that role, she helped negotiate two climate agreements between the United States and China that paved the way for the global 2015 Paris climate accord.

Continued, with a Q&A at TuftsNow.