Placement: MA City Planning, Berkeley
Before becoming a Pre-Doctoral Fellow with EPIC, Brian attended Georgetown University for his undergraduate degree. At Georgetown, Brian entered the School of Foreign Service, where he completed his major in International Economics. He has strong interests in transit-oriented development in cities and energy as it relates to transportation.
“While electric cars are one alternative possibility to combustion engines, I believe structural changes in cities, such as relaxing zoning regulations, are just as important. Dense cities are environmentally-friendly cities.”
At EPIC, Brian worked on three main projects. In one, he gathered data for a working paper that uses underground geological characteristics to determine the local economic impacts of fracking. The other two projects focused on energy efficiency programs.
While he’s attracted to “the sheer gravitas of energy problems,” Brian has always had a broad interest in public policy. To him, policy and energy problems intertwine.
“Something that I had not fully appreciated before coming here was that although technological innovation will play an enormous role in climate change mitigation, the right energy policies can have massive cost implications in the meantime.”
There are two major qualities about EPIC that drew Brian in: a world-class group of researchers on energy and the environment and its uniqueness where researchers strive to write informative papers for policy-makers.
“Although a lot of institutions do this, I believe EPIC is a leader in this pack.”
He hoped to learn a lot about the research process and to explore his own research interests in greater depth. Particularly, he says: “I would like to continue exploring the development of walkable cities and its potential impact on climate change.”
