Lesley Jantarasami

Managing Director, Energy Program
Bipartisan Policy Center

Lesley Jantarasami is the managing director of the Energy Program and brings over 10 years’ policy experience at the state and federal levels. She led energy and climate initiatives at the Oregon Department of Energy to evaluate policy design options for decarbonizing the state’s electricity, transportation, industrial, and buildings sectors, including sector-specific strategies and economy-wide cap-and-trade carbon pricing legislation. She also led integration of energy resilience issues in a new statewide climate adaptation framework for Oregon.

Prior to this, Jantarasami worked at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on national greenhouse gas regulations in the transportation and power sectors, and on climate impacts assessment and adaptation initiatives. She served as a chapter lead author for the Fourth National Climate Assessment and the U.S. Climate and Health Assessment. Her research has been published in multiple peer-reviewed journals and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report volume on Climate Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability.

Jantarasami has Master of Science and Master of Public Administration degrees from University of Washington’s School of Environmental and Forest Sciences and the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance. She has a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science and Policy from Duke University.