Living Labs for Urban Climate Action

Christopher Knittel serves as the George P. Shultz Professor of Energy Economics and Professor of Applied Economics at MIT's Sloan School of Management, where he also holds the position of Associate Dean of Climate, Energy, and Sustainability. After earning his Ph.D. in economics from UC Berkeley in 1999, following degrees from UC Davis and California State University Stanislaus, he taught at UC Davis and Boston University before joining MIT in 2011. His research focuses on understanding how consumers and firms respond to changes in the energy environment, examining both pricing and regulatory impacts. He directs MIT's Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research and the new Climate Policy Center, while co-directing the E2e Project, a research collaboration between MIT, UC Berkeley, and the University of Chicago. At MIT, he teaches Energy Economics and Policy to diverse student groups, including undergraduates, MBA students, and graduate students from outside Sloan. His influential research has appeared in leading academic journals, including The American Economic Review and The Journal of Political Economy. He serves as co-director of NBER's Energy and Environmental Economics group and has held editorial positions at several prestigious journals, including the Journal of Public Economics.

Oliver Lah serves as the coordinator of the Urban Living Lab Center, the first UN-Habitat Collaborating Center co-hosted by MIT, Technical University Berlin, and the Wuppertal Institute. After completing his Ph.D. in Urban Ecology from Technical University Berlin, following degrees from Humboldt University and Victoria University of Wellington, he has dedicated his career to advancing sustainable urban development and mobility solutions. Since 2011, he has led the Research Unit for Mobility and International Cooperation at the Wuppertal Institute, while also directing the Urban Electric Mobility Initiative (UEMI) since 2016. His work focuses on developing transformative solutions for urban mobility, energy, and sector coupling through living labs across Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. His extensive experience includes collaborations with major international organizations including UN-Habitat, UN Environment, UNDP, and OECD/ITF. As a lead author for the Fifth IPCC Assessment Report and member of the Habitat III Policy Unit on Urban Services and Technology, he has significantly influenced global climate and urban policy discussions. His recent research focuses on sustainable urban mobility pathways and transformative living lab approaches for effective urban development solutions.