Elizabeth Wilson has been appointed the inaugural director of the new Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society, College President Phil Hanlon and Provost Carolyn Dever announced Monday. Wilson will also serve as an environmental studies professor at the College and will begin both positions starting in September.
Wilson currently works at the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, where she is also an energy and environmental policy and law professor. She performed research on the relationship between climate change and policy as a 2015 Andrew Carnegie Fellow at Danish Technical School.
Wilson also serves on the Committee for Earth Resources at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine and has received numerous grants from the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy and state, industry and private donors.
Wilson was chosen by a search committee chaired by Tuck School of Business professor Robert Hansen and dean of the School of Graduate and Advanced Studies F. Jon Kull ’88.
The Irving Institute was launched this past September after an $80 million gift was made by Irving Oil, the Arthur L. Oil Family Foundation, Arthur L. Irving, his wife Sandra Irving and their daughter Sarah Irving '10 Tu'14. The building will be located between Tuck and Thayer School of Engineering.
The institute will bring scholars to campus to enhance awareness and promote change at the conjunction between energy and society.
Construction of the institute building is expected to be completed by 2020.
