Sanya Carley

Sanya Carley, Presidential Distinguished Professor of Energy Policy and City Planning in the Weitzman School of Design and Mark Alan Hughes Faculty Director of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, began her tenure as Vice Provost for Climate Science, Policy, and Action on November 1, 2025.

Vice Provost Carley is one of the world’s leading experts on energy policy, especially related to affordability, decarbonization, and the impact of changing climate systems. A founder and co-director of the Energy Justice Lab – which aims to assess and address the equity and justice issues that arise as communities transition from fossil fuels to more diverse, efficient, and low-carbon energy sources – she also serves as a fellow of Resources for the Future, the independent, non-profit research organization in Washington DC that partners with select university leaders to develop impartial economic research that can improve public policies for environmental, energy, and natural resources.

Prof. Carley came to Penn in 2023 from Indiana University, where she was Associate Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs and O’Neill Professor in the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. She is co-author of Power Lines: The Human Costs of American Energy in Transition (U of Chicago Press, 2025) and Energy-Based Economic Development: How Clean Energy Can Drive Development and Stimulate Economic Growth (Springer, 2014) and received the 2021 David Kershaw Award from the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management for distinguished contributions to public policy analysis and management by a researcher under the age of 40, among numerous other professional and teaching awards. At Penn, she also has secondary appointments in the Wharton School and the School of Social Policy and Practice. She received a PhD in Public Policy from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, an MS in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and BAs in both Economics and Sustainable Development from Swarthmore College.