EESI Centers
Center for Energy and Environmental Risk
Director, Andrew Kleit
The Center for Energy and Environmental Risk (CEER) was created in
2007 in the EMS Earth and Environmental Systems Institute to further promote faculty research and graduate student opportunities in energy and environmental risk assessment and management. CEER will promote research investigating both business and policy risk across the earth science disciplines. It will promote the themes encompassed by the undergraduate program in Energy Business and Finance (EBF) and widen these themes to attract and support faculty research in this area. It
will also expand the study of risk in EMS across the earth sciences.
CEER is needed because, although these issues are discussed now among faculty, we need a focus for the growing intellectual activity around environmental concerns on policy and finance. The Center will directly improve educational and research opportunities within EMS. In doing so, it will perform as an effective vehicle for attracting federal and corporate research funds.
As economies and world population grow, the risks associated with the interaction between humans and the environment also grow. The College currently has eight faculty members in four departments - working in fields such as energy, weather, geosciences, and natural hazards - whose research addresses environmental risk and who are merging this research with risk assessment, management, and economics. Hence, an interdisciplinary Center for Energy and Environmental Risk (CEER) has been established in the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute to further promote faculty research and graduate student opportunities in energy and environmental risk assessment and management.
The Center will be directed by a faculty steering committee lead by Andrew Kleit, Professor of Energy and Environmental Economics, and the first Director. Kleit holds a joint appointment in the Departments of Meteorology and Energy and Mineral Engineering, and is chair of the Energy, Business and Finance program. Other participants in the Center will include: Keith Crocker (Risk and Insurance Department, Smeal College of Business), Jenni Evans (Meteorology); Klaus Keller (Geosciences); Rudy Slinglerland (Geosciences); Arthur Small (Meterology); Brent Yarnal (Geography), and George Young (Meteorology).
March 25, 2008 Special Speaker, Kenneth RIchards, Indiana University
For more information about CEER, please contact:
Andrew Kleit
503 Walker Building
Department of Meteorology
The Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA 16802
Phone: 814.865.0711
Email: ank1@psu.edu