Elizabeth Wilson, professor of energy and environmental policy and law at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, will speak on “How Renewable Energy Really Gets on the Power Grid (or Doesn't)" at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 3, in room 114 of the Lewis Katz Building on Penn State’s University Park campus. Her talk, which is free and open to the public, will follow an informal reception, which begins at 5:00 p.m.

This event is sponsored by the Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment, Penn State Law, and the Penn State School of International Affairs.

Wilson studies how energy systems are changing in the face of new technologies and new societal pressures. Her work focuses on the implementation of energy and environmental policies and laws in practice and how institutions support and thwart energy system transitions. She also studies the interplays between technology innovation, policy creation, and institutional decision making. Her recent books include Energy Law and Policy (West Academic Publishing) and Smart Grid (R)evolution: Electric Power Struggles (Cambridge Press).

Wilson’s research group is working on two National Science Foundation-supported grants on media and stakeholder perceptions of smart grid technologies and on decision making in regional transmission organizations.

Wilson was recently awarded a 2015 Andrew Carnegie Fellowship and was selected as a 2014-2015 Committee on Institutional Cooperation Academic Leadership Fellow. She was chosen as a Leopold Leadership Fellow in 2011. She spent the 2009-2010 academic year as a visiting professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, supported by a McKnight Land-Grant Professorship.

Prior to joining the University of Minnesota she worked with the Environmental Protection Agency and, before that, Wilson worked in Belgium, Burundi and Tanzania. She holds a doctorate in engineering and public policy from Carnegie Mellon University.