Jonathan Pershing

Jonathan Pershing is the Inaugural Dean of the London School of Economics Global School of Sustainability. Prior to this role he was the program director for environment at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation from 2017-2021 and 2022-2025, where he led a team focused on global climate change and a separate portfolio supporting conservation in the North American West. He has significant public sector experience as the special envoy for climate change at the U.S. Department of State during the Obama Administration; the senior climate advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Energy; and principal deputy director of the Office of Energy Policy and Systems Analysis at the Department of Energy. Jonathan also directed the climate, energy, and pollution program at the World Resources Institute; led the environment division at the International Energy Agency in Paris; and spent nearly a decade as the science advisor and deputy director of the State Department’s Office of Global Change.