Dr. Francis O’Sullivan is Director of Research and Analysis for the MIT Energy Initiative, and is a Senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management. His research interests span a range of topics related to energy technologies, policy and economics. His current research is focused on unconventional oil and gas resources, the energy-water nexus, and solar energy. He has extensive expertise regarding the production dynamics and associated economics of North America’s shale plays. His work also includes the study of environmental issues associated with unconventionals development, particularly water resource impacts and fugitive emissions. He also studies global gas market dynamics and the LNG trade, and he is actively examining the implications for energy markets of emerging international unconventional resource plays.
He has written and spoken widely on these topics, and has made presentations to the President’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the Brookings Institute, the Bipartisan Policy Center, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the National Governors’ Association, the National Association of Regulated Utility Commissioners, at CERAWeek, the American Physical Society, and to a range of other academic, policy and industry forums. He is an author of the 2011 MIT Future of Natural Gas Study, and a member of the MIT Future of Solar Energy study group. Dr. O’Sullivan is a member of the National Academies’ Roundtable on Science and Technology for Sustainability.
Prior to joining MIT, Dr. O’Sullivan was a consultant with McKinsey & Company, where he worked extensively in the areas of economic, investment and risk analysis, strategic planning, and operations in the private equity, oil and gas, electric utility, and renewable energy sectors.
Dr. O’Sullivan received his Ph.D., E.E., and S.M. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his B.E. degree from the National University of Ireland, all in electrical engineering.