Our people

Author of many academic peer-refereed articles, book chapters and reports on energy and climate change topics. He is one of the most highly cited global researchers on controversies in energy and climate policy. He has submitted analysis and testimony to the UK’s House of Commons and House of Lords, and the US House of Representatives, Senate and Supreme Court. He was also a Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report, published in 2022.

An economist interested in measuring and delivering sustainability, wellbeing, and productivity. He regularly consults for governments and scientific organisations on topics of natural capital, ecosystem services, and sustainability. He works across sectors and disciplines, and maintains active research networks around the world and throughout the UK. He is a regular media contributor to outlets including Bloomberg, The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, and Channel 4 News.

Head of the working group Land Use, Infrastructures and Transport at the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change, and Chair of Sustainability Economics at Technische Universität Berlin. He was Coordinating Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report and a Lead Author of the Fifth Assessment Report. Explore more about Felix Creutzig’s research in this short video.

Professor Creutzig joined the Bennett Institute for Innovation and Acceleration in September 2024.

Katie has extensive expertise in research programme delivery, stakeholder engagement, and financial oversight, with a strong track record of building high-performing professional services teams and working closely with senior academics, funders, policymakers, and external partners. Previously she served as Senior Operations Manager for the UKRI-funded £15 million Energy Demand Research Centre at the University of Sussex, providing strategic and operational leadership across a national consortium of 14 universities.

Her career span gives her a broad perspective across academia, policy, industry, and global development. She has particular expertise in sustainability, climate and energy research, policy engagement, and research impact, including communications strategy, impact case studies, and large-scale event delivery.

Katie holds an MSc in Sustainability and is PRINCE2 certified. She is a member of the UK’S network for Professional Research Investment and Strategy Managers (PRISM) and is recognised for her collaborative leadership style, strategic thinking, and ability to translate ambitious research into real-world impact.

Professor Klusak is a co-founder and director of Wealth Fair Economics, Professor in Accounting and Finance at Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University; Affiliated Researcher at Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge, co-founder of climaTRACES Lab at Kings College Cambridge.

Her research investigates the behaviour and regulation of credit ratings agencies (CRAs), and their effects on financial systems. She is internationally recognised as one of the top women in sustainable finance and has established a niche in using novel methods to combine environmental science with economics to address important, action-ready topics in finance. This is evidenced by her research outputs, a global media profile with over 250 citations globally including Bloomberg, Forbes, Reuters FT, NYTimes, and direct engagement with governments, central banks (including the Fed), financial institutions (including investment banks, ratings agencies, the World Bank, and the IMF), and multilateral development banks (AIIB, IDB). Her research on the effects climate change and biodiversity loss on sovereign debt markets has been nominated for the Frontiers Future Planet Prize 2024, and has potential to attract major research grants and philanthropic funding.

Prof Klusak holds a PhD in Accounting and Finance and a BA in Banking and Finance from Bangor University, and an MPhil in Real Estate Finance at Cambridge University.

Karoline Rogge is Professor of Sustainability Innovation and Policy at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex Business School, and principal investigator of the EMPOCI project on governing the acceleration of sustainable energy-mobility transitions. She was Co-Director of the Sussex Energy Group from April 2017 until August 2021, and inaugural Course Director of SPRU’s online MSc in Energy Policy in 2018/19. Karoline joined SPRU in November 2013 from the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (Fraunhofer ISI) in Karlsruhe, Germany, where she has been working on energy and climate policy since 2004 and continues to be affiliated with as senior researcher – and since July 2019 as Deputy Head of the Competence Centre Policy & Society.

Karoline’s inter- and transdisciplinary research combines insights from economics, innovation & transition studies and policy sciences to investigate the interplay between policy and innovation, with a focus on the electricity and transport sectors. Karoline’s research ranges from evaluating the innovation impact of single policy instruments, such as the EU emissions trading system – the topic of her PhD at ETH Zurich – to analysing the effects of comprehensive policy mixes for promoting the transition of the energy system to climate neutrality. Currently, Karoline’s main research focus lies on the acceleration of sustainable energy-mobility transitions in the UK, Germany, the USA and China in her European Research Council-funded project EMPOCI (2020-2026).

Dr Marfuga Iskandarova is a Senior Research Fellow in Innovation and Energy Transitions at SPRU, University of Sussex. She has research interests and expertise in the areas of innovation, emerging technologies, industrial decarbonisation, smart local energy systems, renewable energy, energy policy and regulation. She holds a PhD in Management Studies from the University of Exeter and a Master of Laws (LLM) degree in Law and Sustainable Development from the University of Aberdeen.

Marfuga joined SPRU in 2020 to work on EU-funded Horizon2020 SONNET project (Social Innovation in Energy Transitions). Later she was appointed a Research Fellow in Innovation, Policy and Industrial Decarbonisation on Smart Policy and Governance for Industrial Decarbonisation project (part of the UK Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre funded by the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund). Marfuga is Principal Investigator for the EPSRC-funded project “Global Lessons for Net Zero: Harnessing best practices of industrial decarbonisation”. This research focuses on learning from most prominent decarbonisation projects and policies, exploring the diversity of approaches to industrial decarbonisation across countries and across industries with a particular focus on hard-to-abate sectors. Marfuga is also part of the ESRC-funded project “Household and community labour in smart local energy systems”, led by the University of Sussex with the Centre for Sustainable Energy and in collaboration with King’s College London, which examines how households contribute vital but often overlooked work to make smart local energy systems successful.

Before joining SPRU Marfuga was working as a postdoctoral researcher at Small Business Research Centre, Kingston University London, on a number of research projects, including three-year ‘ENERGISE’ initiative funded by EU Horizon2020 which investigates socio-economic, cultural and political aspects of the energy transition developing tools for changing individual- and community-level energy consumption.

Dr. Williams is an interdisciplinary social scientist whose research focuses on sociotechnical and knowledge controversies; public perceptions of and engagement with science, technology, and innovation; and the establishment of epistemic authority. His current research, funded by the British Academy’s Knowledge Frontiers programme, seeks to understand how fact-checkers produce and justify their verdicts, how this may change due to the development and application AI technologies, and how public audiences respond to the different approaches taken by fact-checkers. 

PhD student in the Science and Technology Policy Studies. His doctoral research is exploring the impact of Climate Change on Microfinance. Broadly interested in the areas of Climate Change, Inequality, Innovation and Sustainability. Prior to beginning his doctoral studies, he worked as a financial journalist and economic writer for close to two decades in one of the leading and largest circulated dailies in India and served in senior positions such as Business Editor, News Coordinator there. He has also been a visiting faculty in universities and MBA schools in India and an expert participant in the panels, seminars on the subjects like Poverty, Inequality and Unemployment in Indian Economy, Empathetic Leadership, Financial Journalism, Covering Economic News in Global South.

Devin O’Donnell is a PhD student in the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex. Devin’s doctoral research explores the acceleration of climate-health adaptation policy. She is interested in applying cross-disciplinary and systems approaches to the climate-health intersection drawing on public health, social psychology, communications, and political science. Prior to a PhD, Devin worked as a technical advisor on climate and health at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre. She has also worked for the Boston University Center for Climate and Health, the US Environmental Protection Agency, and Michigan Clinicians for Climate Action.

Postgraduate Researcher at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex, pursuing a PhD in Science and Technology Policy Studies. Actively researching the decarbonisation of hard-to-abate sectors, including heavy industries, aviation and maritime transportation. Experience across RD&D activities from lab to pilot and demonstration scales, with over a decade of work in the development of supply chains and feedstock generation for sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) production. Published work includes peer-reviewed articles in academic journals, policy briefs, white papers and reports to national and supranational institutions, as well as a US patent. Interested in frontier research on energy policy, sustainable transitions and innovation that can expedite the deployment of low-carbon technologies, in line with justice and equity as guiding concepts.

Dominic Watters is a Postgraduate Researcher at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), University of Sussex, pursuing a PhD in Science and Technology Policy Studies. His work examines how expectations about frontier AI influence technological pathways and governance arrangements. More broadly, he is interested in how future-oriented narratives, large-scale infrastructures, and concentrated economic power shape innovation and institutional responses to emerging risks from artificial intelligence. Before beginning his PhD, he worked in science television for clients including the BBC, Channel 4, and PBS. He studied Physics and History and Philosophy of Science at UCL and holds a Master’s degree from Imperial College London’s Science Communication Unit.