Fellow, Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy
David Sandalow is the Inaugural Fellow at Columbia University’s new Center on Global Energy Policy.
From April 2009-May 2013, Mr. Sandalow served in senior positions at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), including Under Secretary of Energy (Acting) and Assistant Secretary for Policy & International Affairs. As Under Secretary of Energy (Acting), Mr. Sandalow helped oversee DOE’s renewable energy, energy efficiency, fossil energy, nuclear energy and electricity delivery programs, with a budget of more than $3.5 billion per year. As Assistant Secretary for Policy & International Affairs, he helped coordinate policy development and international activities at the Department. Priorities included China (14 trips during his tenure at DOE), critical materials (launching DOE’s first-ever Critical Materials Strategy), CFIUS (helping manage the Department’s review of foreign investments in the energy sector) and electric vehicles (helping shape DOE’s EV Everywhere program).
Prior to serving at DOE, Mr. Sandalow was Energy & Environment Scholar and a Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program of the Brookings Institution, as well as Energy & Climate Change Working Group Chair at the Clinton Global Initiative. He also served as a Senior Adviser to Good Energies, Inc. (a private equity fund investing in the energy sector) and Garten Rothkopf, LLC (an international advisory firm). Mr. Sandalow is the author of Freedom from Oil (McGraw-Hill, 2008) and editor of Plug-In Electric Vehicles: What Role for Washington? (Brookings Press, 2009). He has written widely on energy and environment policy, including op-eds in the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times and other publications. Previously, he served as Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans, Environment & Science, a Senior Director on the National Security Council staff, an Associate Director on the staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Executive Vice President, World Wildlife Fund-US and an attorney in private practice. Mr. Sandalow is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School (JD) and Yale College (BA Philosophy).