David McCollum

David L. McCollum is a Senior Scientist in the Transportation Analytics and Decision Sciences (TADS) Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, with expertise spanning energy-economics, engineering, public policy analysis, and corporate advisory services. His research attempts to inform state, national, and global energy and environmental issues on matters related to, among others, deep decarbonization, net-zero emissions pathways, energy-transport-climate policies, electric sector planning, end-use sector electrification (transport, buildings, industry), sustainable development goals (including inter-dependencies), financing needs for the energy system transformation, and human dimensions of climate change. He employs energy-economic systems and integrated assessment models in support of this work (e.g., MESSAGEix-GLOBIOM, TIMES-MARKAL, REGEN).

Before joining Oak Ridge National Laboratory, McCollum was a Senior Research Scholar with the Energy Program at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria, and a Principal Technical Leader at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) in Palo Alto, California. He currently holds secondary appointments as Guest Senior Research Scholar at IIASA; Research Fellow in Energy and Environment at the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy at the University of Tennessee; and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Imperial College London. The latter is in his capacity with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Technical Support Unit (TSU - Working Group III) for the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). He previously led activities within the Global Energy Assessment; IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5 - WG III); IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C; and other international, multi-stakeholder initiatives, such as for the World Bank and International Council for Science (ICSU).

McCollum received a PhD and MS in Transportation Technology and Policy from the University of California, Davis (USA), Institute of Transportation Studies; an MS in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the same institution; and a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Tennessee (USA).


Last update: 22 NOV 2021