Narasimha Rao

Narasimha Rao is an Associate Professor of Energy Systems at the Yale School of the Environment. His research examines energy’s role in poverty, human development, and in mitigating and adapting to climate change. He studies equity dimensions of energy transitions and their broader development impacts in emerging economies. He has developed the idea of ‘decent living energy,’ the energy needs to support basic well-being in different societies. His work addresses the public health impacts of energy poverty and their spatial distribution, including identifying populations vulnerable to heat stress, and ambient air pollution. In future work, he plans to assess multiple dimensions of poverty, including energy, air pollution, diet-related health risks and other living conditions together, so as to identify synergies in tackling them.