Research team

Members of the Transition Pathway Initiative Global Climate Transition Centre (TPI Centre) at LSE.

Simon Dietz

Professor Simon Dietz is the research lead for TPI at LSE. He is Professor of Environmental Policy in the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, and the Department of Geography and Environment. He is also a Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Martin School and a Research Associate of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, Oxford University, a CESifo Research Network Fellow, a Principal consultant at Vivid Economics, co-editor of the Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Carla Jouavel

Carla is the Deputy Director at the TPI Global Climate Transition Centre. Carla started her career in sell-side equities research at HSBC, and later focused on accounting advisory in relation to the implementation of International Financial Reporting Standards for PLC’s. Carla holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Goldsmiths, University of London, and an MSc in Social Policy and Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Beata Bienkowska

Beata is the Deputy Director at the TPI Global Climate Transition Centre (on leave until September 2023). Beata has over 12 years’ experience working across the public sector on national level and EU institutions, and academia. Most recently, she served as a Programme Manager at the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership Accelerator leading the Innovators for Change Acceleration Programme. Prior to this, her focus was on developing policies and dialogues, and supporting businesses in the area of energy and climate and economics while working for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European External Action Service. She holds a postgraduate degree in energy and economics from the Warsaw School of Economics.

Ali Amin

Ali is a researcher at TPI contributing to carbon performance assessments and sectoral methodology development. Before joining TPI, Ali worked as an Analyst at the UK National Audit Office, working on value for money (VFM) reports to support the UK Parliament’s scrutiny of major environmental projects. He also held a secondary role as the co-lead of the Modelling discipline to provide technical and analytical support to office-wide teams. Ali holds a First-Class Honours BEng in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Warwick and graduated with a Distinction in Sustainable Energy Futures from Imperial College London.

Shafaq Ashraf

Shafaq is as a research assistant for the Climate Action 100+ project at TPI. Before joining TPI Shafaq has worked on different projects focused on environmental sustainability in urban, rural and agricultural context with the Asian Development Bank and Oxfam GB. Shafaq, did a BSc (Honors) in Economics from the Lahore University of Management Sciences and completed a Masters in Global Development from Queen Mary, University of London. Shafaq also completed a summer semester at London School of Economics during her bachelors.

Cristóbal Budnevich Portales

Cristóbal works as a Policy and Data Analyst at the TPI contributing to carbon performance assessments and sectoral methodology development. He works mainly in the Cement and Steel sectors. He previously worked as a Consultant at the UN-Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) on the Economic Development and International Trade and Integration Divisions. Cristóbal graduated with Distinction from the MSc in Environmental Economics and Climate Change programme at the London School of Economics. He also holds a Professional Degree (with distinction) from the University of Chile in Business and Economics.

Hayli Chiu

Hayli is an assistant at TPI. She mainly works on assisting the team in management of day-to-day tasks and supports research activities by performing Carbon Performance assessments of companies. Before joining TPI, Hayli worked as an intern at the Climate Change and Sustainability Services Team at EY and WWF. Hayli did a BSc in Environment and Development from the London School of Economics and is currently pursuing her Masters in Sustainability Science Global Leadership at the University of Tokyo.

Sidonie Commarmond

Sidonie is a Research Assistant at TPI contributing to carbon performance assessments and methodology development. Prior to joining TPI, Sidonie worked as an analyst in a climate-change research centre and at an energy-transition consulting firm. She carried out research and analysis on net-zero emission trajectories for major companies in Australia and studied the challenges and solutions for the integration of Distributed Energy Resources to the energy grid in order to accelerate the transition to low-carbon energy. She holds a B.A. in Political Sciences and a MRes in Economics from Sciences Po, Paris, for which she completed a research project on the drivers of individual and social environmental behaviour. 

Nikolaus Hastreiter

Nikolaus is a PhD candidate at LSE and a part-time researcher for TPI. In his PhD research, he aims to explore the impact of sustainable finance on corporate carbon emissions. Previously, he was sector lead at TPI for banking, oil and gas, cement, autos and shipping. Prior to joining TPI, he worked as a sustainability consultant at Deloitte and as an ESG analyst at Vigeo Eiris. Nikolaus graduated with a Distinction and the Best Overall Performance Prize in the MSc in Development Studies from the London School of Economics. He also holds a Franco-German Double Degree with Distinction in Political and Social Sciences from Sciences Po Bordeaux and the University of Stuttgart.
 

Setenay Hizliok

Setenay Hizliok is an Analyst (Policy Officer) at the TPI. She contributes to the Carbon Performance and Assessing Sovereign Climate-Related Opportunities and Risks (ASCOR) project teams. Setenay previously worked as an Expert at the Ministry of Treasury and Finance in Turkey. Setenay holds a BSc in Political Science and Public Administration and an MSc in European Studies from the Middle East Technical University. She also graduated with a Distinction from MSc in Energy and Climate Policy at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), University of Sussex.

Johannes Honneth

Johannes works on the ASCOR project which involves researching climate risk for countries and developing a framework for assessing these risks for sovereign bonds. Before joining TPI Johannes worked at the 2°C Investing Initiative e.V. as Junior Analyst and Research Intern where he conducted research on how central banks approach climate change risks. At the Institute for the World Economy, he investigated carbon budgets and how they can be manipulated with negative emissions. Johannes also deepened his quantitative skills at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, where he contributed to time-series forecasting. Johannes holds a M.Sc. in Economics from the University of Munich (LMU) and the University of Bologna and B.Sc. in Economics and Political Science from the University of Cologne.

Issam Jamaleddine

Issam is a researcher for the TPI. He primarily contributed to the development of the banking methodology. Prior to his current role, he worked as an Undergraduate Research Fellow at the TPI alongside his academic studies. In 2021, Issam graduated with a First Class Honours in BSc Geography with Economics at the London School of Economics.

Valentin Julius Jahn

Valentin is Lead Research Analyst and TPI CA100+ Project Lead. Previously he has worked at a health consultancy in Germany and an investment bank in Peru. He holds a BA in Philosophy and Economics from Bayreuth and a MSc in Climate Change, Management and Finance from Imperial College.

Antonina Scheer

Antonina is a Research Project Lead at the TPI team. Prior to joining the Transition Pathway Initiative, Antonina interned at the Climate Bonds Initiative, assisting research on green bond issuers’ use of proceeds reporting. She has also worked at the International Renewable Energy Agency, primarily on data collection for long-term electricity system modelling of countries in sub-Saharan Africa. She holds an Honours BSc in Environmental Sciences from McGill University and graduated with Distinction from the MSc in Environmental Change and Management at the University of Oxford. She received the ECM Dissertation Publication Prize in order to publish her research on labour econometrics and Just Transition in Alberta, Canada.

Richard CiLai Shen

Richard is a part-time research assistant at TPI under LSE Eden Fund’s undergraduate research fellowship scheme. Before joining TPI, Richard worked as an intern at the Global Climate Action Team at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat, and also EY Consulting and Strategy. Richard did a BSc in Environment and Development from the London School of Economics (LSE) and is about to pursue his Masters in Environmental Change and Management at the University of Oxford this fall.

Tess Sokol-Sachs

Tess is a research project lead at the TPI contributing to cross-sector carbon performance assessments and methodology development. She leads TPI’s banking project developing a net zero banking framework and also specialises in the oil & gas and automotive sectors. Before joining TPI, Tess worked as a consultant at Deloitte on their Sustainability and ESG services team in Colorado where she advised corporates on ESG risk management and climate scenario planning. Tess also completed an internship at the International Energy Agency where she carried out analysis appraising global energy efficiency policies. Tess graduated with a Distinction from the MSc Environmental Economics and Climate Change program at the London School of Economics.

Rhoda Byrne

Rhoda joined the TPI in 2018 and currently leads the research work on the aviation and shipping sectors. She holds an MSc in Environmental Policy and Regulation, with distinction, from London School of Economics. Rhoda also has a Bachelor’s degree in Business and Economics from Trinity College Dublin. Prior to joining the TPI team, she worked in the not-for-profit sector, in a variety of consulting and management roles. Rhoda’s background is in professional services. She is a qualified chartered accountant and spent ten years working in a Big Four firm in management consulting and advisory services.

Dan Gardiner

Dan is a researcher for TPI who helped developed the methodology to assess the carbon performance of the oil and gas sector. He also works as an equity analyst at Edison Investment research where he specialises in technology and sustainability topics and has experience as a sell-side analyst at numerous firms including Deutsche Bank and Arete. He holds a First Class MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial.