The Stanford Energy Seminar has been a mainstay of energy engagement at Stanford for nearly 20 years and is one of the flagship programs of the Precourt Institute for Energy. We aim to bring a wide variety of perspectives to the Stanford community – academics, entrepreneurs, utilities, non-profits, and more.

Talk Abstract:Commissioner Judy Chang will discuss the role of Federal regulation in the rapidly changing American energy landscape. She will focus on trends, lessons learned, and regional variations across the electricity and gas sectors, and how regulators work to ensure reliable and affordable energy despite increasingly uncertain future conditions.

Speaker Bio:  Judy Chang joined the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as a Commissioner in July 2024.

Commissioner Chang is an energy economics and policy expert with more than 20 years of experience working with energy companies, trade associations and governments on regulatory and financial issues, particularly as they relate to investment decisions in electric transmission, clean energy and energy storage.

She is the former Undersecretary of Energy and Climate Solutions for Massachusetts, a role in which she led efforts to set policies across the Commonwealth’s energy sector and align strategies and plans to meet legal requirements for climate change mitigation. Commissioner Chang has presented and testified before U.S. federal and state agencies and regulatory authorities in Canada on topics related to energy resource deployment; energy contracts; transmission planning, access and pricing; and electricity market design. She has presented her work at industry conferences and academic seminars on energy and environmental policies.

Commissioner Chang has taught as an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and served as a Senior Fellow at the Kennedy School’s Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government. She also served as an ambassador for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Clean Energy Education & Empowerment Initiative and was a founding board member of New England Women in Energy and the Environment.

Commissioner Chang holds a Master of Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California, Davis.

Anyone with an interest in energy is welcome to join! You can enjoy seminars in the following ways:

• Attend live. The auditorium may change quarter by quarter, so check each seminar event to confirm the location. Explore the current quarter's schedule.
• Watch live in a browser livestream if available. Check each seminar event for its unique livestream URL.
• Watch recordings of past seminars 
  • Available on the Past Energy Seminars page and the Energy Seminars playlist of the Stanford Energy YouTube channel
• (For students) Take the seminar as a 1-unit class (CEE 301/ENERGY 301/MS&E 494)

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