Dr. Shardul Tiwari
About Me
I am a postdoctoral fellow affiliated with the Department of Political Science and School of the Environment at the University of Toronto. My research focuses on energy justice, policy, and transition innovation. I joined the University of Toronto after receiving my PhD in Environment and Energy Policy from the Department of Social Sciences at Michigan Technological University. For my PhD dissertation, I used social-economic and legal lenses to examine the development of Pumped Underground Storage Hydro (PUSH) in abandoned underground mines in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. My dissertation was part of the more extensive study funded by the Alfred P. SLOAN Foundation. I further studied the techno-spatial potential for developing energy storage in various brownfield sites (abandoned mines) in the U.S.
At the University of Toronto, I am working with Dr. Kate Neville on the "CANSTOREnergy: Seasonal storage of renewable energy" research project funded through a New Frontier in Research Fund (NFRF) grant. My work in the project involves working with community members to understand their energy challenges and objectives and exploring how carbon conversion technologies might integrate into their envisioned future. I am currently exploring utilizing energy justice to evaluate policies for developing carbon conversion and storage technologies. This involves a comprehensive analysis of the policy context, consideration of various interests, and the development of an in-depth understanding of Canada's existing energy governance landscape.
I have over eight years of experience in formulating and implementing renewable energy and energy efficiency policies. In the past, I have worked with the Tata Trusts, Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Good Governance and Policy Analysis, Sterlite Technologies Limited, and the German Development Cooperation (GIZ). My work with the GIZ as an energy policy expert in the Nepal Energy Efficiency Programme (NEEP) involved supporting the development of energy efficiency and biomass energy strategy for the country. I have also worked on energy efficiency and demand-side management projects for vertically integrated utilities. My long-term vision is to build a social science researchers-led interdisciplinary energy transition lab for cold climates. The vision is to keep it within the geographical focus of the Arctic and Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region. The goal is to understand and work with communities living at the tail end of the energy infrastructure directly affected by climate change. I am extremely interested in bringing communities, researchers, and educationalists from the American/European Arctic together with the communities and researchers from the HindhuKush Himalayan (HKH) region. Based on my lived experience in HKH, people in these communities have relatively the same challenges and lived experiences, and it would be a great learning experience/workforce development to bring people and resources together from these regions to address a common existing threat of climate change. I want to work with the communities in the North that are often most vulnerable due to their geographical location and are often not actively engaged in technology and governance discussions that are made for them, and my goal is to initiate this conversation bottoms up one community at a time.
At the University of Toronto, I am working with Dr. Kate Neville on the "CANSTOREnergy: Seasonal storage of renewable energy" research project funded through a New Frontier in Research Fund (NFRF) grant. My work in the project involves working with community members to understand their energy challenges and objectives and exploring how carbon conversion technologies might integrate into their envisioned future. I am currently exploring utilizing energy justice to evaluate policies for developing carbon conversion and storage technologies. This involves a comprehensive analysis of the policy context, consideration of various interests, and the development of an in-depth understanding of Canada's existing energy governance landscape.
I have over eight years of experience in formulating and implementing renewable energy and energy efficiency policies. In the past, I have worked with the Tata Trusts, Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Good Governance and Policy Analysis, Sterlite Technologies Limited, and the German Development Cooperation (GIZ). My work with the GIZ as an energy policy expert in the Nepal Energy Efficiency Programme (NEEP) involved supporting the development of energy efficiency and biomass energy strategy for the country. I have also worked on energy efficiency and demand-side management projects for vertically integrated utilities. My long-term vision is to build a social science researchers-led interdisciplinary energy transition lab for cold climates. The vision is to keep it within the geographical focus of the Arctic and Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region. The goal is to understand and work with communities living at the tail end of the energy infrastructure directly affected by climate change. I am extremely interested in bringing communities, researchers, and educationalists from the American/European Arctic together with the communities and researchers from the HindhuKush Himalayan (HKH) region. Based on my lived experience in HKH, people in these communities have relatively the same challenges and lived experiences, and it would be a great learning experience/workforce development to bring people and resources together from these regions to address a common existing threat of climate change. I want to work with the communities in the North that are often most vulnerable due to their geographical location and are often not actively engaged in technology and governance discussions that are made for them, and my goal is to initiate this conversation bottoms up one community at a time.