Jennifer Helfrich

Jennifer Helfrich is a Master in Public Policy candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), where she is the Belfer Center Environment and Natural Resource Program Roy Family Fellow. She is interested in building sustainable cities - or how to balance environmental impact and resource use with growth and equality in urban systems. Jennifer's goal is to make equitable green infrastructure the obvious, prosperous choice. Prior to HKS, Jennifer worked for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and the San Francisco School District on energy efficiency programs, solar incentives, conservation management, and clean energy education. Before this, Jennifer was a researcher at the Technische Universität Berlin. She co-authored comparative research on US and German policies for renewable energy and environmental impact assessment and became a contributing author for the IPCC's Fifth Assessment for the Mitigation Working Group on Transportation. Jennifer earned her B.A. in Environmental Studies with honors from the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC). While at UCSC Jennifer helped build the Sustainability Office and founded the UCSC Carbon Fund which has since granted over $500,000 towards more than 50 projects reducing greenhouse gases and raising awareness. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, misses California trail running, and makes a mean apple pie.