Kelly Sims Gallagher

Kelly Sims Gallagher is the dean of The Fletcher School at Tufts University, where she also serves as a professor of energy and environmental policy and directs the Climate Policy Lab. A leading scholar on climate and energy policy, Gallagher’s research focuses on how public policy drives the innovation and deployment of cleaner energy technologies, and she is especially known for her work on climate policy in major emerging economies.

Before becoming dean in 2024, Gallagher served as interim dean and previously as academic dean, academic faculty, and founding director of the Climate Policy Lab at Fletcher. She also co‑directs the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy. Gallagher spent part of the Obama administration as a senior policy advisor in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and as senior China advisor in the Office of the Special Envoy for Climate Change at the U.S. State Department.

Her publications include "Titans of the Climate," "The Global Diffusion of Clean Energy Technologies," and "China Shifts Gears," and her work has shaped academic scholarship and practical climate strategies worldwide. Gallagher is a board member of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, a non‑resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.