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Senior Scientist — Stockholm Environment Institute
Dr. Heaps is the designer of LEAP, the Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning System, a scenario-based modelling system for integrated energy planning, air quality and climate change mitigation assessment. LEAP has thousands of users in over 190 countries worldwide including government agencies, national laboratories, academic institutions and non-governmental organizations. He is also the founder and manager of an online initiative designed to foster a community among developing country energy analysts working on energy for sustainable development, which currently has over 40,000 members worldwide. LEAP has been used by more than 40 countries as their main framework for planning their commitments to the UNFCCC’s climate process, and it’s also used by the State of MA as its main analytical tool for planning how to achieve MA’s commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. Dr. Heaps studied energy engineering in the UK before doing a Ph.D. in environmental technology at Imperial College in London. He has been with SEI throughout his career since 1990, starting as a researcher and including stints as the founding director of SEI’s US research center hosted by Tufts University. Dr. Heaps has worked in more than fifty countries around the world. He has consulted widely with numerous national and international agencies including US-EPA, US-AID, US-DOE, UNEP, UNFCCC, UNIDO, UNDP, and the World Bank. In 2015, Dr. Heaps was the first recipient of the LEDS-Global Partnership Award for “Leading LEDS Design”.