uday headshot

Uday Varadarajan

Senior Principal
  • Carbon-Free Electricity

Uday focuses on how to use cutting edge data and financial, policy, and regulatory analysis to help drive a just transition to clean energy.

Background

Before joining RMI, Uday was a Principal at CPI Energy Finance, managing their San Francisco team. At CPI, he led the development of innovative financial, regulatory, and policy data analytics and tools that are helping consumers, utilities, and communities in states across the US (including New York, Colorado, Missouri, Minnesota, Utah, and South Carolina) realize the benefits from a just and equitable transition from uneconomic dirty resources to clean energy. Prior to moving to the Bay Area, he served as a program examiner in the U.S. White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), where oversaw the budget for U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) energy efficiency and renewable energy programs and the cost assessment and approval of the first $8 billion in DOE loans to automakers, including loans to Tesla and Nissan to build electric vehicles. Before joining OMB, he was a AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the Department of Energy and then on detail to the staff of the U.S. House of Representatives, Appropriations Committee. He came to DC after completing a postdoctoral fellowship in theoretical physics in the Weinberg Theory Group at the University of Texas at Austin. In addition to his role at RMI, he is also a Precourt Energy Scholar at Stanford’s Sustainable Finance Initiative.

Education

A.B. Physics, Princeton University 1996

M.A. Physics, University of California at Berkeley 1998

Ph.D. Physics, University of California at Berkeley 2003

Postdoctoral Fellow, Weinberg Theory Group at UT Austin, 2003-2006

AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow, 2006-2008

Why I Love Working At RMI

“I’m excited to join a dedicated, passionate, and thoughtful group of people working together to realize a vision of a cleaner, more sustainable energy system.”