Institute for Global Sustainability Announces Interim Director Cutler Cleveland
By Alexa Kwon
The Boston University Institute for Global Sustainability (IGS) has announced Cutler Cleveland as its interim director.
Cleveland, an associate director with IGS and a professor of Earth & Environment in the College of Arts & Sciences, is a highly respected academic leader who has been part of the Boston University community for over 35 years.
“I look forward to working with the vibrant IGS community to build on the University’s leadership in addressing the critical sustainability challenges and opportunities facing society today,” said Cleveland.
His research and teaching focus on the connection between energy, climate change, and sustainability. Cleveland is the founder and co-leader of Visualizing Energy, an open-access, interdisciplinary science communication project that aims to increase actionable knowledge about a sustainable and just energy transition. He led the development of the Massachusetts Energy Explorer, a public data platform that consolidates state, regional, and federal energy data to help policymakers, municipal officials, and researchers track and inform Massachusetts’s clean energy transition.
Cleveland holds a BS in Biology from Cornell University, an MS in Marine Science from Louisiana State University, and a PhD in Geography from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Benjamin Sovacool has stepped down from his leadership role to focus on his role as a Coordinating Lead Author (CLA) for the upcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Seventh Assessment Report (AR7). Sovacool, a leading scholar on global energy and climate policy, has been crucial to the growth of IGS since 2022. He will continue as a member of the IGS Core Faculty and as a Professor of Earth & Environment in the College of Arts & Sciences.
The process is underway to appoint new permanent leadership for IGS.