Jessica Seddon is the global lead for air quality at the World Resources Institute (WRI), Senior Fellow at Yale’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, and an adjunct fellow (non-resident) with the Wadhwani Chair in U.S.-India Policy Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. At WRI, she leads a team of scientists, strategists, and practitioners who are focused on helping cities and countries manage their air to achieve health, ecosystem, and climate goals. Her own work focuses on the way that new sources of information and environmental awareness can be leveraged to motivate and guide cost-effective strategies for reducing polluting emissions and achieving clean air for all.
Seddon also serves on the advisory board of the Wilderhill Global Clean Energy Index (NEX) and the academic councils of Krea University, a new liberal arts initiative in South India, and the Indian School of Public Policy in New Delhi. Prior to joining WRI, Seddon co-founded and led Okapi, an India-based strategy group incubated at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras that focuses on institutional design for social innovation. Her earlier career spans academic and strategic advisory roles focused on institutional design for integrating science into policy and social initiatives. She has worked with numerous institutions in India, including as visiting fellow at IDFC Institute (Mumbai) and senior fellow at the Center for Technology and Policy, IIT Madras.
Seddon has published book chapters and articles on infrastructure, Indian political economy, information technology and governance, environmental regulation, and other institutional design topics in international academic and policy venues, including Cambridge University Press, the Journal of Development Economics, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Foreign Affairs, Bloomberg Businessweek, and Harvard Business Review. Seddon earned her Ph.D. in political economy from Stanford University Graduate School of Business and her B.A. in government and Latin American studies from Harvard University.
