About

I am a PhD candidate and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow in the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley. My research centers on the political economy of critical mineral supply chains for energy transitions, with a focus on China and Latin America. At UC Berkeley, I am a member of Prof. Meg Mills-Novoa's Climate Futures Lab, Prof. Nancy Lee Peluso's Land Lab, and Prof. Youjin Chung's Critical Ruralities Lab. I am also affiliated with Dean Kelly Sims Gallagher's Climate Policy Lab in The Fletcher School at Tufts University and Prof. Julie Klinger's lab at the University of Delaware.

Before joining UC Berkeley, I served as an Assistant Researcher for the Climate Policy Lab. There, I led research on critical minerals and energy transitions, with a focus on China, Latin America, and Africa. I also collaborated with in-country climate policy experts and government officials to conduct climate policy gap analyses of Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Vietnam, and Indonesia.

I completed master’s studies as a Marshall Scholar at the universities of Cambridge (MPhil Geographical Research) and Oxford (MSt Critical Translation), and undergraduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley (BS Environmental Science, Policy, and Management). Other relevant experiences include collaboration with Dr. Elia Apostolopoulou, Prince of Wales Global Sustainability Fellow at the University of Cambridge, on an edited volume on China’s Belt and Road Initiative; research assistance at the California-China Climate Institute; coding for the Oxford Coronavirus Government Response Tracker; and work as a journalist. My writings have appeared in the Journal of Rural Studies, Land Use Policy, Orion, and elsewhere.  

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I am intermediate in Mandarin Chinese (HSK 5) and Spanish.

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All photos on this website are courtesy of Emma Leonard. For more information, visit emmalleonard.com.