Graduation Date: December 2010
M.S. Civil and Environmental Engineering (Atmosphere/Energy); S.M. Earth and Planetary Sciences (MIT); B.A. Astrophysics (Williams College)

Owen Westbrook worked with the UCS clean energy team on several projects ranging from writing for the general public to more technical analysis. His first task was to update the UCS public web page describing "How Natural Gas Works." In the fifteen years since the page was last reviewed, the United States has seen a dramatic expansion in unconventional natural gas resources (such as shale gas and coalbed methane) thanks to hydraulic fracturing, a widely-used technology with poorly understood environmental impacts. Through his research on the subject, Owen helped shape the public UCS position on hydraulic fracturing and shale gas development.

In addition to the natural gas project, Owen wrote up several case studies for an upcoming UCS report on renewable energy in the Midwest, researching topics as varied as biogas digesters on Wisconsin dairy farms and the growing solar industry in Michigan and Ohio. He also wrote content for a national wind power fact sheet and coauthored an article on offshore wind technologies for the UCS newsletter. Owen also worked on a few more technical projects, evaluating reports on biomass energy and natural gas written by outside organizations, analyzing coal plant emissions data, and developing a spreadsheet-based tool for calculating the carbon footprint of solar photovoltaics. He continued to work on the latter two projects on a part-time basis after returning to Stanford to finish his degree.

Owen's summer at UCS was set against a backdrop of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and concerted but ultimately fruitless efforts by the environmental community to get a comprehensive climate and energy bill passed. His Fellowship thus exposed him to some of the frustrations of working in the environmental community but also to the inspiring example of a dedicated group of people advocating for science-based public policy and a sustainable future.

“This was my first exposure to the public policy side of clean energy and environmentalism. Being around an environmental advocacy group during the BP oil spill in the Gulf and the struggle to get clean energy and climate legislation passed in the US Senate was eye-opening, and I feel far more politically aware than I did coming into the summer.”

“The MAP Fellowship program consistently provides high quality and dedicated individuals that can step right in and tackle often complex projects that are important to our overall mission.”