Dr. Jessica Seddon

Biography

Jessica Seddon’s work on environmental governance focuses on new sources of data leveraged to enable new and sustainable ways of interacting with the environment. Her career spans academic, program leadership, and strategic advisory roles focused on institutional design that integrates science, policy, and social initiatives. Seddon is the co-founder of the Institutional Architecture Lab (TIAL) and has served as a Visiting Senior Fellow at Artha Global and the Adjunct Fellow and Chair for U.S.-India Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). She also serves on the academic council of the Indian School of Public Policy in New Delhi. Her work addresses governance aspects related to the atmosphere, climate change, air quality, and climate intervention. Seddon built and led a global air quality program at the World Resources Institute (WRI) and co-chairs the Global Air Quality Forecasting Information Services initiative with the World Meteorological Organization. Additionally, she is a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Futures Council on Clean Air. Before joining WRI, Seddon co-founded and led Okapi, an India-based strategy group incubated at the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras that focuses on institutional design for social innovation. She has worked with numerous institutions in India and has been a visiting fellow at the IDFC Institute and a senior fellow at the Center for Technology Policy at IIT Madras. Seddon's publications include book chapters and articles on infrastructure, Indian political economy, information technology governance, and environmental regulation in international academic and policy venues, including Cambridge University Press and the Journal of Development Economics.

Research Interests