Jessica Seddon

Jessica Seddon’s work on environmental governance focuses on how novel data sources, technologies, and analytical tools can be leveraged to enable new (and more sustainable) ways of interacting with the environment around us. Her career in India and the U.S. spans academic, program leadership, and strategic advisory roles focused on institutional design for integrating science into policy and social initiatives. Seddon is a co-founder of The Institutional Architecture Lab (TIAL) and a Fellow with the African Tech Futures Lab. She serves on the academic council of the Indian School of Public Policy in New Delhi. 

Seddon has most recently focused on governance of various aspects of the atmosphere, from climate change to air quality to climate intervention. She built and led the global air quality program at the World Resources Institute (WRI) and co-chairs the Global Air Quality Forecasting and Information Services initiative of the World Meteorological Organization. She co-chairs the Oversight Committee for the Exploring Climate Cooling Program at the UK Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA). Prior to 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, including as visiting fellow at IDFC Institute (Mumbai), later Artha Global, 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. She 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.

• Institutional Architecture and Future Global Governance, Institutional Architecture Lab, 2024
• Interstate transport of carbon monoxide and black carbon over India, Atmospheric Environment, 2021
• Monitoring environmental change and human health: Planetary Health Watch, The Lancet, 2020
• Urban Interstices: Statistical Advocacy and Urban Infrastructure, Cityscapes, 2011

Read more from Seddon at her Substack or her blog