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About me
About me
I am currently a postdoctoral research fellow at University of Saskatchewan, Canada. As part of the Community Appropriate Sustainable Energy Security (CASES) project, I work collaboratively with First Nations partners on co-producing sustainable energy futures in remote northern communities.
From 2022-2023, I was a social scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Energy & Environment Directorate and an Adjunct Faculty at Portland State University's School of Public Policy. Since 2016, I've been engaging with local communities globally to envision sustainable futures and co-create transition pathways.
As a researcher and educator, I specialize in participatory research and co-creating knowledge to advance sustainability transitions of marginalized communities and groups. I also create practical toolkits to apply knowledge in practice. As a seasoned energy engineer, I explore the energy-poverty nexus landscape and design place-based strategic pathways to transform the human and technical aspects of energy systems, to intensify individual and community well-being. I have mentored undergraduate and graduate students completing their degrees in India, Canada and the United States.
Recent
Recent
Planning energy presents and futures: Lessons from collaborative projects with Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation, Saskatchewan
Conference panel
in Renewables in Remote Communities Conference
(25-28 March, 2025)
News Feature: "Dr. Saurabh Biswas, a Research Fellow at the University of Saskatchewan, discussed the importance of taking a holistic approach to energy solutions, explaining: “Energy is just one thread from a bundled knot of yarn, representing the entire community and its barriers, challenges, and opportunities. You can’t just pull on the energy string and think the entire ball will untangle. Energy must be integrated with other community needs to create lasting impact.”
Let Communities Lead: Community knowledge capacities for local energy transitions
Edited by Saurabh Biswas, Davi François, Clark A. Miller, Mary Jane Parmentier, Witold-Roger Poganietz
Summary: a compelling collection of nine global stories that showcase how communities—rural and urban, marginalized and mainstream—are reimagining energy futures through knowledge, resilience, and collaboration. From hydro-powered independence in Colombia and solar empowerment in India and the Amazon, to participatory planning in Switzerland and Brussels, the report reveals how localized knowledge and civic leadership fuel inclusive and sustainable energy transformations.
Unpacking co-production and its possibilities: Why solving sustainability problems is both a science and an art
in TEDx UniversityofSaskatchewan 2024 : Courageous Curiosity
Summary: Sustainability problems are ‘wicked’ – a complex web of social, environmental, economic, and technological challenges that are constantly changing. Unforeseen challenges plague many promising technologies and programmatic solutions to sustainability problems, falling short on predicted outcomes and deviating from planned trajectories. A paradigm shift is therefore required, by moving the emphasis of solutions from prediction to anticipation and adaptability. Co-production, a modality of producing knowledge collaboratively and tackling multiple outcomes of planned actions, offers a strategic edge for designing solutions.
Exploring the landscape of home energy upgrades in the United States
Summary: Improving home energy efficiency and undertaking retrofits not only enhance comfort and health for residents—they’re also critical steps toward decarbonizing American homes. But what drives homeowners and renters across the USA to adopt these technologies? What regional differences shape these trends? And what tensions do people face when navigating their desires for a safe, healthy home, given the complexities of available energy solutions?
These are some of the questions explored in the twin articles on regional trends and the cognitive processes of decision-making in home energy upgrades in the USA. 10,000 surveys and 121 interviews went into this nearly two year long study.
Interested in reading more? Download the open access papers:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421523005256?dgcid=coauthor
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629624000021?dgcid=author
Integrated energy planning to end the energy–poverty nexus
Integrated energy planning to end the energy–poverty nexus
by Clark A. Miller, Saurabh Biswas, Wilbourne Showers, Nalini Chhetri, Netra Chhetri, BrieAnne Davis
in COP27 Policy Briefs
Summary: Ending the nexus between energy and poverty is a critical priority for advancing just energy transitions and meeting many of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. To achieve these goals, integrated energy planning needs to attend to: (a) how energy users will use energy productively or to create tangible value; (b) the knowledge, skills, and equipment to use energy effectively; and (c) the net value created through energy use, including benefits, costs, risks, and burdens. In this way, energy investments and projects can be designed in ways that result in high levels of societal benefit, contribute to economic growth and sustainable development, and are bankable to investors and sustainable over the long-term.
The human development paradigm and social value of energy
The human development paradigm and social value of energy
by Saurabh Biswas, Faheem Hussain, Mary Jane Parmentier
in the Routledge Handbook of Energy Transitions*
Abstract: Marginalization of communities is a global, multidimensional challenge with social, ecological, and economic implications for sustainable futures. Energy systems may be an active component in the creation and perpetuation of marginalization, as well as in its disruption. Therefore, while one of the key goals of undertaking deliberate transitions of energy systems lies in rapidly cutting emissions for planetary well-being, an equally critical and inseparable goal is to transform the human well-being landscape – i.e., to accelerate human development in at-risk and marginalized communities. This chapter explores facets of human development including equitable growth, agency, identity, socioeconomic opportunity and justice, safeguards for vulnerabilities to climate change and exclusion, and so on, in disadvantaged communities undergoing localized energy transitions. Employing the social value of energy framework for a systemic analysis of case studies from Bolivia, Nepal, and Bangladesh, illustrations of positive shifts, missed opportunities, and future pathways of the intertwined energy and human development transitions are discussed.
*'Best Edited Book about Energy' for 2023, American Energy Society
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