Dr Jakob Peter has been Secretary-General and Managing Director of the Council of Experts on Climate Change (ERK) since September 2021. Before joining the ERK, he worked as Senior Manager Energy Systems & Sector Coupling at Enertrag AG (Berlin), in addition to his engagement in Strategy & Analysis at the startup Caphenia (Frankfurt / Berlin). He completed his studies in mechanical engineering at ETH Zurich and Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg. He worked at Voith Hydro R&D Ocean Energies (Heidenheim and Inverness, Scotland), myclimate Carbon Offsetting (Zurich) and Climeworks (Zurich), among others. Subsequently, as a Fellow of the Mercator Kolleg for International Assignments, he worked as a consultant for Sustainable Investment Partners (Zurich), the German Federal Ministry for the Environment (Berlin) and the International Energy Agency IEA (Paris). From 2014 to 2019, he worked as a consultant at ewi Energy Research & Scenarios (Cologne) and completed a part-time PhD in economics at the Institute of Energy Economics (EWI) at the University of Cologne.

Jessica Berneiser already worked for the Council of Experts on Climate Change (ERK) in 2021 and again since April 2022 as a Scientific Associate. She studied Psychology and Economics at the University of Freiburg and completed her Master’s degree in Psychology at the University of Leipzig. During her semesters abroad at the University of Bergen and UC Berkeley, she focused on International Environmental Policy. Since 2018, Jessica Berneiser has been working as a Research Assistant at Fraunhofer ISE. In her research, she investigates factors influencing the energy transition and policy measures in various sectors, the role of actors in decarbonisation, and the acceptance of renewable energies and environment-related policy measures.

Iska Brunzema has been a Scientific Associate for the Council of Experts on Climate Change (ERK) since March 2021, as well as a research associate at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI. She studied geography and sociology at the University of Heidelberg. Her focus was on the fields of economic geography and organisational research. During her studies, she worked as an intern and as a research assistant at Fraunhofer ISI from 2019 to 2021 in the business units Actors and Acceptance in the Transformation of the Energy System and Energy Policy. Her research currently focuses in particular on the evaluation of goals and instruments in energy policy and the roles of actors in the energy transition and energy policy processes.

Dr Katrin Kohnert has been a Scientific Associate at the office of the Council of Experts on Climate Change (ERK) since November 2021. Previously, she worked at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries on climate change-induced changes in water bodies, in particular on greenhouse gas exchange between water bodies and the atmosphere. As part of her doctorate, she studied greenhouse gas emissions from Arctic permafrost regions as a research assistant at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences. She received her doctorate in Environmental Sciences (Dr. rer. nat) from the Technical University of Braunschweig and studied Geoecology (B.Sc.) and Global Change Ecology (M.Sc.) at the University of Bayreuth with a semester abroad at the University of Iceland in Reykjavík.

Nicole Niesler has been a Scientific Associate for the Council of Experts on Climate Change (ERK) since May 2021, as well as a Research Associate and PhD student at the Institute of Energy Economics (EWI) at the University of Cologne. She completed her Master’s degree in Economic Policy Consulting at the Ruhr University Bochum and her Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration at the University of Cologne. Her focus was on environmental, resource and energy economics. During her studies, she already worked at the Institute of Energy Economics (EWI) at the University of Cologne from 2020, having previously completed an internship there in 2019. Furthermore, she completed an internship at the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) in the department of Access to Electricity Transmission Networks and Cross-Border Electricity Trade from 2019 to 2020.

Simon Schnier has been a Scientific Associate at the office of the Council of Experts on Climate Change (ERK) since September 2021. He completed his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Economics at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster. His focus was on climate and environmental economics as well as empirical methods. During his studies, he worked at the Institute for Housing from 2015 to 2019 and at the Institute for Public and Regional Economics from 2019 to 2021. Furthermore, he completed an internship at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in the Department of Energy, Transport, Environment in 2018.

Charlotte Senkpiel has been working for the Council of Experts on Climate Change (ERK) as a Scientific Associate since the end of 2020 and has coordinated the work on the 2021 reports. She studied energy and environmental management at the University of Flensburg and the University of Otago. Since 2012, she has worked as a research associate at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, where she is part of the Energy Systems Analysis Group. There she leads projects focusing on the decarbonization of the energy system or individual sectors (e.g. buildings, industry) through the application, further development and analysis of energy system models. At the same time, she is doing her doctorate on the topic of integrating social science methods and findings into energy system models.

Dr Jan Stede has been a Scientific Associate at the office of the Council of Experts on Climate Change (ERK) since April 2021, as well as Senior Consultant and Head of Green Economy at Technopolis Germany. Previously, he worked as a research assistant at DIW Berlin since 2015. He completed his PhD in Economics at the DIW Graduate Center and the TU Berlin, with a research focus on decarbonisation in industry, energy efficiency in buildings and the integration of renewable energies. He studied his Master’s degree in Industrial and Network Economics at the TU Berlin and the University Federico II in Naples, and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics at the University of Cologne.

Dr Annette Steingrube has been working as a Scientific Associate for the Council of Experts on Climate Change (ERK) since the end of 2020. She studied mechanical engineering with a focus on renewable energies at RWTH Aachen University from 2007 to 2013. Since 2014, she has worked as a research assistant at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE. There she conducts research in the field of energy system analysis and modelling of urban energy systems with high shares of renewable energies in the electricity and heat supply. From 2015 to 2019, she completed her doctorate on the topic of modelling the decision-making behavior of households when investing in photovoltaic systems and heating systems at the University of Freiburg.

Marie Zeller has been a Scientific Associate for the Council of Experts on Climate Change (ERK) since March 2021. In addition, she works at the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) in Berlin in the Policy Unit with a focus on international climate policy. She studied Climate Physics (M.Sc.) at the University of Potsdam with a thesis at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research. Before that, she completed two bachelor’s degrees in political and administrative science and in physics with a focus on climate and environmental issues at the University of Konstanz. Furthermore, she worked at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Brussels as part of an internship from 2015 to 2016.