Sally M. Benson is the Precourt family professor in the Department of Energy Resources Engineering at Stanford University. From 2021 to 2023, she was on leave from the university to serve as the energy division director and chief strategist for the energy transition at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Prior to this, she served as director of the Global Climate and Energy Project and co-director of Stanford’s Precourt Institute for Energy. Before joining Stanford, Benson was division director for Earth sciences, associate laboratory director for energy sciences, and deputy director at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Benson is currently a trustee of the Packard Foundation, a member of the Breakthrough Energy Innovation Council, and a board member of the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute. Over the past several years she participated in a number of National Academy of Sciences, secretary of energy, and National Petroleum Council research needs assessments related to carbon management.