Jalal Awan is an energy and climate policy researcher with expertise spanning utility regulation, infrastructure risk, and data-driven policy analysis. He joins APR as a volunteer contributor.
Jalal spent six years as an Assistant Policy Researcher at RAND Corporation (2017-2023), conducting quantitative research for DHS, CDC, and the National Cooperative Highway Research Program. His peer-reviewed work covers biosurveillance, critical infrastructure risk, autonomous vehicles, and environmental sensing, with publications in Nature, Health Security, and the Journal of Critical Infrastructure Policy. He also served as a Research Fellow at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Vienna in 2023, collaborating on low-cost air quality sensor deployment under a Horizon Europe citizen science grant.
Jalal began his career as an electrical engineer at Engro (formerly Exxon Mobil) in Pakistan, gaining hands-on experience in electrical systems at one of largest single-train urea manufacturing facilities in the world. That engineering foundation grounds his policy work in operational reality.
He holds a Ph.D. in Policy Analysis from the RAND Graduate School, an M.S. in Energy Systems from the University of Southern California as a Fulbright Scholar, and a B.E. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Engineering and Technology in Lahore. His expertise spans utility rate case analysis, benefit-cost modeling, data science (Python, R), and infrastructure investment evaluation.