Eleanor Hennessy

(Eleanor) Nora Hennessy is a Ph.D. candidate in energy resources engineering at Stanford University. Her research is focused on environmental justice and equity in the transition to clean energy with applications in the electricity and transportation sectors. She is a part of the Benson, INES and DIVE labs. Early in her Ph.D., Nora worked at the City of Palo Alto Utilities as the inaugural Karl Knapp Fellow in City Government, where she analyzed the cost-effectiveness of residential and commercial energy storage systems.

Prior to her Ph.D., Nora completed a M.S. in the Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford. Here, she focused on energy access in the developing world and clean energy systems. During her master’s program, she was a Schneider Fellow in energy access at the United Nations Foundation, where she developed a survey for energy access practitioners. She also participated in Engineers for a Sustainable World where she helped design a solar powered lantern charging station. After completing her master’s degree she worked as a research analyst at the Center for Sustainable Energy.

During her time at Stanford, Nora has been involved in the Stanford Energy Club serving on the projects team as head of the educational outreach project and leading a project in which students identified unique business opportunities for a long duration energy storage company. She also served as the student leader for the Solutions Project and was recently a student board member of the Partnerships for Climate Justice in the Bay Area.