Michael A. Levi

Michael A. Levi is the David M. Rubenstein senior fellow for energy and environment at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a nonpartisan foreign-policy think tank and membership organization. Michael is the director of the CFR program on energy security and climate change. He is an expert on climate change, energy security, arms control, and nuclear terrorism.

Levi holds a BSc (Hons.) in mathematical physics from Queen's University, and an MA degree in physics from Princeton University, where he studied string theory and cosmology. He also holds a PhD in war studies from King's College London where he was the SSHRC William E. Taylor fellow.

Levi was previously a fellow for science and technology at the Council and, before that, a nonresident science fellow and a science-and-technology fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution. He was previously director of the flagship Strategic Security Project of the Federation of American Scientists.

Dr. Levi is author of The Power Surge: Energy, Opportunity, and the Battle for America’s Future (Oxford University Press, May 2013 ISBN 978-0199986163). In The Power Surge, Levi details two unfolding energy revolutions in the United States, and the implications that they might have for America’s economy, national security, and environment. Levi uses historical analysis, scientific data, and on-the-ground reporting to establish that America’s energy future need not be a zero-sum game. He argues that the best path forward lies in a strategy that increases "opportunities for energy production of all kinds, while penalizing dangerous energy consumption that would worsen climate change and sustain U.S. dependence on oil."

Levi is also the author of the book On Nuclear Terrorism (Harvard University Press, 2007) and coauthor with Michael E. O'Hanlon of The Future of Arms Control (Brookings Institution Press, 2005). His 2005 monograph with Michael D’Arcy, Untapped Potential: U.S. Science and Technology Cooperation with the Islamic World was the first comprehensive study of science and technology in the Muslim world. His recent writings include studies of natural gas exports, the Canadian oil sands, and the global politics and economics of clean energy innovation.

• The Power Surge: Energy, Opportunity, and the Battle for America's Future (Oxford University Press, May 2013, ISBN 978-019-998616-3)
• America's Energy Opportunity; How to Harness the New Sources of U.S. Power May/June 2013 Foreign Affairs
• A Strategy for U.S. Natural Gas Exports 2012
• How to Salvage the Climate Conference Copenhagen's Inconvenient Truth September/October 2009 Foreign Affairs referring to the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009
• Stopping Nuclear Terrorism: The Dangerous Allure of a Perfect Defense
• On Nuclear Terrorism, ISBN 978-0-674-02649-0