UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The fall 2022 Celebrating Women in Energy and Water Research seminar series at Penn State will conclude on Thursday, Dec. 1, with two seminars by Karen Palmer, senior fellow and director of the Electric Power Program at Resources for the Future (RFF). The free seminars are open to Penn State faculty, staff, graduate and undergraduate students. 

The first discussion, “From the Woods of Maine to the Policy Jungles of DC and Beyond: The Story of a Career in Research, Policy Engagement, and Professional Service,” will be held at 11 a.m. in 402 Steidle Building at University Park. Palmer will discuss the path she took from an undergraduate interested in promoting economic development in her home state of Maine to an economics Ph.D. researcher at a Washington, D.C., think tank providing advice to environmental and energy policymakers. 

The second talk, “Beyond Clean Energy: The Financial Incidence and Health Effects of the IRA,” will be held at 4 p.m. 401 Steidle Building. The technical seminar will cover an in-depth analysis of the tax provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which targets grid-connected electricity generation, and how households will be affected by changes in electricity prices and costs, as well as the impact on public health due to changes in carbon dioxide emissions and other air pollutants. 

Palmer is an expert on the economics of environmental, climate and public utility regulation of the electric power sector. She has served on three National Academies study panels, including one on the future of electricity from renewables and one on the future of electric power in the U.S. She is president of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE) and serves on the Environmental Advisory Council to the New York ISO and on the Future Power Market Forum Advisory Group. She is the recipient of the Public Utility Research Center’s 2015 Distinguished Service Award and was elected as an AERE Fellow in 2018.