Jonathan Elkind is a Fellow and Adjunct Senior Research Scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy. Elkind comes to the Center after a long and distinguished career devoted to energy and environment policy in the private and public sectors. Since 2009, he has worked on international energy and climate issues at the United States Department of Energy, helping to coordinate policy objectives within the Obama Administration as well as lead climate and energy programs with key global partners. He departed DOE as Assistant Secretary for International Affairs.

In 2002 he founded Eastlink Consulting, LLC where he guided corporate and non-profit clients on commercial energy projects in Europe and Eurasia, and starting in 2006 he served as a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, researching international energy security issues. He left Eastlink and Brookings in 2009 to accept his position at the Department of Energy.

Early in his career, Elkind focused on energy, environment and economic issues in post-Soviet nations. He was a senior researcher at the Joint Global Change Research Institute, director for Russian, Ukrainian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council, special advisor for international affairs at the Office of the Vice President of the United States, assistant to the United States Secretary of Energy, and a senior policy analyst at the Council on Environmental Quality.

Elkind holds a Master of Business Administration in Strategy and International Business from the R.H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, a Master of Arts in Russian History and Certificate in Soviet Studies from the W. Averell Harriman Institute, and a Bachelor of Arts with Distinction in History from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.