Dr. Benson is currently the Precourt Family Professor of Energy Science and Engineering at Stanford University where she focuses on practical ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including safely storing carbon dioxide deep underground and analyzing how we can build energy systems that support a low-carbon future.
She previously served as Co-Director of the Stanford Center for Carbon Storage and the Stanford Center for Carbon Removal as well as the Director and Co-Director of the Precourt Institute for Energy. She also served as Stanford’s Director of the Global Climate and Energy Project. From 2021 to 2023, she took a leave from Stanford to serve as the Energy Division Director and Chief Strategist for the Energy Transition at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Dr. Benson’s career began at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where she spent 30 years advancing to senior leadership roles including Deputy Director for Operations, Associate Laboratory Director for Energy Sciences, and Director of the Earth Sciences Division. Her prolific academic work includes more than 160 peer-reviewed articles and major contributions to landmark reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Global Energy Assessment.
Among her many honors, Dr. Benson was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, is a Foreign Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Al Attiyah Foundation for her work educating the next generation of energy leaders.
She currently serves on the Board of the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute and is a member of the Innovation Council at Breakthrough Energy. In addition, Dr. Benson is an active member of the Scientific Review Committee for the Earth and Environmental Sciences Area at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She is also on the Editorial Board of Energy and Environmental Science, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry, and is a member of the Energy and Environmental Science Directorate Advisory Board at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory as well as a member of the Advisory Board for the School of Science and Engineering at the Lahore University of Management Sciences in Pakistan. A dedicated advocate for gender equity in clean energy, she is an ambassador for the Clean Energy, Education, and Empowerment Initiative (C3E), where she also hosts the annual leadership symposium at Stanford University on Advancing Women’s Leadership in Clean Energy.