Paasha Mahdavi is Associate Professor of Political Science and Affiliated Professor of Environmental Science & Management, Director of the Energy Governance and Political Economy (EGAPE) Lab, and Co-Founder of The 2035 Initiative at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research focuses on the impact of oil and gas resources on governance and environmental politics. He is the author of Power Grab (Cambridge 2020) and numerous articles in leading academic journals such as the Journal of Politics, Nature Energy, PNAS, and World Politics. Mahdavi is a non-resident fellow at the Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy and at the Payne Institute, a former GFC fellow at the World Economic Forum, and a Term Member at the Council on Foreign Relations. Mahdavi serves as a consultant for the non-profit Natural Resources Governance Institute, as a consulting expert in climate litigation, and as an adviser for oil and gas policy in the U.S. and internationally.