State Senator (D-31)
Colorado General Assembly
Denver, Colorado
Senator Chris Hansen represents Senate District 31 in the Colorado State Senate. He specializes in energy sector economics and data analytics, with 20+ years of experience in the global energy industry. He currently serves on the Joint Budget Committee, as well as Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Prior to his work as an elected official, he was Senior Director at IHS Markit where he led a global portfolio of energy products, events and partnerships. He is a co-creator of the OptGen analysis tool, IHS CERA’s unique approach for applying financial portfolio techniques to power generation. Before joining IHS Markit, Dr. Hansen was a Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, where he analyzed electricity and gas sector reform in India and published several papers in professional journals on energy sector economics and policy analysis. Dr. Hansen holds a BSc in Nuclear Engineering from Kansas State University; a Graduate Diploma of Civil Engineering from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa; a Master of Science in Engineering Systems from MIT; and a PhD in Economic Geography from Oxford University. In 2012, he was selected as a Marshall Memorial Fellow by the German Marshall Fund and in 2017 was selected as a Public Leadership Fellow at Harvard University by the Gates Family Foundation. In 2019, he was selected as one of fifteen leaders from across the country to join the NewDEAL (Developing Exceptional American Leaders). In addition to his current role in the state senate, Hansen serves as Chairman of the Board of Western Freedom, a non-profit dedicated to the integration of the power system and RTO in the West. He is also the Co-Founder and Director at the Colorado Energy & Water Institute, and as Founder of the Colorado Science and Engineering Policy Fellowship.
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Tuesday, March 12, 2024
8:30 AM – 9:45 AM MT