Chella Rajan
Associate Fellow

Sudhir Chella Rajan is Professor at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and Coordinator of the Indo-German Centre for Sustainability. Previously, he was a senior fellow at the Tellus Institute, where he worked on energy scenarios and global politics and institutions. He has an extensive research background in transportation, energy systems, and the institutional and political context of environmental policymaking. He is broadly concerned with the interactions among social, political, technological, and environmental factors relating to sustainable development. His research has included energy and environmental scenario analyses, the politics of automobility and pollution control, power sector reform in developing countries, and analysis of institutional reform measures to reduce corruption. Prior to joining the Tellus Institute, he worked at the California Air Resources Board and the International Energy Initiative and as an independent consultant for the United Nations Development Programme. He holds a PhD in environmental science and engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Selected Tellus Publications
Contours of the Future: Alternative Scenarios for the Boston Region (with Paul Raskin and James Goldstein)
Global Politics and Institutions: A ‘Utopistic’ View
Focus on Bioregions (contribution to GTI Forum An Earth Constitution: Has Its Time Come?)
The Global Shapes the Local (contribution to GTI Forum Think Globally, Act Locally?)
The Church of Economism and Its Discontents (contribution to a forum)