Climate Change, Energy, PWH Graduate Essay Prize Perry World House Announces Winner of 2023 Graduate Essay Prize

Perry World House, the University of Pennsylvania's hub for global affairs, has announced the winner of its first ever Graduate Essay Prize. This $1,200 prize highlights insightful, original graduate writing on how policy can tackle urgent global challenges.

The inaugural winner is Max Pisciotta, a PhD candidate in chemical engineering at Penn. Their essay “Geothermal Energy: A Missing Piece in the Equitable Energy Transition,” explores how geothermal energy – energy derived from the heat deep beneath the Earth’s surface – could ease the shift from fossil fuels to renewables. They argue that, while geothermal energy is controversial among climate change experts because it has deep parallels with extraction industries, it produces far fewer carbon emissions and has the potential to generate power continuously, making it suitable to provide renewable baseload power.

The essay further argues that geothermal energy could also ease social and political tensions around the energy transition by providing employment opportunities for those currently working in the fossil fuel industry, who otherwise face losing their livelihoods in the drive to decarbonize the global economy.

Read the winning essay

Pisciotta's research focuses on carbon capture and carbon removal technologies and industrial decarbonization. Prior to starting their PhD at Penn, they graduated with a BS and MS in mechanical engineering from the Colorado School of Mines, and briefly worked as a technology analyst at Accenture. When Pisciotta is not in the lab, they can be found doing LGBTQ+ advocacy on Penn's campus, running, or working to communicate scientific findings to the public. They are also part of the 2022-2023 cohort of Graduate Associates at Perry World House, a program designed to help Penn graduate students build networks and develop skills to engage policymaking.

Learn more about the Graduate Associate Prize