Membership News

Lee Schipper, dedicated to energy efficiency and environment, dead at 64

Leon (Lee) J. Schipper, who devoted his career to transport, energy efficiency and the environment, passed away after a struggle with pancreatic cancer. Schipper, who died on August 16 at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley, was 64.

His passion for data led him to question the value of popular energy policies, like government subsidies for ethanol and for electric cars and the "cash for clunkers" program, The New York Times said.

Since 2008, Schipper was a senior research engineer at Stanford University’s Precourt Energy Efficiency Center (PEEC), where developed research and policy studies on efficient energy use in transportation systems. He simultaneously worked as senior project scientist at the University of California-Berkeley’s Global Metropolitan Studies. Schipper was a cofounder of EMBARQ, the World Resources Institute (WRI) Center for Sustainable Transport, in 2002 and remained with the center as senior associate emeritus.

Schipper was a member of IAEE since it launched in 1979. He was intensely involved in many IAEE conferences as chair, organizer and speaker. "Lee was always full of energy and ideas. Over the years, he brought together the leaders of industry and academia from around the globe to discuss and debate a variety of energy topics at our conferences. He will be greatly missed" said IAEE President Mine Yucel.

Born and raised in southern California, Schipper in 1968 earned his bachelor’s degree in physics and music from the UC-Berkeley, where he also earned his doctorate in astrophysics. He was a Fulbright scholar at the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics in Stockholm. He worked at Shell International Petroleum Co., and was a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for two decades. Schipper worked at the International Energy Agency in Paris as visiting scientist from 1995 to 2001. He has been a guest researcher at the World Bank, VVS Tekniska Foerening, the OECD Development Center, and the Stockholm Environment Institute.

"Lee developed and taught a great course in sustainable transportation, organized a transport research seminar, and mentored and inspired students," said James Sweeney, director of PEEC. "I miss him as a colleague, especially his crashing through my door to share some new insight or question."

Schipper has authored over 100 technical papers, and a number of books on energy economics and transportation around the world, including the book Energy Efficiency and Human Activity: Past Trends, Future Prospects (1992) with Stephen Meyers, Richard Howarth and Ruth Steiner. He served on the editorial boards of five major journals in the fields. Schipper was a member of the Swedish Board for Transportation and Communications Research for four years and a member of the U.S. Transportation Research Board's Committee on Sustainable Transport and Committee on Developing Countries.

Outside of work, Schipper had a passion for jazz and played the vibraphone as lead of the quintet Lee Schipper and the Mitigators. In 1973, he recorded an album titled The Phunky Physicist. With his wife, Agneta, he owned two enormous Maine coon cats, Ophelia and Two-Paws.

Schipper’s daughter, Lisa, works on adaptation to climate change at the Stockholm Environment Institute. After living 13 years in Asia and Europe, Lisa recently moved back to Berkeley, where she lives with her husband, Markus Staas.

In addition to Agneta, Lisa and Staas, Lee Schipper is survived by his daughter Julia and son-in-law Ramon Munoz-Raskin of Washington, DC; and a sister, Amy Schipper-Howe, of Boise, Idaho.