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Meera Atreya, Ph.D.

Meera Atreya, Ph.D.

Director of EMEA Advisory & Senior Scientist

Net Zero Strategy + Sustainable Bioresource Supply and Use + Biomass Carbon Removal and Storage (BiCRS) + Biofuel

Dr. Meera Atreya leads Carbon Direct’s office in Europe. As a Director and Senior Scientist at Carbon Direct, Meera and her team help organizations take climate action by reducing their greenhouse gas emissions and supporting high-quality carbon removal projects.

Dr. Atreya has worked in climate technology research and strategic advisory since 2009. She was the lead author of Bioresources within a Net-Zero Emissions Economy, a report by the Energy Transitions Commission evaluating the role of sustainable bioresources in climate change mitigation. While at SYSTEMIQ, a sustainability-focused systems change company, Meera provided strategic advice to a major climate-focused philanthropic foundation and co-authored a report on alleviating the plastic waste crisis; the United Nations Environment Programme is currently using this analysis as the basis for a global plastics treaty. Prior to SYSTEMIQ, Meera was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, where she was designated as an Affiliate Expert in Renewable Energy & Cleantech and was a key member of the team that steered McKinsey to address its own global carbon emissions. 

Meera is based in London and is an advisory board member of both the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) and Carbon Gap. She holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry (Chemical Biology) from UC Berkeley and an A.B. cum laude from Harvard. Dr. Atreya was awarded a US National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship for her doctoral research on engineering enzymes to improve the efficiency, and lower the cost, of converting cellulosic biomass to 2nd-generation biofuels.

Education

Ph.D., Chemistry (Chemical Biology)
University of California, Berkeley

A.B. cum laude, Chemical & Physical Biology
Harvard University

Awards

Member, Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) Expert Advisory Group on Beyond Value Chain Mitigation (BVCM)

Member, Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) Technical Advisory Group

Member, Carbon Gap Advisory Board

Designated Affiliate Expert in Renewable Energy & Cleantech, McKinsey & Company

Fellow, McKinsey Social Responsibility Fellowship

Fellow, US National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship

Winner, Harvard University Hoopes Thesis Prize