Dr. Michelle Michot Foss is the Chief Energy Economist and Head of the Center for Energy Economics (CEE) at the Bureau of Economic Geology, The University of Texas at Austin.
The CEE is a multidisciplinary business and public policy program on energy and associated environmental issues, formerly the Institute for Energy, Law & Enterprise at the University of Houston Law Center (UH IELE). The CEE is a center for excellence on commercial frameworks for energy development across the energy value chains.
At CEE, Dr. Michot Foss directs and conducts research; advises U.S. and international energy companies; publishes and speaks widely on energy issues; and provides public commentary and testimony to governments (most recently on ultra deep oil and gas, U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Energy, April 29, 2004). She developed and directs New Era in Oil, Gas & Power Value Creation, an international capacity building program, which is the principle investigator for the CEE’s LNG consortium, Commercial Frameworks for LNG in North America, the principle investigator on a number of federal agency grants and cooperative agreements. In addition to Texas and the U.S., the CEE has experience in Canada and Mexico; South America; Russia and the Caspian; Western Europe and Turkey; West Africa; and East Asia.
While at UH from 1991-2005, Dr. Michot Foss was a UH Shell Interdisciplinary Scholar and Shell Graduate Fellow, coordinator of the Natural Gas Project and founder and director of the Energy Institute (both merged into the UH IELE). She was previously a director of research at Simmons & Company, an investment bank specializing in oil field services, and director of research at Rice Center, an urban regional economics, energy, and transportation research group.
She was selected one of the Key Women in Energy-Americas (2003). She was the 2003 president of the International Association for Energy Economics; is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations; is a member of Women’s Energy Network; and is a partner in Harvest Gas Management, a Texas-based exploration company. She is a member of the Scientific Council, 50th Anniversary of ENI, Commemorative Encyclopedia of Hydrocarbons; serves on the advisory board of Energy Magazine and the Energy & Environment Law & Policy Journal, University of Houston Law Center; and the editorial board of the International Journal of Regulation and Governance. In 2006, Dr. Michot Foss was selected to be a Senior Fellow by the US Association for Energy Economics for her contribution to the profession and association.
She holds degrees from University of Louisiana-Lafayette (B.S., biology with geology minor); Colorado School of Mines (M.S., economics), where she coordinated the Energy & Minerals Field Institute; and University of Houston (Ph.D., political science).