Carissa Hanjani
Senior Research Associate, Harvard Law School
Carissa Hanjani is a Research Manager for the Harvard Salata Institute’s Corporate Climate Targets Project, a research initiative studying corporate net-zero and other greenhouse gas emissions targets. In this role, she leads a team responsible for collecting climate targets data on the largest publicly traded firms in the U.S. covering a 25-year period, and conducts quantitative analysis on how climate targets shape corporate decision-making, and whether these goals translate into substantive corporate action and real emissions reductions. She has worked with Harvard faculties on academic research spanning corporate climate governance, environmental compliance, climate alliances, climate solutions, and the impact of climate target announcements on emissions reduction and financial indicators.
Carissa built her career in international development and climate policy, working with the Indonesian local and federal governments. At the World Bank, she worked on fiscal policy to leverage public service delivery advising the Ministry of Finance and managed a database on fiscal, socio and macroeconomics covering over 200 indicators over 20+ years period. She also contributed to publications on carbon pricing regulation and market-based instruments for environmental conservation. At the Global Green Growth Institute, she advised the Ministry of Environment and Forestry and local governments on nature-based solutions and payment for ecosystem services frameworks. At the Climate Policy Initiative, she supported the design of blended finance vehicles for high-value carbon sites across Madagascar, West Papua, Papua New Guinea, and Peru. Carissa holds a Master in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and dual Bachelor of Science degrees in Economics from the University of Birmingham and Universitas Indonesia.
The Salata Institute
The Salata Institute supports interdisciplinary research that leads to real-world action, including high-risk/high-reward projects by researchers already working in the climate area and new endeavors that make it easier for Harvard scholars, who have not worked on climate problems, to do so. Faculty interested in the Climate Research Clusters program should note an upcoming deadline for concepts on April 1, 2024.