Our People
Professor Christian Brand
Fellow, Ordinary Fellow
Professor in Transport, Energy and Climate Change
School of Geography and the Environment
DPhil (Oxon), MSc (Imperial, London), Dipl-Phys (Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg)
Professor Christian Brand is an interdisciplinary environmental scientist, physicist and geographer with over 25 years research experience in academic and consultancy environments. He is Professor in Transport, Energy and Climate Change at the University of Oxford’s Transport Studies Unit and Environmental Change Institute. He received his DPhil in Geography and the Environment from the University of Oxford in 2006.
At Oxford, Christian’s research interests revolve around the development and use of low carbon scenarios and transitions pathways for transport, the role of walking, cycling and other forms of active travel in meeting public health and climate change goals, and interdisciplinary issues in transport, energy and climate change policy. Over the past 15 years he has been principal or co-investigator on research projects worth over £20 million. He is Co-Director of the UK Energy Research Centre, where he is leading projects on energy-transport systemic change and deep decarbonisation pathways for transport. He is Co-Investigator of ELEVATE, a major new research project exploring the role that electrically assisted modes of transport including e-bikes, e-cargo bikes, e-scooters and e-trikes might have in reducing mobility-related energy demand and carbon emissions. Christian also leads a major project in the Centre for Research on Energy Demand Solutions on the impacts of lifestyle and social change on mobility-related energy demand. He is Co-investigator on the FCDO’s Climate Compatible Growth programme working with local partners in low and middle income countries on transport decarbonisation. He has led ground-breaking research on evaluating the health, carbon and mobility impacts of active travel interventions, working with British, European and global partners such as the WHO.
He is the author of over 50 peer reviewed journal papers, including Nature Energy and Global Environmental Change. He has authored over 30 book chapters and technical reports, and contributed to Greta Thunberg’s The Climate Book. He serves on the board of the UNECE project on Green Jobs in Sustainable Transport and the WHO Health Economic Assessment Tools for Walking and Cycling.
Christian lives in Oxford with his partner and two children. He loves the outdoors and spends as much time in green- and bluespace as possible – walking, cycling, swimming, cayaking. His favourite colour is ultramarine blue, and his favourite music at the moment is either Manchester’s Elbow or London’s Wolf Alice (depends on the mood).
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=sAOvvKwAAAAJ&hl=en