Tessa Schiefer

Tessa Schiefer is a Doctoral Researcher in the working group Climate Policy and Development at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Her research focuses on the intersection of climate policy and broader development objectives, such as air pollution, public health, and distributional impacts. She primarily employs quantitative methods to explore questions in environmental and development economics. Tessa holds a BA in Political Science and Psychology from Heidelberg University and a joint MSc in Public Policy and Human Development from United Nations University MERIT and Maastricht University.

Before starting her PhD she was a Policy Analyst in the same working group for two years, leading the group’s policy engagement at the national and international level and co-developing the Carbon Pricing Incidence Calculator (CPIC) webtool. Prior to joining PIK, she worked at NewClimate Institute for 5 years, focusing on sustainable development impact modeling and sectoral decarbonization pathways.