Joe Romm, senior fellow at Penn sustainability center, dies

Joe Romm, a senior fellow at the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media, died unexpectedly last week.

A physicist by training, Romm was a clean energy expert and climate advocate. In 2023, he was named a senior fellow at the center, which supports how environmental issues are portrayed in media.

“Joe Romm was a fierce advocate for fact-based discourse, tirelessly working to communicate the reality and threat of climate change to the public,” Michael Mann, the center’s director, wrote in a statement. “We will sorely miss him here at Penn. The world has lost one of its great climate champions, and far too early.”

A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Romm became engaged in climate activism after Hurricane Katrina destroyed his brother’s Mississippi home. 

Romm was the founder and editor of the blog Climate Progress. In 2009, Rolling Stone named Romm on its list of “100 People Who Are Changing America.”

From 1995 until 1998, Romm served as principal deputy assistant secretary for the United States Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. He is the author of several books about energy and global warming. 

“He applied his rich knowledge and experience toward his scholarly work for our center on clean energy and climate solutions as well as his public-facing outreach and communication,” Mann wrote. “He wasn’t afraid to speak out about what he saw as misguided dead ends, including carbon offsets, carbon capture, and geoengineering and to criticize those he saw as bad actors in the climate space.”

In 2025, Romm and his daughter, Antonia, started the “Decoding Taylor Swift” podcast, which examines how Swift uses her lyrics to communicate stories.  

Romm’s family has asked those who wish to make a gift in his honor to donate to Moms Clean Air Force, a grassroots environmental advocacy group. 

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