Professor Chris Greig
Chris is a professional executive and director with over 30 years’ experience in resource and energy industries. He has extensive experience in general management, technology, commercialization and the development and management of complex industrial projects.
His professional career began with a successful start-up company that he founded while completing his PhD in 1986. The company successfully commercialised patented technologies in sugar processing, mineral processing and hydrometallurgy and grew under his leadership into a globally recognized supplier of sugar equipment and turnkey process plants focused in developing countries.
In 1999, Chris successfully exited his company through a sale to a large European engineering company. He went on to hold senior executive roles in the construction, resources and low-carbon energy sectors. He has held various other non-executive directorships with ASX listed companies and Government owned corporations, was Deputy Chairman of Gladstone Ports Corporation until 2015 and is a former Chair of the Energy Policy Institute of Australia. He is currently a Director of the Australian National Low-Emissions Coal R&D board.
In 2011, Chris joined The University of Queensland (UQ) and became the Founding Director of UQ Energy Initiative where he established and led the University-wide initiative to lead the energy research strategy across all faculties and institutes. Chris was also a Professor (Chemical Engineering) and Director of the Dow Centre for Sustainable Engineering Innovation which delivers innovations that increase sustainable production and utilisation of materials that have a significant impact on sustainability and the economy.
In addition to his substantive roles, Chris has served on the Advisory Boards for the Centre for Coal Seam Gas (Chair); Australian Solar Thermal Research Institute; and the Queensland Geothermal Energy CoE.
Currently, he is the Theodora D. ’78 and William H. Walton III ’74 Senior Research Scientist in the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment at Princeton University, New Jersey, where he leads a global low-carbon energy transition research program called Rapid Switch. Rapid Switch is an international research collaboration that is designed to analyse regional bottlenecks to the introduction of low carbon technologies, and seeks to identify and lay out pathways to overcome obstacles to rapidly decoupling energy production and greenhouse gas emissions.
Chris’ research interests lie in energy transitions, economics and policy, energy for development, mega-project implementation and CCS. Chris’ teaching activities include Professional Practice in the Business Environment; Rapid Switch – the Challenge of the Low-carbon Energy Transition; and Energy Finance and Investment.
Chris hold a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Queensland, has published over thirty interdisciplinary journal papers, one book and a more than 10 energy policy white papers. He is the recipient of multiple awards including a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) 2013, Fluor Chemeca Award for Excellence in Engineering Management 2001 and the Awards for Product Design and Project Management in 1996 from Engineers Australia.