Areas of Expertise:

Bio and CV, Harry D. Saunders Dr. Harry Saunders is founder and Managing Director of Decision Processes, Incorporated, a California corporation, and is a seasoned management consultant. He has over 30 years’ experience facilitating corporate executives and management teams in preparing strategy recommendations to Boards of Directors around the world. To occupy his spare time, his “hobby” is academic research – in energy and sustainability economics, evolutionary biology, and law of evidence theory. His wife and four children believe this is a ridiculous hobby. Education PhD, Management Science and Engineering (previously Engineering-economic Systems), Stanford University, 1982 MSc, Resources, the Environment and Planning, University of Calgary, 1974 BSc, (Honors) Physics, University of Alberta, 1970 Research Interests I am possessed by the question of what an indefinitely sustainable civilization looks like on any planet. I try to rigorously model such an eco-economy and explore to see what are the drivers and conditions required for eco-economic sustainability. What does the human economy part of the eco-economy have to look like to function sustainably within the natural economy? I also do research in evolutionary biology, specifically the theory of senescence (aging). I work with a field biologist studying a native population of guppies (poecilia reticulata) that constitutes an ideal experimental model for testing theory. Careful dynamic systems modeling shows that fitness considerations do not exclude the possibility of non-senescent populations of organisms. Nature can create non-senescent cells and there is strong evidence of certain non-senescent species in nature. The question that obsesses me here is: why does not Darwinian fitness drive toward “immortality” (non-senescence) for all organisms? Are the physical limitations of a spherical planet what ultimately drives senescence (and thereby keeps the biosphere sustainable)? Finally, I’m obsessed with the “Reasonable Doubt” standard of criminal proof. I argue that the jury instructions explaining this deprive it of any practical meaning, and accordingly am one of the few (rogue) law of evidence researchers who argue that it must be, and can be, quantified to clarify it for jurors. Experiments I’ve run show conclusively that potential jurors attach radically different meanings to the standard as given in the jury instructions, leading to potentially egregious faulty verdicts. Professional and Academic Associations Visiting Investigator, Carnegie Energy Innovation, Carnegie Institution for Science, Department of Global Ecology, Stanford, CA Senior Fellow, The Breakthrough Institute Founding Fellow, Society of Decision Professionals Charter Member, International Association for Energy Economics Academic Activities Contributing Author. IPCC Report SR 1.5. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, November, 2018. Course Developer (Master’s level course), 2010, The Economics of Oil, Gas and Energy, University of Liverpool. External Dissertation Examiner, PhD Dissertation, Institute of Environmental Science and Policy, University of Illinois Chicago, October, 2012. Panel Moderator: Expert Roundtable on Macroeconomic Impacts of Energy Efficiency Improvements, for the International Energy Agency study on Capturing the Multiple Benefits of Energy Efficiency: Paris, 24 January 2013 Invited Presenter, Workshop of international genetic- and micro-biologists, “From Homo Sapiens to Homo Sapiens Liberatus,” Moscow State University, May, 2010. Invited Presenter, Workshop of international law of evidence scholars, “Sobre Epistemologia Juridica,” Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, September, 2009. Lead Consultant and Co-author. Asian Development Outlook 2013, Asia’s Energy Challenge. Asian Development Bank, April, 2013. Work Experience Founder and Managing Director, Decision Processes Incorporated (1998-present) Director, San Francisco Office, Decision and Risk Analysis, Inc. (1988-1998) Senior Associate, Cornerstone Research, 1986-1988 Senior Associate, Strategic Decisions Group, 1983-1986 Manager, Strategy, Tosco Corporation [then the largest US independent refiner], 1981-1983 Private Consultant, Gulf Canada Inc., 1979-1981 Private Consultant, Gulf Corporation, 1977-1979 Assistant to the Deputy Executive Director, International Energy Agency, 1976-1977 Special Assistant to the Administrator of NOAA, US Department of Commerce, 1975-1976 Electric Power Research Specialist, Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board, 1973-1974 Publications Several of the academic publications listed below are available at: http://works.bepress.com/harry_saunders/.

Recent Comments by Harry Saunders

• "Will domestic oil production drop at least until full economic recovery, and will this require the US to import crude? How will domestic producers th"
  Coronavirus Pandemic Highlights Need to Address Mineral Security