Nate Hagens is the Executive Director of The Institute for the Study of Energy & Our Future (ISEOF). Allied with leading ecologists, energy experts, politicians, and systems thinkers, ISEOF assembles roadmaps for understanding how human societies might adapt to lower-throughput lifestyles.

Currently, Nate hosts the podcast The Great Simplification, where he has conversations with experts in energy, ecology, government, technology, and the economy to provide a systemic view of the world around us.

After ten years in finance, Nate left Wall Street to study the interrelationships between energy, ecology, and economics—and the implications for human futures. He was the Managing Editor of The Oil Drum, one of the most respected websites for analysis and discussion of global energy supplies and implications of the upcoming energy transition.

For eight years, Nate taught Reality 101, an honors course at the University of Minnesota. He is the co-author of the books Reality Blind: Integrating the Systems Science Underpinning Our Collective Futures, Vol. 1, and The Bottlenecks of the 21st Century, and continues to develop educational materials and media around energy, the economy, and the environment. Nate has appeared on PBS, BBC, ABC, and NPR, and frequently lectures around the world.

Nate holds a master’s degree in finance with honors from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in natural resources from the University of Vermont. He lives on a small farm in the Mississippi River Valley with his pack of rescue dogs, horses, chickens, and an intermittently tended garden.