Jennifer Burney grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and is now professor and the Marshall Saunders Chancellor's Endowed Chair in Global Climate Policy and Research at the University of California, San Diego, as part of the School of Global Policy and Strategy. She studied history and science at Harvard University and earned a PhD in physics from Stanford, developing a superconducting camera to capture images of cosmic bodies, like pulsars or exoplanets. After graduating, she worked for Solar Electric Light Fund on rural electrification, particularly in West Africa.