Chikara Onda is a Ph.D. candidate in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER) His research focuses on the distributional impacts of climate and energy policies. His current research builds a climate policy model linked to a microeconometrically estimated labor choice model to simulate the impact of carbon pricing on labor and how this impact might differ across income groups. This model can be used to consider different policy designs, with an eye towards mitigating negative impacts on low-income households.

Chikara worked for the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) in 2016, where he worked on the U.S. Mid-Century Strategy for Deep Decarbonization, a long-term planning document submitted to the UNFCCC pursuant to the Paris Accord. Chikara has also worked at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Chikara was born in Texas and grew up in France. He holds an MPA in Economics and Public Policy from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, and a BA in Economics and Environmental Science from Columbia University.