Michael Cain

Background

About Michael Cain

Dr. Michael Cain is an energy policy specialist, educator, and professor with more than 25 years of experience in international development and higher education. Since 2017 he has been a senior energy advisor to the Power Africa Uganda Electricity Supply Accelerator, USAID’s effort to support and accelerate clean energy (CE) investments and rapidly expand access to electricity throughout urban and rural Uganda. In 2015-2017 he was Task Lead for Electricity Reform in Azerbaijan on EC-LEDS, a USAID program to build energy markets in Southeast Europe. From 2013-2016 he was Chief of Party for the Energy Sector Technical Leadership program where he was primary author and co-designer of a first of its kind study to examine the role of women and gender disparities within the electric power sector, entitled Engendering Utilities. In 2009-2011, was the primary technical manager for implementation and research to study the influence of residential energy efficiency improvements in low-income households in Macedonia with Habitat for Humanity. Dr. Cain has worked for over fifteen years on the nexus of poverty mitigation and energy sector reforms in international contexts, including work on social safety nets for energy systems, building energy market capacities, designing residential energy efficiency strategies and policy measures designed to mitigate energy poverty. He has served in a variety of senior technical energy advisor roles for US government projects in Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Hungary, Macedonia, Romania, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Uganda. In 2011 he was a Fulbright Scholar in government at the University of Macau, SAR China. He has held academic appointments at five universities and colleges in the United States and abroad. He is currently a professor of Political Science at St. Mary’s College of Maryland where he teaches Maryland Energy Politics and Energy Challenges in Development.