Rate My Professor Jen Purdie

Dr Jen Purdie serves as Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Sustainability Research, University of Otago, an interdisciplinary centre hosted by the School of Geography in the Division of Humanities. She earned her PhD in 2007, focusing on model development for seasonal forecasting of hydro lake inflows in the upper Waitaki Basin, New Zealand. From 2008 to 2020, Purdie worked in the energy industry, modeling climate change impacts on energy systems, performing wind, water, and snow forecasting, and offering climate change advisory services. In her current role, she operates at the intersection of climate and energy science, with research interests centered on climate change effects on energy systems and climate forecasting across multiple timescales. She led the Climate change impacts on the NZ energy system project, funded by the Deep South Science Challenge from 2020 to 2023, which examined long-term implications for New Zealand's electricity supply amid shifting climate conditions.

Purdie supervises postgraduate students on relevant topics, including Francesca Bryant-Brown's honours dissertation on climate change impacts on wind energy in New Zealand, Maoxing Liu's PhD on lifecycle carbon assessment of the future NZ electricity system, and recent masters and honours projects by Aleida Powell on long-term modeling of electric vehicle uptake and residential demand response in a 100% renewable power system, as well as May Robertson's dissertation in energy management. She regularly presents climate change talks to schools and community groups and contributes to academic symposia, such as her 2023 verbal presentation on industrial demand response to support a 100% renewable electricity system at the 17th Otago Energy Research Centre Symposium. Her scholarly output includes key publications like Liu, M., Purdie, J., & Jack, M. W. (2026). The evolving structure of emissions in the transition to renewable electricity systems. Journal of Cleaner Production, 538, 147314; Purdie, J. (2022). Modelling climate change impacts on inflows, lake storage and spill in snow-fed hydroelectric power catchments, Southern Alps, New Zealand. Journal of Hydrology (New Zealand), 61(2), 151-178; and earlier works such as Purdie, J., & Fitzharris, B. (1999). Processes and rates of ice loss at the terminus of Tasman Glacier, New Zealand. Global and Planetary Change, 22(1-4), 79-91. These contributions advance understanding of renewable energy transitions, emissions structures, and climate resilience in hydro-dependent systems.