Den­nis has focused his career on tech­nol­ogy and sus­tain­abil­ity pol­icy in emerg­ing and devel­op­ing economies. His research inter­ests include tech­nol­ogy and inno­va­tion pol­icy and impacts to resource and rural devel­op­ment, tech­nol­ogy trans­fer and the polit­i­cal econ­omy of land use man­age­ment. He has led pro­grams with the Paris based Inter­na­tional Energy Agency, as an offi­cial of the OECD, work­ing with emerg­ing economies on energy tech­nol­ogy pol­icy and con­tribut­ing to the Agency’s analy­sis of energy, envi­ron­ment and cli­mate poli­cies (specif­i­cally work­ing col­lab­o­ra­tively with China and other tran­si­tion economies in explor­ing long-​​term clean energy options, includ­ing advanced bioen­ergy, car­bon seques­tra­tion and neg­a­tive emis­sions sys­tems.) Prior to liv­ing in Berke­ley, he spent five years in France, and seven years in Bei­jing, China – advis­ing gov­ern­ment and indus­trial clients on sus­tain­abil­ity and tech­nol­ogy deploy­ment ini­tia­tives. He holds a BA in polit­i­cal sci­ence (inter­na­tional rela­tions) and a con­cen­tra­tion in East Asian stud­ies from the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Los Ange­les (UCLA).