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).