Mercy Berman DeMenno

Mercy Berman DeMenno is an expert in climate risk and resilience, sustainable finance, energy transition, and regulatory and corporate governance. She is currently an Executive in Residence at Duke University, where she is affiliated with the Risk Science for Climate Resilience Initiative (School of Engineering), the Center on Risk (Science and Society Initiative), the Global Financial Markets Center (School of Law), and the Rethinking Regulation Program (Kenan Institute for Ethics). A political economist, her research, teaching, and thought leadership span four interdisciplinary fields: 1) financial markets and regulation (e.g., systemic risk and financial system resilience; prudential and market conduct regulation; climate-related financial risk and climate finance); 2) energy and environmental policy (e.g., deep decarbonization systems modeling; energy transition policy; sustainable, resilient, and equitable infrastructure); 3) regulatory governance (e.g., stakeholder engagement; ex ante and ex post regulatory impact assessment; international regulatory cooperation); and 4) corporate sustainability (e.g., environmental, social, and governance policy and performance; corporate political activity; stakeholder capitalism).

Dr. DeMenno’s current academic and applied work is at the intersection of these topics, focusing on climate-related financial risk, regulatory and market transition strategies, and the implications for economic and environmental resilience. For example, recent work centers on the design, implementation, and evaluation of climate stress tests to inform regulatory and investment strategies across sectors and jurisdictions. She has trained central banks on climate-related (systemic) financial risk stress testing, advised financial institutions on scenario-based transition planning, and partnered with energy regulators and utilities on infrastructure resilience stress testing. Via CIRCAD and RESILE, she collaborates with (re)insurers, ratings agencies, and regulators on modeling climate risk and designing resilience finance mechanisms at the household, community, and system levels. She also leads projects on mobilizing capital for climate and nature finance in developed and emerging markets through a range of public, private, and blended finance instruments, with a focus on valuation of sustainability, resilience, and equity co-benefits. Finally, she leads research and multi-stakeholder engagement on advancing regulatory and corporate governance approaches to climate risks and transition opportunities, including via interagency and international regulatory cooperation. 

Over the last 15 years, Dr. DeMenno has advised policymakers at the local, national, and international levels and executives in the financial services and energy sectors spanning the AMER, EMEA, and APAC regions. She has authored over thirty articles, chapters, and major governmental and intergovernmental reports and delivered keynote speeches on risk, regulation, and resilience. She serves on various boards and executive committees, including for a green bank and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Dr. DeMenno received a PhD and an MA from Duke University and an MBA and a BA from the University of New Mexico.