Benjamin L. Schmitt is a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, where he holds a joint academic appointment between the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. At Penn, Schmitt focuses on the project development and field deployment of the Simons Observatory, a new set of experimental cosmology telescopes and energy support infrastructure under construction at a high-altitude site in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. He is also an affiliate of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, an associate of the Harvard-Ukrainian Research Institute, and a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He also is a Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis think tank and is the co-founder of the Duke University Space Diplomacy Lab. He has previously served as European Energy Security Advisor at the U.S. Department of State.