He conducts research on how institutions and organizations foster change to contribute to a low carbon future. Currently his research concentrates on international regulatory networks and the shale gas revolution.

Previous work assessed the efforts of institutions in the European Union to encourage the use of new low or zero carbon technologies in the energy sector, including energy efficiency measures. Much of his research involves issues of risk governance, with special attention paid to the sunk cost of energy investments. In addition, he has written peer reviewed articles and consulting publications on the strategic movement of energy firms and the regulatory environment in the Central Eastern European region.

Dr. LaBelle is a member of the Atlantic Council’s Emerging Leaders in Environmental and Energy Policy Network. Previously, he worked in the CEU Center for Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Policy (3CSEP) and at the Regional Center for Energy Policy Research (REKK) at Corvinus University.

He has worked on projects for the European Commission, the United States Agency for International Development, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, the Energy Regulators Regional Association and with energy consulting companies and European universities. He holds an MSc and PhD in Geographical Sciences from the University of Bristol.

1. When did you arrive in Hungary and what brought you here?
I arrived in Hungary in October 1998. I had a friend that lived here so I stopped in for a quick visit and it turned out that I stayed a little longer than expected.

2. Have you ever been an expatriate elsewhere?
Between 2000 and 2005 I lived in Bristol, England while I did my MSc and PhD in Geography. Not really expat, but foreign.

3. What surprised you most about Hungary?
How laid back it is. And that can mean different things to different people and in different situations here. But, besides being constantly pushed out of the way on the bus, by an old nani, things are relaxed.

4. How did you and your family adapt to living in Hungary?
My wife is Hungarian, so she hasn’t had any trouble. Things have turned out where she may get upset about something really Hungarian (bureaucracy, politics, business, etc.) and I tell her to relax, “This is the way things are here.”

5. What do you do at CEU?
I’m an assistant professor in CEU Business School and the Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy.

6. What is your primary research area?
The core of my research centers around how state institutions, businesses and society cooperate (or don’t) on creating energy policies and regulations. But the actual research can be fairly diverse. Right now I’m into a lot of shale gas issues in the CEE region.

7. What courses are you teaching this semester?
At CEU Business School I’m teaching a course titled, ‘Resources, Technologies and Energy Markets’, it is part of our new sustainability concentration in the full time MBA program. For the final project students choose an energy technology and develop a non-financial business plan to bring it to market.

The energy sector is great because it is so complex, so I make them aware of the hurdles that companies experience bringing new technologies and services to market. In Environmental Sciences and Policy, I’ve taught a short course on 21st Century Energy Challenges. I move the students from ‘we are all going to fry under climate change’ to ‘here are the solutions’ now let’s create a new energy system to survive.

8. What was the topic of your most recent publication?
I just finished an article on the Energy Regulators Regional Association, which is based here in Budapest, and how they operate in an international network of energy regulators. I also wrote a two part article for Natural Gas Europe on shale gas in Poland and Bulgaria.

9. Who is the person who most inspires you professionally?
There isn’t any one person that I can single out, rather it is a collection of people from different fields that I find have stuck with what they’ve always wanted to do and have become successful. I think in the field of International Relations, James Rosenau was and is a person that inspires me. He died over a year ago, but I always got great encouragement from him. He worked into his 80s writing and teaching.

He really loved being with students and engaging with new ideas. I was fortunate to read draft chapters for his last book, so I could see his writing process. This certainly helps me in how I approach the writing process, and the multiple iterations a piece goes through.

10. Is there a professor from your past who influences the way you teach?
More of a hodge-podge of professors. The ones I didn’t like influence me as much as the ones I liked. The different styles of interaction and assignments I experienced influence the ones I give to my students now. I’ll negotiate on deadlines but not on the outcome and purpose of the assignments.

11. How do you keep your class interesting and relevant?
Well, I usually gauge this by how they are using their iPads. If everyone has their head down while I’m talking then I know I’m off track. But I take pleasure in creating organized chaos in the classroom, where there is a lot of interaction and the students are forced to figure out for themselves, not just the answer, but the approach they take. When we all get back together, and they have the answers then I know it is working. I want them to think.

12. Is it challenging to teach an international group of students?
No, I love it.

13. What career other than yours would you love to pursue?
I would say a writer, but then that is what I’m able to do now and have a steady job. So I think I’m just right.

14. What's a job you would definitely never want?
Since I was 14 and all through my PhD I was working in restaurants and in catering. It was fun as the people were great and I learned a lot about food and alcohol, but I don’t ever want to do that again.

15. Red wine or white?
White.

16. Book or movie?
Movie – because I never get the time to watch movies.

17. Which social issue do you feel most strongly about?
The social impact of ‘unconventional’ economic policies in Hungary.

18. What would you say is your personal motto?
Get out of the box.