Published by the MIT News Office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.

David O. Wood Dies

David O. Wood Dies at 54

Funeral services will be held at 1pm Wednesday, May 1, for David O. 
Wood, 54, director of MITŐs Center for Energy Policy Research, who died 
unexpectedly of a heart attack Sunday night, April 28, at his home in 
Belmont. The services will be held at Payson Park Church, Belmont.

Mr. Wood, a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, was 
widely known for his pioneering work on the application of computer 
models to the economic analysis of energy problems. He held a series of 
government posts from 1964-1976 that brought economics to bear on energy 
policy analysis. His colleagues respected him for his ability to combine 
a scholarly approach with a keen understanding of how the policy-making 
apparatus of government functions.

Mr. Wood began his work on energy problems in 1964 when he joined the 
Office of Emergency Preparedness as a staff economist. He became chief 
of the Applied Economics Division in 1968 and deputy director of the 
office in 1970. Three years later, when the first energy crisis hit the 
nation, a new Federal Energy Administration was created to handle 
research on energy issues, and Mr. Wood became director of its Office of 
Energy Systems.

He left that post in 1976 to become associate director of the MIT Energy 
Laboratory, with a specific assignment to build the laboratoryŐs work in 
energy economics and policy. In 1986 he was appointed director of the 
MIT Center for Energy Policy Research, a joint enterprise of the Energy 
Laboratory, the Department of Economics and the Sloan School of 
Management, which focuses specifically on energy policy.

While leading the laboratory's programs, he also made fundamental 
research contributions to the understanding of the economics of energy 
demand and the relationship of energy policies to national productivity 
and economic growth.

Mr. Wood was actively involved in the teaching programs of both the 
Sloan School and the Department of Economics.

In the last few years, Mr. Wood had lectured and written extensively on 
issues linking energy and the environment, particularly the problem of 
global warming. Among his latest publications is a book, edited with 
colleagues, on Energy and the Environment in the 21st Century. The book 
was published by MIT Press.

Mr. Wood was a member of the editorial board of the Energy Journal and 
was a consultant to several federal government agencies and private 
organizations. He was vice chairman of the American Statistical 
AssociationŐs Advisory Committee on Energy Statistics to the US 
Department of Energy, and was a member of the National Research 
CouncilŐs Committee on the National Energy Modeling System. He had been 
past associate editor of the Annual Review of Energy and was a 
participant in the National Academy of Science Committee on Nuclear and 
Alternative Energy Systems.

Mr. Wood was born Oct. 24, 1936, in Madison, Wisc. He received the BS in 
economics (1960) from Florida State University, and did graduate work in 
economics at the University of Virginia.

He is survived by his wife, Linda; two daughters, Terri Watson of 
Annapolis, Md., and Julie Wood of Arnold, Md.; three sons, Michael of 
Springfield, Va., Kevin of Reston, Va., and Mark of Dover, Del.; six 
grandchildren; his mother, Mrs. Gloria Wood of Melbourne, Fla.; a 
brother, Kent of New York City; two sisters, Mary Jane Wood of San 
Francisco and Judy Kurjack of Melbourne, Fla.; and an extended family in 
the United States and Canada.

Burial will be in Mount Auburn Cemetery.