Jimmy O’Dea

Deputy Director of Trucks

Jimmy O’Dea joined CALSTART in 2021 as Deputy Director of Trucks. He focuses on the widespread electrification of trucks with the aim of establishing standards at the federal and state levels for electric truck deployment.

Prior to joining CALSTART, Dr. O’Dea was Senior Vehicles Analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, where he played instrumental roles in the strengthening and adoption of first-of-their-kind polices for electric trucks and buses, including the Innovative Clean Transit and Advanced Clean Trucks standards. Dr. O’Dea was a Science and Engineering Congressional Fellow in the office of US Senator Brian Schatz. He was a postdoctoral research associate at Cornell University, studying materials used in hydrogen fuel cells.

Dr. O’Dea earned a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Puget Sound.