Lynn Orr is the Keleen and Carlton Beal Professor Emeritus, Department of Energy Science and Engineering at Stanford University.  He served as Under Secretary for Science and Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy from 2014 to 2017.  Previously at Stanford, he served as Dean of the School of Earth Sciences from 1994 to 2002, as Director of the Global Climate and Energy Project from 2002 to 2008, and as Director of the Precourt Institute for Energy from 2009 to 2014. 

He joined Stanford in 1985. His research activities focus on how complex fluid mixtures flow in the porous rocks in the Earth's crust, the design of gas injection processes for enhanced oil recovery, CO₂ storage in subsurface rock formations, and pathways for the clean energy transition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit adverse effects of climate change.

He was employed by the US Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, DC (1970-72), Shell Development Company in Houston (1976-78), and the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro (1978-85).  He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and a B.S. from Stanford University, both in Chemical Engineering. 

He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.  He serves on the Board of Directors of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and chairs the Board of Directors of the ClimateWorks Foundation.  He was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Packard Foundation from 1999 to 2008, and he helped establish the David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowships for Science and Engineering in 1988.