Kenneth B. Medlock III, Ph.D., is the James A. Baker, III, and Susan G. Baker Fellow in Energy and Resource Economics at the Baker Institute and the senior director of the Center for Energy Studies. He is also the director of the Masters of Energy Economics program, and he holds adjunct professor appointments in the Department of Economics and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rice University. Medlock is also a Distinguished Fellow at the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan; he is a member of the Advisory Board of the Payne Institute at the Colorado School of Mines; and he is a member of the Advisory Committee of the KAPSARC School of Public Policy. In 2012–13, Medlock held the prestigious Haydn Williams Fellowship at Curtin University in Perth, Australia. 

Medlock teaches advanced courses in energy economics and supervises Ph.D. students in the energy economics field. He has published numerous scholarly articles in his primary areas of interest, which include natural gas markets, electricity markets, energy commodity price relationships, transportation, national oil company behavior, economic development and energy demand, energy use and the environment, and various energy transitions topics ranging from engineered and nature-based carbon capture to hydrogen to the economic drivers of technology adoption. He has testified multiple times on Capitol Hill on U.S. energy exports and electricity market evolution, has spoken at OPEC, and is frequently asked to speak about global and domestic energy issues.

Medlock is the past vice president for conferences for the United States Association for Energy Economics (USAEE), and he previously served as vice president for academic affairs. In 2001, he won (jointly with Ron Soligo) the International Association for Energy Economics Award for Best Paper of the Year in the Energy Journal. In 2011, he was given the USAEE’s Senior Fellow Award, and in 2013 he accepted the USAEE’s Adelman-Frankel Award for the Center for Energy Studies. In 2019, Medlock was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award for the Advancement of the Education of Future Energy Leaders by the Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah Foundation. In 2025, he received the OPEC Award for Research in recognition of “a career dedicated to the objective study and balanced analysis of the energy sector.” He is also an active member of the American Economic Association and is an academic member of the National Petroleum Council. Medlock has also served as an advisor to the U.S. Department of Energy and the California Energy Commission in their respective energy modeling efforts.

Medlock received his Ph.D. in economics from Rice University in May 2000.

Contact at [email protected] or 713-348-3757.