Roger K Raufer's Obituary
Roger's memorial service will be live streamed on the following link: https://www.viewlogies.net/givnish/cOo8Nv_W1?pin=034298
Roger Raufer, an environmental engineer whose pioneering work in pollution control and emissions trading helped shape global environmental policy, died on August 2, 2025 after a battle with prostate cancer. He was 75.
Over a five-decade career, Roger blended engineering expertise with policy insight to address energy and environmental challenges across the globe. He played key roles in developing pollution control strategies, especially emissions trading systems that influenced the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. He was an accomplished author of two books about the role of emissions trading in environmental management, and numerous other publications.
Roger worked extensively in China and worldwide through the UN, World Bank, and USAID, and also remained active in the U.S. power sector. A dedicated educator, he taught at the University of Pennsylvania and served as Resident Professor at Johns Hopkins University's Hopkins-Nanjing Center.
A lifelong learner holding four degrees, including a PhD in energy management and policy, Roger spent his free time taking online courses–often while working out on his elliptical machine–always curious, engaged, and in motion. His passion for pollution and energy issues even influenced his leisure activities; every family vacation centered around visiting some type of power plant. To his students, hundreds of whom he kept in correspondence with, Professor Raufer was a supportive mentor and beloved teacher. He was kind, funny, smart, and generous with his time and expertise.
Roger was known for his sense of humor, his love of traveling, and his voracious reading habits. At home, he made his daughters laugh with his dad jokes and would listen happily to the same song on repeat for days (or years).
Roger met his wife Nicki at their college cafeteria where they both worked to pay for school–hers on the serving line and his mopping floors and cleaning tables. They were happily married for 48 years, until Nicki pre-deceased him in 2019. Roger is survived by their three daughters: Lisa Capasso (husband Armando); Jessica Travis (husband John Paul); and Sarah Raufer; as well as by five grandchildren and eight Raufer siblings (from an original family of eleven children, with Roger the eldest).
A gathering of friends and family will be held on Sunday, August 24th from 1-3pm with his memorial service beginning at 3pm at Givnish Funeral Home in Cinnaminson, 1200 Route 130 north. In lieu of flowers, please donate to the Environmental Defense Fund, the Prostate Cancer Foundation, or your environmental charity of choice.
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