Conference Keynotes and Plenary Speakers
Keynote Presentation
Michael Greenstone - Monday, November 6 at 12:15 pm
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Milton Friedman Distinguished Service Professor in Economics |
Michael Greenstone is the Milton Friedman Distinguished Service Professor in Economics as well as the Director of the Becker Friedman Institute and the interdisciplinary Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. He previously served as the Chief Economist for President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, where he co-led the development of the United States Government’s social cost of carbon. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the Econometric Society, a Carnegie Fellow (aka the “Brainy Award”), and a former editor of the Journal of Political Economy. Formerly, Greenstone was the 3M Professor of Environmental Economics at MIT and directed The Hamilton Project. |
Plenary Presentations
Monday, November 6 |
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9:00 am |
Corporate Decarbonization and ESG |
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Cate Hight |
Cate Height is Expert Partner, Sustainability and Carbon Transition for Bain & Company in Washington, DC. She is an expert advisor on decarbonization strategy across industries, including energy, industrials, financial services, consumer products and healthcare with deep expertise in carbon target setting and accounting, climate policy and negotiations, industrial emissions and coalition building. Cate previously served as COO of the Mission Possible Partnership, an alliance of climate leaders focused on decarbonizing heavy industry and transport and founded the methane abatement initiative at Rocky Mountain Institute, including MiQ a first-of-its-kind product standard for low-leakage natural gas. Cate led the US EPA’s work on carbon market development and the development of key greenhouse gas regulations including the Clean Power Plan. She is the co-author of Pricing Carbon<, a book assessing the first trading period of the world’s first international carbon market: the EU Emissions Trading System. |
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Kate Larsen |
Kate Larsen is a Partner at Rhodium Group and leads the firm’s international energy and climate research and the ClimateDeck data service. Kate specializes in analysis of the impacts of climate and clean energy policies on global greenhouse gas emissions and deployment of emerging climate technologies, and strategies for deep decarbonization in the public and private sector. Prior to joining Rhodium, Kate was the was Deputy Director for Energy and Climate Change at the White House Council on Environmental Quality where she helped develop President Obama’s Climate Action Plan. In the lead up to the Paris climate agreement, Kate was a Foreign Affairs Officer at the US Department of State, serving as a lead US negotiator. Kate has also worked at the International Energy Agency in Paris, the World Resources Institute in Washington, and the Environmental Defense Fund in California. |
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Martha Moore |
Martha Gilchrist Moore is the Chief Economist and Managing Director for Economics and Statistics at the American Chemistry Council. Ms. Moore analyzes the impact of various policy initiatives and energy trends on the chemical industry. In addition, she produces forecasts for the economy and chemical industry. She also directs the Council's research on the direct and indirect economic contributions of the business of chemistry and the benefits to consumers. Ms. Moore has worked on chemical industry issues for more than 25 years and is an authority on the market dynamics for the chemical industry and its end-use customer industries. Ms. Moore holds a master's degree in economics from Indiana University and is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a member of the National Association for Business Economics and the US Association for Energy Economics (USAEE) and serves on the board of the National Capital Area Chapter of USAEE. |
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Moderator: Michael Cohen |
Michael Cohen is Chief US Economist and Head of Oil and Refining in bp’s Strategy and Sustainability group. In this role, he is responsible for short, medium, and long term oil market and US policy analysis that informs bp’s Leadership Team, the bp Energy Outlook, and the Statistical Review. |
3:15 pm |
Trade Winds of Change: Unraveling the Global Trade and Geopolitical Implications of Clean Energy Transition |
Mark Linscot
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Mark Linscott is a Senior Advisor with The Asia Group, where he works closely with clients on trade and investment priorities across South Asia. He also serves as a Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center. Previously, Mark was the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) for South and Central Asian Affairs from December 2016 to December 2018. He was the U.S. government lead in developing trade policy with the countries in South and Central Asia and led efforts in the bilateral Trade Policy Forum with India and in Trade and Investment Framework Agreements (TIFAs) with Central Asia, Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Mark served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for World Trade Organization (WTO) and Multilateral Affairs from 2012 to 2016 with responsibility for coordinating U.S. trade policies in the WTO. Mark also represented the United States in trade meetings of the Group of Twenty (G-20) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). |
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Karen E. Young |
Dr. Karen E. Young is a political economist focusing on the Gulf, the broader MENA region and the intersection of energy, finance, and security. She is a Senior Research Scholar at the Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy. She was the founding director of the Program on Economics and Energy at the Middle East Institute, where she remains a non-resident senior fellow. She was a Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and has been a professorial lecturer at George Washington University, teaching courses on the international relations of the Middle East. She regularly teaches at the US Dept of State Foreign Service Institute. Earlier, she was Senior Resident Scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute and a Research Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Middle East Centre. and Assistant Professor of Political Science at the American University of Sharjah. Her second book, The Economic Statecraft of the Gulf Arab States: Deploying Aid, Investment and Development Across MENAP, was published at the end of 2022 with IB Tauris/Bloomsbury. Her first book, The Political Economy of Energy, Finance, and Security in the United Arab Emirates: Between the Majilis and the Market, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2014. |
David Weisbach
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David Weisbach received his BS in Mathematics from the University of Michigan in 1985; a Masters in Advance Study (Mathematics) from Wolfson College, Cambridge in 1986; and a JD from Harvard Law School in 1989. After graduating from law school, Weisbach clerked for Judge Joel M. Flaum of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and worked as an associate in the law firm of Miller & Chevalier. In 1992, Weisbach joined the Department of Treasury where he worked as an attorney-advisor in the Office of the Tax Legislative Counsel and, subsequently, as associate tax legislative counsel. In 1996, Weisbach was appointed Associate Professor of Law at Georgetown Law Center and joined the Chicago faculty in 1998. He is also a Senior Fellow at the University of Chicago Computation Institute and Argonne National Laboratories and an International Research Fellow at the Said School of Business, Oxford University. Weisbach is primarily interested in issues relating to federal taxation and to climate change. |
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Moderator: Stuart Levenbach
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Stuart Levenbach began his career studying kelp forests and now leads a global team of policy and funding experts at Baker Hughes. He has over 20 years of experience in the public and private sectors, including 15 years in the US federal government. He is passionate about natural resource policy and believes that we need to deploy the full toolkit of approaches to bring people together around pragmatic solutions to conserve the natural world and be more sustainable. He is a frequent speaker and writer on natural resource policy, and has been featured in publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Atlantic.
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3:15 pm |
Electricity Price Formation Challenges in a Grid in Transition |
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Moderator: Scott Harvey |
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Richard Doying |
Richard Doying is Vice President at Grid Strategies LLC, a power sector consulting firm helping clients understand the opportunities and barriers to integrating clean energy into the electric grid. Prior to joining Grid Strategies, Richard was at the Midcontinent ISO for twenty years (2002-2022) where he held several positions leading design, implementation and operations of MISO markets and reliability functions. Most recently, he served as MISO Executive Vice President of Market and Grid Strategies, where he led the evaluation of emerging industry trends and the creation of a strategic roadmap to enhance MISO’s markets and reliability operations to facilitate power sector decarbonization. Prior to joining MISO, he was Director of Strategy and New Initiatives at PG&E National Energy Group (1997-2002), and a Project Manager at ICF Resources (1993-1997). He has been a member and chairman of the Board of Directors of the NERC Midwest Reliability Organization, and an advisory board member for the Indiana University, Richard G. Lugar Center for Renewable Energy. Richard holds a BA in Geography from the University of California Los Angeles and a Masters in Public Policy from the University of Minnesota. |
Shaun JohnsonDirector of Market Mitigation & AnalysisNYISO |
Shaun Johnson has been working in the energy industry for over 20 years. Shaun rejoined the NYISO as the Director of Market Mitigation and Analysis in 2014; responsible for implementing the NYISO’s market mitigation measures and working collaboratively with the NYISO’s external Market Monitoring Unit. Most recently Shaun has taken the position of Director of Market Design with the NYISO; responsible for leading the initiatives to help NYISO’s markets harmonize with the grid of the future. |
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Dave Maggio has been an employee with the ERCOT ISO since 2007 and is currently the Director of Market Design and Analytics. His group is primarily responsible for evaluating ERCOT wholesale electricity market trends and design changes, supporting the delivery of changes to the market design, and validating day-to-day wholesale market outcomes. In recent years, he has focused on developing policies and rules for the implementation of real-time co-optimization of energy and ancillary services and the integration of energy storage resources. His principal duties at ERCOT have also included the evaluation of reserve requirements for the ERCOT region, the integration of intermittent renewable resources, the operation and analysis of the congestion revenue rights market, and systems and rules development for the ERCOT nodal market. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2004 and 2006, respectively. |
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Becky Robinson is the Principal Economist and Director of Market Strategy and Governance at the California ISO. Prior to that, from 2019 to 2022, she was a Senior Director of Market Policy at Vistra Corp., where she covered PJM regulatory policy and was elected as the Vice Chair of the PJM Members Committee. From 2010 to 2019, she was an Economist at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, including advising Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur from 2015-2018. She began her career in 2008 in economic consulting at LECG. She holds an MA in Economics from Cambridge University, and graduated magna cum laude with a BA in Mathematics and Philosophy from Williams College. |
Tuesday, November 7 |
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9:00 am |
Decarbonizing Power Generation and Beyond: Recent Trends and Future Prospects |
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Moderator: Michael Plante Senior Research Economist & Advisor Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas |
Michael Plante is a Senior Research Economist and Advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. His academic research looks at topics related to oil markets, monetary policy and the macroeconomy. Mr. Plante’s policy work at the Bank has primarily focused on oil and gas markets, although recently he has done work on topics related to the energy transition, particularly battery technology. He is also heavily involved with the Dallas Fed Energy Survey as its project manager. |
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Mark Bolinger |
Mark Bolinger is a Research Scientist in the Electricity Markets and Policy Department at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Mark conducts research and analysis on renewable energy, with a focus on cost, benefit, and market analysis as well as renewable energy policy analysis and assistance. Since joining LBNL, Mark has authored or co-authored more than 150 reports and articles, including 16 articles published in seven different archival journals. Mark regularly presents the findings of his work to national audiences, and in 2010 was invited to testify before the Committee on Ways and Means of the U.S. House of Representatives as part of a hearing on energy tax incentives. Previously, Mark worked at Bridgewater Associates, Inc. developing and implementing investment and trading strategies in global credit and foreign exchange markets for portfolios of institutional clientele. Mark holds a master's degree in Energy and Resources from the University of California at Berkeley and a bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College. |
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Julie Kozeracki |
Julie Kozeracki is a Senior Advisor in the US Department of Energy Loan Programs Office, which has over $300B in loan authority for clean energy deployment. She leads the cross-DOE effort on Advanced Nuclear Pathways to Commercial Liftoff, a collaboration between LPO, the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, the Office of Technology Transitions, and the Office of Nuclear Energy. Prior to DOE, she was a Principal with the Boston Consulting Group, where she was a leader in the firm’s federal and operations practices, advising private and public sector clients on topics ranging from uranium enrichment to regional economic development to negotiations with defense contractors. She holds a BS in Economics from the Wharton School and a BA in Cognitive Neuroscience from the University of Pennsylvania. |
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Derek Wissmiller, PhD. |
Dr. Derek Wissmiller is the Director of Strategic Analytics at GTI Energy, a not-for-profit energy research and technology organization. In this role, he leads strategic management activities aimed at aligning GTI Energy’s business portfolio towards durable value creation and lasting impact. Derek has a diverse breadth of experience in building organizational capability, cultivating partnerships, leading teams, managing programs, and advancing energy technology solutions to market. |
9:00 am |
Opportunities of Transportation Decarbonization |
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Kristin Dziczek |
Kristin Dziczek is a policy advisor in the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s research, policy, and public engagement division. Her research focuses on the economic impacts of the transition to low-carbon and automated transportation. Dziczek served as the senior vice president of research at the non-profit Center for Automotive Research (CAR) from 2005-2022. Before that, she was the associate director of the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center and worked for the U.S. Congress, International Union UAW, and General Motors Corporation. |
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Tom Michels |
Tom Michels joined United’s Government Affairs team in 2018, where he covers both Federal and State government affairs and leads all advocacy related to climate and sustainability issues. Previously, Tom worked at BlueWater Strategies, a DC-based government affairs and business consultancy focused on energy and environmental issues and served as Executive Director of the ONE Future Coalition, a coalition of natural gas companies focused on reducing their methane emissions. Prior to that, Tom was a Senior Advisor in Royal Dutch Shell’s Washington office. Prior roles included serving as Legislative Director to a U.S. Senator, and work with two trade associations. Tom earned an MA in International Relations from the University of Chicago and a BA in Philosophy from LaSalle University in Philadelphia. |
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Beia Spiller David Schwietert |
Beia Spiller is a fellow and the director for RFF's Transportation Program. Prior to joining RFF, she was Lead Senior Economist at Environmental Defense Fund, where she worked for almost a decade. She is also a Board member for the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. Spiller is an energy economist, with experience working on electricity and transportation issues. During her time at EDF, she participated in many electric utility proceedings in NY and CA, with a goal of ushering in a cleaner, more efficient and equitable energy system. She also has many years of experience working in the transportation sector. Her more recent efforts have focused around electric vehicles and environmental justice, exploring some of the most pressing issues around electric car, truck and bus adoption. Her publications range across the energy space, with a large focus on identifying environmental, community and health impacts of renewable energy resources and energy policies.
Before joining the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, Schwietert was the interim president and CEO of the Alliance for Automobile Manufacturers. Prior to joining the Auto Alliance in 2015, Schwietert worked in the U.S. Senate for over 15 years and held various policy positions, including staff director of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. |
3:15 pm |
Oil and Gas: Sowing the Seeds of the Next Super-Cycle? |
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Dr. Edward L. Morse Managing Director Global Head - Commodities Citi Research |
Ed Morse is Managing Director and Global Head of Commodities Research at Citi, and held similar positions at Lehman Brothers and Credit Suisse. He has taught at Princeton, Columbia and Johns Hopkins universities, worked as the Council on Foreign Relations, served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Policy, and in management at Phillips Petroleum. A co-founder of PFC Energy, a former publisher of "Petroleum Intelligence Weekly", he also worked at Hess Energy Trading Company. Among his consulting experiences has been designing Yemen's oil pricing policy and consulting for the UN Security Council on the design and negotiation of the Oil-for-Food Program for Iraq. Morse frequently writes guest editorials for The Financial Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post and often is a commentator for Bloomberg TV and CNBC. He serves on advisory boards at Columbia and Princeton Universities and the business school at the University of Colorado. He is a Senior Fellow of both the USAEE and the IEEJ and in 2018 was named by Petroleum Economist in its inaugural “Global Energy Elite” issue as among the ten most prominent individuals in energy banking and finance.
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Shawn Robinson Clay Seigle |
Shawn Robinson is the Managing Director of Fundamentals at EQT, North America’s largest producer of natural gas, where he has played a key role in developing a peer-leading fundamental research team focusing on global energy markets. Prior to his current role, Shawn was a key collaborator for numerous commercial functions at EQT and was frequently involved with strategic decisions. He has an MBA in Finance from the University of Pittsburgh and a BSBA from John Carroll University. He is a volunteer and past member of the United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania’s Board of Directors.
Clay has lectured on energy security at events hosted by The Atlantic Council, The International Energy Forum, The King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center (KAPSARC), The Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, S&P Platts, Thomson Reuters, and Argus. He has been a commentator on CNBC, Bloomberg, and CNN and has been published in Petroleum Economist. Clay is a past Vice President of USAEE and serves on the Board of Directors of the Houston Committee on Foreign Relations. |
3:15 pm |
Economics of Critical Minerals |
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Juliet Akamboe |
Juliet Akamboe is an experienced corporate & investment banking professional with more than 15 years across global markets, sales, and risk management. She recently graduated with a Master's in Mineral & Energy Economics from the Colorado School of Mines, where she is currently a Critical Minerals Demand Researcher. She works with the Payne Institute for Public Policy where she has been involved in research around sustainable finance, building ESG frameworks, critical minerals security partnerships, and shaping policy for a more sustainable future. She has been named one of the 100 Global Inspirational Women in Mining by Women in Mining (WIM) UK for her contributions to the industry and diversity. |
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Ian Lange |
Ian Lange is director of the Mineral and Energy Economics program at the Colorado School of Mines. Additionally, Ian serves as Chair of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Energy and Environmental Markets Advisory Committee Role of Metals Markets in Transitional Energy Subcommittee. He is a member of the Colorado Governor's Revenue Estimating Advisory Committee. Previously Ian has served as Senior Economist for Energy at the Council of Economic Advisors for both the Trump and Biden administrations as well as spending time at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy. |
Wednesday, November 8 |
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12:15 pm |
Plenary Lunch - Rapid Development and Growing Pains: Energy Storage Comes of Age |
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Moderator: Eric Hittinger, Professor of Public Policy, Rochester Institute of Technology |
Eric Hittinger holds a Ph.D. in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University, a MS in Macromolecular Science, and BS in Polymer Science and Engineering from Case Western Reserve University. Professor Hittinger has a background in electricity system policy, operation, and economics, with a focus on understanding the benefits and limitations of energy storage and renewable electricity sources. His research often uses techno-economic modeling of electricity systems to understand the effects of system policies and interactions. |
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Sue Babinec |
Sue Babinec is the Program Lead – Stationary Storage at Argonne National Lab where she leads efforts ranging from new tools and capabilities to enhance existing technologies and breakthrough research for new approaches to long-duration energy storage goals. Babinec previously served six years in Washington DC as senior commercialization advisor at the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) where she co-managed the energy storage portfolio for both transportation and grid. Prior to ARPA-E, she led several research groups focused on the design and scale-up of Li-ion technologies as a technical director for A123 Systems, Inc. Babinec spent the first two decades of her career at The Dow Chemical Corp., where she was the Senior Electrochemist, a senior member of the Corporate VC group, was awarded the Inventor of the Year Award, and was the company’s first woman Corporate Fellow. She holds 50+ patents and has authored or co-authored dozens of journal articles and book chapters. |
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Jason Burwen |
Jason Burwen was previously Vice President of Energy Storage at the American Clean Power Association (ACP), as well as interim CEO and Vice President of Policy at the U.S. Energy Storage Association (ESA), where he built and directed the energy storage industry’s comprehensive federal, state, and regional market policy advocacy strategy from 2015 to 2023. His advocacy directly shaped the energy storage federal investment tax credit in the Inflation Reduction Act; the directives of FERC Order 841; several state deployment targets; capacity accreditation reforms in PJM; and other laws and regulations pertaining to energy storage. He has been cited as an expert on energy storage technology, policy, and markets in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, NPR, the New Yorker, and numerous trade publications. Earlier in his career Jason directed research and advocacy on U.S. energy innovation and tax policy as the Associate Director for Energy Innovation at the Bipartisan Policy Center; consulted to utilities on demand response program design at FSC Group/Nexant; and reviewed utility renewable energy contracting processes for the California Public Utilities Commission. Jason holds master’s degrees from the University of California - Berkeley’s Energy and Resource Group and Goldman School of Public Policy, as well as a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University. |
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Sara Chamberlain |
Sara is Co-Founder & Managing Director at Earth Foundry, an early-stage venture capital firm that has backed some of the most transformative energy and cleantech companies. Sara is the driving force of the firm, leading investment activity and actively building the fund’s portfolio companies, including Advanced Diamond Technologies (acquired by SMIN), Azumo, e-Zinc, Intellihot, NanoGraf, Network Perception, Polystyvert, Tank Utility (acquired by Generac), and Volexion. Prior to Energy Foundry, Sara built a government advisory practice at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and helped climate tech startups raise $300M in non-dilutive funding. She also held roles with GE Energy and environmental consulting firm, GaiaTech. Sara earned an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and an undergraduate degree from Emory University. She also holds a number of advisory roles including serving on the Investment Committee for accelerator Evergreen Climate Innovations, the Advisory Board for Chain Reaction Innovations, an incubator program at Argonne National Laboratory, and serving as an Executive-in-Residence at the Rustandy Center – Chicago Booth. In 2015, Sara was recognized by Midwest Energy News's “40 Under 40.” Sara currently sits on the board of Earth Foundry portfolio companies 3E Nano, Azumo, e-Zinc, Polystyvert and Volexion. |
