Our Mission

The Aspen Institute Energy & Environment Program (EEP) is a 52-year-old program that works with people, organizations, and governments to take greater action on solving climate change. In doing so, EEP seeks to:

Support the sustained development of a global clean energy economy and well-adapted, equitable, and inclusive communities.  

Foster spaces for collaborative dialogue and relationship building, especially diverse stakeholders. In doing so, we create unique opportunities for innovative climate solutions and ideas to be seeded, tested, and developed.  

Connect the dots between efforts, organizations, and communities to drive collaboration.

Lead with empathy, trust, appreciation, optimism, and inspiration, as a small, but essential, part of an immense movement to address climate change around the world. 

DEIB in Practice

The Energy and Environment Program (EEP) aims to foster experiential learning, collaboration, and leadership development among a wide variety of professionals. Leveraging the Aspen Institute’s distinct convening power and reputation for cultivating inclusive, nonpartisan dialogue to bridge divides, EEP brings together individuals, organizations, and governments to build cross-sector partnerships that are necessary to develop and deploy solutions that will catalyze a clean energy transition, mitigate the effects of climate change, and help communities adapt to its inevitable impacts.

Woven throughout this work is also our robust and ongoing commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) in everything that we do – as this work both internally and externally is core to who we are as a team. Internally, our team has been diligent over a number of years by making consistent effort to learn and invest in education around DEIB, the product of which is evident in our approach to hiring, building team culture, and all of our internal processes. Externally, we strive to model this commitment to DEIB to partners by amplifying new and diverse voices, prioritizing equity in our project selection, developing metrics to hold ourselves accountable on our DEIB goals, and further embedding this commitment into all of our workstreams.

Our Values

  • Non-partisan collaboration
  • Empathy and equity
  • Trust
  • Appreciation
  • Optimism
  • Inspiration
Our Team

Greg Gershuny

Vice President And Executive Director

María Ortiz Pérez

Managing Director

Alexis Anderson

Program Assistant, Executive Office

Kathryn Benz

Senior Policy Manager, Ocean & Climate

Nikki DeVignes

Associate Director

Selena Elmer

Senior Program Manager, Ocean & Climate

Emily Engel

Program Coordinator, Ocean & Climate

Michelle Faggert

Senior Program Associate, This Is Planet Ed

Taylor Goelz

Senior Program Manager, Ocean & Climate

Michellie Hess

Senior Program Associate, Ocean & Climate

Ingrid Irigoyen

Senior Director, Ocean and Climate

Kate Jaffee

Director, Climate & Environment

Catherine Kent

Finance Manager

Jérôme Krumenacker

Senior Operations Associate

Bea Kuijpers

Program Manager, Climate & Environment

Dana Lhundup

Program Assistant, Ocean & Climate

Timothy Mason

Director, Energy & Mitigation

Julia Merjan

Senior Development Associate

Nadia Phyu

Executie Associate

Kitty Pollack

Senior Advisor to the Executive Director

Sophia Powless

Program Coordinator, This Is Planet Ed

Tanzia Redi

Program Associate, Energy & Mitigation Policy

Annabella Ronca

Program Assistant, Ocean & Climate

Jade Rouse

Program Associate, Climate & Environment

Jillian Sacksner

Intern, Communications

Melody Salerno

Program Associate, EPPIC

Laura Schifter

Senior Fellow, This Is Planet Ed

Catie Tobin

Senior Program Manager, EPPIC

Mrinmayi Ubgade

Melanie Diaz Climate Solutions Intern

Stay Connected

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