New Clean Energy Education & Empowerment Awardees in USA

Societal progress comes through the hard work of individuals. All groups, organizations, governments, and societies move forward in a positive way through the hard work and vision of individuals, and leaders are always needed. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has,” the anthropologist Margaret Mead famously said.

Sometimes it’s worth taking a minute to appreciate and give thanks to people who have worked tirelessly leading the world forward for many years. Heck, sometimes it’s worth doing so for people who have taken up leadership roles for several hours! There are countless leaders in the cleantech revolution, so we can never give enough thanks to all of them, but, generally speaking, we probably don’t take enough breathers to do so as it is.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) did take a moment to do so today, though, announcing the winners of the 2024 Clean Energy Education & Empowerment (C3E) Awards. This year’s awards went to 9 women in private and public sectors who have demonstrated “outstanding leadership and accomplishments in clean energy.” Why just women? Because “the C3E Initiative aims to close the gender gap and increase the participation, leadership, and success of women in clean energy fields.” The C3E Initiative is a collaboration between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Energy Initiative (MIT), Stanford University’s Precourt Institute for Energy, Arizona State University’s Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, and the DOE.

Here are the 9 ladies who were awarded by the C3E Institution today and why:

• Business — Linette Casey serves as a Sales Account Manager at Siemens Energy, one of the world’s leading technology companies, where she works across the renewable energy field—from onshore and offshore wind to solar and storage—supporting a range of clients that include engineering, procurement and construction companies; developers; startups; utilities; and regulating bodies. She has established herself as an expert in driving the renewable energy transition and finding sustainable solutions for energy-intensive industries.
• Education — Jennifer Clemons is a Co-Principal Investigator at CREATE, a national energy center funded by the National Science Foundation. The CREATE mission is to help produce the skilled technical workforce necessary to transition to a clean and renewable electricity sector. In this role, she is working to broaden the participation in energy careers to increase the number of women and underrepresented minorities in the energy field. She has spent her entire career working in education, particularly in community colleges. Recently, Clemons was the Department Chair of Energy Technologies at Delaware Technical Community College, where she oversaw the development of associate degree programs in Energy Management, Renewable Energy Solar, and Building Automation Systems.
• Entrepreneurship & Commercialization — Andi Kleissner is a Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Amped Innovation, a designer and manufacturer of high-performance, off-grid solar systems and appliances for solar-rich environments. She has deep expertise in solar technology and has led the company’s growth across emerging markets. She has dedicated her career to product innovation and social enterprise. Before founding Amped, Kleissner led a hardware engineering team at QuantaLife, which was acquired by BioRad Laboratories.
• Finance & Investment — Amy Duffuor is a Co-Founder and General Partner of Azolla Ventures, where she invests in early-stage technology companies with transformative climate impact. She is also a Managing Director of Prime Impact Fund, Azolla’s predecessor vehicle. Her professional background spans business, finance, and impact across three continents. Prior to Azolla Ventures and Prime Impact Fund, Duffuor was a renewables and power investment banker at Bank of America. There, she worked with chief executive officers of public and private companies to raise investment capital.
• Fundamental & Applied Research — Johanna Mathieu is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Michigan (UM) in Ann Arbor. She is also serving as the Interim Director of the UM Institute for Energy Solutions. Mathieu’s research focuses on using new operational and control strategies to reduce the environmental impact, cost, and inefficiency of electric power systems. In particular, she develops new methods to actively engage distributed flexible resources such as energy storage, electric loads, and renewable energy sources in power system operation.
• Government – Kim Smaczniak is Special Counsel at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), where she has shaped historic reforms to policies that better enable the grid to reliably and affordably sustain a transition to clean energy. She contributed to FERC’s successful issuance and to the legal durability of new federal transmission planning, transmission siting, and generator interconnection regulations. She played a pivotal role in the successful legal defense of market reforms to better accommodate state policies supporting clean energy technologies, reforms that will impact more than 44,000 MW of capacity by 2035.
• International — Gina Cady is a U.S. diplomat for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Foreign Service where she leads Power Africa’s Health Electrification and Telecommunications Alliance (HETA), a $150 million public–private partnership designed to electrify and digitally connect 10,000 health facilities across sub-Saharan Africa. During her 13 years at USAID, she has successfully negotiated large conservation and energy partnerships with industry and national governments, managing more than $200 million of partnership funding across Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa.
• Policy & Advocacy — Christina Angelides is currently the Managing Director of Policy at Elemental Impact, where she leads policy strategy, government affairs, and community engagement programs. She also leads strategy for the organization’s public investment portfolio, including Elemental’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund program, which is investing millions of dollars in projects to benefit low-income and other underserved communities. Angelides previously was a Project Director at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), where she designed, fundraised, and directed the American Cities Climate Challenge.
• Lifetime Achievement — Rose McKinney-James is a clean energy advocate, small business leader, and independent corporate director with more than 35 years of experience in the clean energy field. She is the former President and Chief Executive Officer for the Corporation for Solar Technology and Renewable Resources and Commissioner with the Nevada Public Service Commission. During her tenure with the Nevada Commission, she was appointed Nevada’s first Director of the Department of Business and Industry and was elected to serve as Second Vice President of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC). Working with a diverse group of advocates, McKinney-James spearheaded the effort to facilitate the passage of the first Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard in Nevada. She has helped to shape much of the state’s energy policy framework. McKinney-James serves on the Board of Directors for MGM Resorts International, Ioneer, Toyota Financial Savings Bank, and Pacific Premier Bancorp. She previously served as Board Chair for the U.S. Energy Foundation and the American Association for Blacks in Energy.

You can learn more about the winners here. Also, on November 13, there will be a symposium to celebrate them. I imagine the event will be either more or less jubilant depending on what happens a week earlier. You can register for the livestream of that here. See you there?