DOE Announces 2024 Clean Energy Education and Empowerment Awardees

DOE Recognizes Nine Leaders for their Outstanding Achievements in Tackling the Biggest Challenges Facing our Transition to a Clean Energy Future

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced the winners of the 2024 Clean Energy Education & Empowerment (C3E) Awards, honoring nine women for outstanding leadership and accomplishments in clean energy. The C3E Initiative aims to close the gender gap and increase the participation, leadership, and success of women in clean energy fields. In its 13th year, the C3E Initiative is led by DOE in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Energy Initiative, Stanford University's Precourt Institute for Energy, and the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University. 

"DOE is honored to celebrate this year's C3E Awardees, a remarkable group of leaders introducing groundbreaking ideas and diverse viewpoints to advance a fair and sustainable clean energy economy in America and across the world," said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. "These exceptional women are deepening our understanding of the clean energy transition and sparking innovative breakthroughs we need to build a thriving clean energy future that benefits every community."

The 2024 C3E Awardees are influential leaders shaping the clean energy landscape by advancing equitable and affordable access, broadening markets, spearheading innovative research, and driving policy strategies. The C3E Lifetime Achievement Honoree has dedicated her career to advancing renewable energy and climate mitigation at the state level and in the private sector, while serving as an exemplar for all in the clean energy field.

The 2024 C3E Awardees, listed by category, are: 

• 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.

Learn more about the C3E Initiative and awardees. The winners will be honored at the 13th Annual C3E Women in Clean Energy Symposium and Awards on November 13, 2024. Register for the symposium livestream. 

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