What Is a Climate Innovator?

Allie Thompson facilitates the connection between advanced analytics capabilities and customers’ needs to understand the financial impacts of climate change on their business or community. She brings over eight years of combined experience in urban planning, climate adaptation, and environmental justice. Ms. Thompson is a graduate of Valparaiso University, where she received a Bachelor of Science in Geoscience with minors in Atmospheric Science and Mathematics. She also holds a Master of Professional Studies in Sustainable Urban Planning from George Washington University, with a Graduate Certificate in Climate Change Management and Policy.

Elisa Miller-Out is an experienced serial tech entrepreneur, investor, board director, and community builder. She is currently Managing Partner at Chloe Capital, a seed-stage venture capital firm investing in women-led innovation companies. Ms. Miller-Out is also an instructor with the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps and a guest lecturer at Cornell University and Columbia University. She is a board director at Women 2.0 and GatheringUs, as well as chair of the board at Singlebrook, the custom software services firm she co-founded and led for over 10 years. Ms. Miller-Out has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, Forbes magazine, and other publications, and she speaks about technology and entrepreneurship at events across the country. She also serves as a mentor, advisor, and entrepreneur-in-residence with several organizations, including NYSERDA, the Center for Regional Economic Advancement at Cornell University, Launch NY, and 76West.

Johanna Wolfson is a co-founder and General Partner at Azolla Ventures, as well as co-founder of Prime Impact Fund. Her career has focused on accelerating climate technologies from lab to market, spanning university and industry-applied research, government, and venture investing. Prior to investing, Dr. Wolfson was Technology-to-Market Director for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), where she deployed more than $50MM per year into innovative energy projects and companies and also advised DOE, congressional staff, and national labs on effective lab-to-market strategies.

Dr. Wolfson previously led startup engagement at the applied R&D lab Fraunhofer, where she both sourced innovative technologies for Fortune 500 clients and designed demonstration projects for emerging startups to ready their products for market entry. She has a B.S. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from MIT, where she conducted research on solid-state physics and photonics.

Laury Saligman is a Managing Partner at Clean Energy Venture Group and a Venture Partner in Clean Energy Ventures, a $110 million fund investing in early-stage companies addressing climate change. With a passion for the environment, Ms. Saligman has worked at the nexus of sustainability and business for the past 25 years. She co-founded the Vermont Women’s Investor Network (WIN) to support women interested in impact investing and is currently a co-organizer of the Founders of Color Showcase. Ms. Saligman served on the Board of Packetized Energy, which was recently acquired. She holds a B.S. in Physics from Georgetown, an M.S. in Environmental Health from Harvard, and an MBA in Sustainable Entrepreneurship from UVM. Ms. Saligman lives in Montpelier, Vermont, with her husband and two daughters and spends as much time as possible cross-country skiing, trail running, and biking.

Melanie Santiago-Mosier is a nationally recognized, award-winning energy and utilities expert and thought leader. For over a decade, she has been implementing a vision for diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in and through clean energy. Ms. Santiago-Mosier serves as the Deputy Director for the Clean Energy Group and the Clean Energy States Alliance, sister nonprofits that serve as a trusted source of technical expertise and independent analysis in support of communities and government leaders working toward an equitable clean energy transition.

Before joining CEG and CESA in 2021, Ms. Santiago-Mosier served as the Managing Director for Access and Equity for Vote Solar, where her work focused on advocating for programs that open up solar’s opportunities and benefits for people from all races, genders, backgrounds, and identities. Her experience includes leading the government affairs efforts for organizations such as the Maryland Public Service Commission and Washington Gas Energy Services. Ms. Santiago-Mosier also served as a regional policy director for SunEdison. In 2019, she was awarded a WRISE Honor for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion by Women in Renewable Industries and Sustainable Energy. In 2020, she was named one of “Maryland’s Top 100 Women” by The Daily Record. Ms. Santiago-Mosier holds her J.D. from the University of Maryland School of Law and her B.A. from St. John’s College. She serves on a number of volunteer boards.

Tina Kaarsberg, Ph.D., has alternated between policy and research management for more than a decade at DOE, interrupted by a three-year stint as professional staff on the House Science Committee’s Energy Subcommittee, where she helped craft the Energy Policy Act. Dr. Kaarsberg currently manages dozens of R&D projects with a focus on energy storage as well as two initiatives focused on transformational, ultra-energy-efficient conductor and semiconductor technologies.

Dr. Kaarsberg graduated from Yale College with a B.A. with distinction in Physics and from Stonybrook University with a Physics Master’s and Doctorate. After finishing her Ph.D. research in experimental particle physics at Cornell in 1988, Dr. Kaarsberg continued in the field as UCLA research faculty. She transitioned to a policy/research management role as an American Physical Society Congressional Science Fellow for Senator Domenici. From there, she worked for DOE national lab, a small business, and a think tank. Dr. Kaarsberg is a fellow of the American Physical Society and still plays Ultimate Frisbee even decades after having twice led the Cornell Women’s Ultimate to college nationals.