Opening Keynote: Costa Samaras
Principal Assistant Director for Energy and OSTP Chief Advisor for Energy Policy, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
Dr. Costa Samaras is the Principal Assistant Director for Energy and OSTP Chief Advisor for Energy Policy at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. As part of the OSTP senior leadership team, Dr. Samaras works with the OSTP Director, the Deputy Director for Energy, and other OSTP senior staff in coordinating Federal activities on topics such as US energy science and technology policy, the suitability of energy technologies for meeting US energy and climate goals, opportunities for energy RDD&D investments, and advancing Federal government-wide initiatives to further diversity, equity, and inclusion of the US scientific and energy sector workforce. Prior to joining OSTP, he was an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director of the Center for Engineering and Resilience for Climate Adaptation at Carnegie Mellon University.
Melissa Bilec
Dr. Melissa Bilec is the William Kepler Whiteford Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering and Co-director of the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation. She is committed to exploring how the built environment can be an integral part of climate change solutions. She views the world and her research using a systems-level approach, and she is an expert in life cycle assessment. Most recently, she is working to solve the global waste challenge through the advancement and development of circular economy principles, since the built environment is a major consumer of resources and producer of waste. Dr. Bilec is committed to diversity, inclusion, and equity. She is working to advance the issues around and the solutions to environmental justice in the City of Pittsburgh.
Matt Eckelman
Dr. Matthew Eckelman is an Associate Professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northeastern University and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Yale School of Public Health. His research laboratory builds data-driven life cycle sustainability assessment models and tools, most recently in the areas of health care and art conservation. He is currently a member of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change and the National Academy of Medicine Decarbonization Action Collaborative. Dr. Eckelman worked previously for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs and holds a PhD in Chemical and Environmental Engineering from Yale University.
Stacy Smedley
Stacy has a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from the University of Washington, and over 18 years in the architecture and construction professions. Her resume includes the first LEED for Homes Platinum certified project in Washington State as well as the first project in the world to be certified under Living Building Version 2.0 standards. As Sustainability Director at Skanska, Stacy has led sustainable initiatives, and is considered a subject matter expert in LEED, Living Building Challenge and carbon emissions associated with buildings and construction.
In her role at Building Transparency, Stacy leads the continued management and development of the free, open-access Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3) tool and works to educate and engage the building industry on actionably reducing embodied carbon emissions of building materials.
Stacy has served in various advisory and leadership roles, including: Co-Chair of the Washington Businesses for Climate Action; Advisory Board Member for the University of Washington Carbon Leadership Forum; Construction Taskforce Chair for the Embodied Carbon Network; Advisory Group Member for AIA Materials Working Group; Emerging Professional Regional Chair for USGBC; Membership Chair for the Cascadia Green Building Council. She is a 2020 Grist 50 Fixer, a 2019 ENR Top 25 Newsmaker, and shared a Living Building Challenge Hero award for her work on the Bertschi School Living Science Building.
Jamie Clarke
Jamie Clarke, is an author, adventurer, acclaimed speaker, and Associate Professor at the University of Calgary’s Haskayne Business School where he teaches and mentors in the Centre for Advanced Leadership.
Join Jamie as he shares lessons in leadership, problem-solving, risk-management, and how to create successful teams, gleaned from decades of mountaineering and adventures that have taken him to every continent on the globe. He has climbed Mt. Everest four times with two successful summits, is one of only a few people to have climbed the Seven Summits, crossed the world’s most desolate desert on a camel, and most recently traversed Mongolia with his son.
With humor and palpable emotion, Jamie challenges you to think differently about success, failure, hard work, and how to reach your own unique Everest as he shares insights from his journeys through the world’s most dangerous places.
He will share his perspectives on learning from failure, conquering fear, and above all – living life with passion.
“On the other side of fear, is freedom.” Jamie Clarke