By News and Internal Communications

By Maria Gonzalez

RIO GRANDE VALLEY, TEXAS – The Honorable Shalanda H. Baker, director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Economic Impact and Diversity, will deliver the keynote address at an upcoming stakeholder engagement session at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.  

The keynote, "Energy Justice and Justice40: Made for this Moment," will begin at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, April 12, at the UTRGV Ballroom on the Edinburg Campus.

The Honorable Shalanda H. Baker, director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Economic Impact and Diversity, will deliver the keynote address at UTRGV for a stakeholder engagement session, 10 a.m. Wednesday, April 12, 2023. (Courtesy Photo)

Baker, the first-ever deputy director for Energy Justice at the DOE, has spent more than a decade researching the equity dimensions of the global transition away from fossil fuel energy to cleaner energy resources. 

In June 2022, the U.S. Senate confirmed Baker as the DOE’s director of Economic Impact and Diversity. In her role, she leads environmental justice efforts and seeks equity-centered solutions to address the escalating climate crisis. 

Those efforts are part of the implementation of President Joe Biden's historic Justice40 Initiative and the DOE's first-ever Equity Action Plan. 

The keynote is the first event led by the DOE Road to Energy Justice initiative.

Baker will share information about the DOE’s efforts through the Justice40 Initiative to advance racial equity, support underserved communities, and achieve a just and equitable energy future.

"DOE prioritizes equity and place-based strategies in our investments to model a clean energy transition that will deliver real benefits to frontline communities,” Baker said, “especially those historically impacted by the legacy of pollution and environmental injustice." 

"Consistent with President Biden's commitments, our collaboration with industry leaders, local governments, community stakeholders and local businesses will result in real change that advances environmental justice, invigorates economic revitalization, and creates good jobs in frontline communities," she said.

This event is open to the UTRGV community, including faculty, students and staff. Those interested can RSVP at the link below. Registration will remain open until the event begins.

Keynote by Shalanda H. Baker, Director of Economic Impact & Diversity of U.S. DOE

For more information or to request accommodations, contact Dr. Marla Perez-Lugo at marla.perezlugo@utrgv.edu. 

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

The Honorable Shalanda H. Baker is director of the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity at the U.S. Department of Energy and Secretarial Advisor on Equity. Prior to her Senate confirmation, she served as the nation’s first-ever deputy director for Energy Justice. Before joining the Biden-Harris Administration, she was a professor of Law, Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University. She has spent more than a decade conducting research on the equity dimensions of the global transition away from fossil fuel energy to cleaner energy resources. She is the author of more than a dozen articles, book chapters and essays on renewable energy law, energy justice, energy policy and renewable energy development. 

In 2016, she received a Fulbright-Garcia-Robles research fellowship to study climate change, energy policy and indigenous rights in Mexico. She is cofounder and former co-director of the Initiative for Energy Justice (www.iejusa.org), an organization committed to providing technical law and policy support to communities on the frontlines of climate change. Her book, Revolutionary Power: An Activist’s Guide to the Energy Transition (Island Press 2021), argues that the technical terrain of energy policy should be the next domain to advance civil rights. 

She earned a BS from the U. S. Air Force Academy and a JD from Northeastern University School of Law. She obtained her LLM while serving as a William H. Hastie Fellow at the University of Wisconsin School of Law.