Meeting Agenda

David M. Turk

Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Energy

David M. Turk was sworn in as Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on March 25, 2021. As Deputy Secretary, Turk serves as the number two official and Chief Operating Officer of a $50 billion per year organization focused on all things energy, basic science, and nuclear security. Turk has taken a leading role in implementing President Biden’s historic clean energy legislation, including coordinating with the White House, interagency partners, and the private sector. With Secretary Granholm, he has orchestrated a major reorganization of the Department to create and staff new offices to demonstrate and deploy clean energy technologies. Turk has also focused on early-stage innovation, including the launch of a series of Energy Earthshots.

Prior to his nomination as Deputy Secretary, Turk was the Deputy Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, where he focused on helping countries around the world to make progress on their clean energy transitions. In the Obama-Biden Administration, he served for a first time in the Department of Energy, including spearheading the launch of Mission Innovation—a global effort to enhance clean energy innovation. Turk has also been a Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director at the U.S. National Security Council, Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change at the State Department, and a Staff Director of the National Security Subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee.

Alejandro Moreno

Associate Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

Alejandro Moreno is the Associate Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) at DOE. He provides strategic advice leadership in the strategic planning, execution, and oversight of the EERE portfolio.

Previously, he served as the Office's Renewable Energy Deputy Assistant Secretary and as the Director of the Water Power Technologies Office.  In addition to his roles at DOE, he has served in the energy groups of the World Bank and International Finance Corporation, where he designed and led regulatory reform programs to spur investment in clean energy and rural electrification. Mr. Moreno holds a Bachelor’s degree from Stanford University and a Master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

Shalanda H. Baker

Director, Office of Energy Justice and Equity

Shalanda H. Baker is the Director of the Office of Energy Justice and Equity at DOE and Secretarial Advisor on Equity. She also serves as Chief Diversity Officer for the agency. Prior to her Senate confirmation, she joined the Biden-Harris Administration on Day One to serve as the Nation’s first-ever Deputy Director for Energy Justice. She is the architect of the historic Justice40 Initiative; racial justice and equity action plan; energy justice policy framework; and diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility efforts at the Department.

Before joining the Biden-Harris Administration, she was a Professor of Law, Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University. She has spent over 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 over 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 the Co-Founder and former Co-Director of the Initiative for Energy Justice, 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, argues that the technical terrain of energy policy should be the next domain to advance civil rights. She received her BS from the United States Air Force Academy and 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.

Dr. Sunita Satyapal

Director, Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office

Sunita Satyapal coordinates activities across offices for the DOE Hydrogen Program. She is responsible for more than $1.6 billion in hydrogen and fuel cell research, development, demonstration, and deployment (RDD&D) activities within the office and for coordinating more than $9.5 billion in hydrogen activities across DOE. In addition, she led the development of the national clean hydrogen strategy and roadmap and serves as the Director for the Hydrogen Interagency Task Force, which includes a dozen agencies and is co-chaired by the Deputy Secretary of Energy and the White House Deputy National Climate Advisor. She has more than two and a half decades of experience across industry, academia, and government, including at United Technologies managing RDD&D and business development, and as a visiting professor.

Satyapal also coordinates international hydrogen activities as Vice-Chair of the International Partnership for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells in the Economy, a partnership among over 20 countries to accelerate progress in hydrogen and is the U.S. co-lead for hydrogen efforts within the Clean Energy Ministerial and Mission Innovation. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University and did postdoctoral work in Applied and Engineering Physics at Cornell University. She has numerous publications, including in Scientific American, 10 patents, and several recognitions including a Meritorious Presidential Rank Award in 2015 and a Distinguished Presidential Rank Award in 2022.

Dilawar Syed

Deputy Administrator, U.S. Small Business Administration

Dilawar Syed comes to SBA from the State Department where he championed American businesses as Special Representative for Commercial & Business Affairs. Before joining the Biden-Harris Administration, Syed was CEO at Lumiata, an AI healthcare company focused on reducing healthcare costs and improving patient outcomes. Previously, Syed was President at the software company Freshworks. Earlier in his career, Syed oversaw business operations for Yahoo!'s platforms and infrastructure and was a product manager at Siebel Systems and SAP.

Syed has driven civic efforts at the federal, state, and local level focusing on economic growth and entrepreneurship. As the founding Chair of the California Entrepreneurship Task Force with the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development, Syed promoted inclusive entrepreneurship. He served on President Obama's White House Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) and chaired the White House Initiative on AAPIs’ Economic Growth Committee. In that role, Syed led the administration’s engagement with small businesses across the United States after the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. In 2020, Syed was tapped by San Jose, California, Mayor Sam Liccardo to help lead Silicon Valley’s pandemic economic recovery as a member of the Silicon Valley Recovery Roundtable. Syed holds an M.B.A. from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and earned a B.A. in Economics and Computer Science from The University of Texas at Austin.

Tristan Brown

Deputy Administrator, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation

Tristan Brown serves as the Deputy Administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. Since 2021, Brown has led a team of nearly 600 full time employees (as well as nearly 200 contractors), managing a $500+ million annual budget—focused on overseeing the safety of 3.4 million miles of hazardous material pipelines and 1.2 million shipments of hazardous material goods transported daily across the United States. Brown also serves on the White House Council on Environmental Quality’s Carbon Dioxide Capture, Utilization, and Sequestration Federal and Non-Federal Lands Permitting Task Forces.

Previously, Brown served as counsel to U.S. Senator Gary Peters and as an advisor to U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar on matters related to transportation, space policy, energy, the environment, and native American issues. Brown previously practiced law in the private sector, focusing on regulatory, transactional, and litigation matters relating to the transportation and public utilities sectors. He also previously served as Deputy Associate Administrator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Betsy Dirksen Londrigan

Administrator, Rural Business Cooperative Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Betsy Dirksen Londrigan is currently serving as the Rural Business Cooperative Service Administrator. She previously served as the Illinois State Director for Rural Development from 2022 to 2024. With over 20 years of experience in the nonprofit sector, she has worked with community, regional, and state leaders to bring about positive change. As the Lead for the Illinois Basin Rapid Response Team for the Interagency Working Group for Energy Communities, she continues to make significant contributions to her field.  She is a lifelong resident of Springfield, Illinois, and is proud that her family members still own and operate the Centennial farm in Central Illinois where her grandmother was raised. Dirksen Londrigan graduated from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and is a former Director at the University of Illinois Springfield.

Grant T. Harris

Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Analysis, International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce

Grant T. Harris is the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Analysis. He was appointed by President Biden, confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 7, 2022, and officially sworn in on April 19, 2022. Harris leads a staff of more than 225 trade and industry experts that produce innovative, high-quality, in-depth trade analyses and develop strategies to maintain the leading competitive edge of American industry throughout the world.

Harris has 20 years of private and public sector experience related to international relations, national security, and global business. Harris previously served as CEO of Connect Frontier LLC, a consultancy that he founded. In that role, Harris advised companies and organizations on strategy, policy, and mitigating risk with respect to doing business in emerging and frontier markets. Harris also served as Adjunct Professor of Global Management at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and lectured on doing business in emerging markets at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.