Event recap: HEEA Alumni Speaker Series with Dan Misch

On Nov. 17, over a dozen graduate students studying energy and environmental policy at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy attended an alumni speaker series event featuring Dan Misch, Director of Renewables Asset Management at Invenergy. The program was a joint effort between the Harris School’s Energy and Environmental Association and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Misch previously served as a Federal Project Director for the US Department of Energy conducting programmatic oversight of federal investments at Argonne National Laboratory. He is the Founder and Co-Director of the Veterans Advanced Energy Project and a Nonresident Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center. The event featured a presentation by Misch moderated by Sabrina Fields, UChicago Liaison for the Bulletin and second year MPP student at Harris, followed by a Q&A from the student audience. Misch described how his experiences working as a nuclear engineer in the U.S. Navy to his current career managing solar and wind projects led him to pursue a degree in public policy.

He also told the group how Invenergy is working to combat climate change through clean energy and has developed over 180 projects, primarily in wind and solar. As of February 2021, Invenergy was the largest owner of planned wind projects and the second largest developer of solar by Megawatt. Misch highlighted the company’s focus on communities, noting their projects provided $258 million in local economic investments in 2020.