I’m an energy engineer, policy advocate, organizer, and strategy advisor for systems change.

Housing, water, and electricity should be provided for all in an overheating world. This principle and my perspectives as a queer immigrant shape my work.

I am the founder and executive director of Public Grids, a national non-profit organization expanding community ownership and democratic, local control of electric utilities. I am also a Fellow at the Climate and Community Institute, a progressive climate and economy think tank.

From 2022 to 2023, I developed and published the People’s Utility curriculum, a popular education resource for scaling energy justice movement capacity from the ground up.

In 2021, I was a founding board member of Collectrify, a community-led investment fund for the replacement of fossil fuels in our homes with clean, renewable electricity. I supported the Initiative for Energy Justice at Northeastern University School of Law as an interim director of their utility program.

Since 2017, I have advanced policy and movement infrastructure directly with Taproot Earth, California Green New Deal Coalition, NEWHAB, Energy Efficiency for All in California (and its member organizations), The Greenlining Institute, Energy Democracy Project, Energy Equity Project, Justice40 Accelerator, Energy Foundation, Kresge Foundation, Heising-Simons Foundation, The Summit Foundation, Emerald Cities Collaborative, and others not listed.

I have instructed courses and provided guest lectures on energy policy and justice at Stanford University, the University of California, the University of Michigan, and the University of Notre Dame.

By request, I advise on strategies to build collective power and win local, state, and federal policy for democratic control of our climate assets.

What's on my mind…

11 Dec 2024 Utility justice is a place we could build together All of us working on utility law, policy, and operation can choose to change our work in order to create opportunities for collaboration with more progressive social movements not fewer. To that end, I want to offer a reparative definition for utility justice inspired by the thinking of Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò.

1 Jun 2024 On Queer People in Climate and Energy Any queer person who works on climate and energy issues—utility issues, especially—in a technical capacity of any kind is a marvel. A statistical miracle. On my first day working on utility policy, I quickly noticed that I didn’t have any openly LGBTQ colleagues.

29 Nov 2023 Reflecting on Writing a Utility Justice Curriculum With movement support, this curriculum has been taught in person with nearly 100 activists and organizers across the country. We previewed the curriculum back in May with environmental and economic justice organizers in Detroit, and this fall they rolled out their own version in a community-facing series. Other organizers produced a podcast episode with their take on the history after we worked through the curriculum together in May.

29 Nov 2023 A Utility Justice Reading List Spanning utility history, economic theory, analysis of structural racism, and practical guides to organizing for utility justice going forward, this reading list is a deeper introduction for anyone using the People’s Utility Commons curriculum or anyone who wants to learn more about utility justice in a reading group.

11 Sep 2023 We Need Public Power for Energy Equity We have to expand public ownership of the electricity system rapidly and comprehensively. With more than one-quarter of all U.S. households currently experiencing deep energy insecurity, the requirement of private utilities to produce competitive profits for their investments is fundamentally opposed to the equally urgent tasks of resisting energy apartheid and greening our buildings and the power sector.

See all my Notes.