SPEAKERS & PANELS

2026 KEYNOTE SPEAKER PREVIEW

  • Ernest J Moniz

    MIT / US DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

    Professor of Physics / Former US Secretary of Energy

    PROFILE

  • Justin Worland

    TIME

    Senior Correspondent

    PROFILE

  • Roger Martella

    GE VERNOVA

    Chief Corporate Officer and Chief Sustainability Officer

    Profile

  • Benjamin Byboth

    COMMONWEALTH FUSION SYSTEMS

    Director, Power Business Development and Strategy

    PROFILE

  • Eric Toone

    BREAKTHROUGH ENERGY VENTURES

    Chief Technology Officer and Managing Partner

    PROFILE

2026 PANEL PREVIEW

Subject to change as details are confirmed.

THE RELIABILITY EQUATION

Balance in Today’s Energy Mix

Ahead of the clean energy transition, there is a need to develop plans and standards to ensure a smooth and efficient execution. To minimize transitional disruptions to the existing electric grid, one must first understand the existing contributors and the balance currently struck between affordability, sustainability and reliability.

Panelists

Nicholas Fry

Thermal Energy Networks Market Lead - North America, Jacobs

Tricia Keegan

SVP Operations, Vicinity Energy

John Larsen

Partner,
Rhodium Group

Moderator

Andy Sun

Iberdrola-Avangrid Professor in Electric Power Systems, MIT Sloan

DECARBONIZING HEAVY INDUSTRIES

A Hard-to-Abate Challenge

Despite being responsible for an enormous share of global emissions, heavy industry rarely takes center stage in climate conversations. This panel shines a spotlight on the toughest decarbonization challenges, from high-temperature heat to carbon-intensive materials, and the emerging solutions that could reshape the industrial economy.

Panelists

Joe Hicken

SVP - Business Development & Policy, Sublime Systems

Petrus Christiaan Pistorius

POSCO Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University

Guillaume Lambotte

Chief Scientist,
Boston Metal

Moderator

Evelyn N. Wang

Vice President for Energy and Climate, MIT

GRID STABILITY

Managing Rising and Variable Load & Demand

Electric power grids are currently facing all-time highs in demand as the changing climate hits residential consumers hard, and growing populations coupled with increasing deployment of digital technologies drive energy use upwards. Concurrently, as renewable penetration increases to meet clean energy goals, the intermittent nature of its generation can lead to grid instability. With energy use strongly tied to socioeconomic development, how do we ensure that the electric grid is capable of meeting rising demands while maintaining current standards for reliability?

Panelists

Graham Dudgeon

Senior Principal Product Manager for Electrical Technology, Mathworks

Jinye Zhao

Technical Manager,
ISO New England

Paul Hines

Chief Scientist and VP - Power Systems, EnergyHub

Moderator

Marija Ilic

Adjunct Professor EECS and Senior Research Scientist - LIDS/IDSS, MIT


REBUILDING SUPPLY CHAIN RESILIENCE

Critical Minerals and the Reshoring Imperative

As climate and geopolitical pressures reshape global trade, notably with regards to the supply of critical minerals, this panel discusses pathways to sustainable and resilient supply chains. In particular, there is a strong emphasis on reshoring mining and manufacturing capacity to support decarbonization efforts, in addition to bolstering domestic supply and economic security.

Panelists

Tomás Villalón Jr.

CTO and Co-founder,
Phoenix Tailings

Elsa Olivetti

Professor,
MIT

Moderator

Brent Ridley

Senior Advisor - Impact and Translation, MIT Climate Project

THE FLEXIBLE FRONTIER

Rethinking Data Center Load

As data centers rapidly become one of the largest and most dynamic sources of electricity demand, flexibility is emerging as a critical lever for grid resilience. This panel explores the challenges of interconnecting large loads, the system-level benefits of flexible operation, and the technologies enabling new forms of flexibility - from compute orchestration and AI-driven demand management to on-site storage and power generation.

Panelists

Venkat Tirupati

Vice President & Chief Technology Officer, ERCOT

Ayse Coskun

Chief Scientist / Professor, Emerald AI / Boston University

Tyler Norris

Head of Market Innovation - Advanced Energy, Google

Moderator

COMING SOON

SECURING THE ENERGY FUTURE

Capital for Resilience

This panel explores how global capital can be mobilized to drive the energy transition while ensuring that the shift toward renewables enhances rather than undermines the resilience of our energy systems. Achieving a resilient and equitable energy transition requires major investment across proven and emerging technologies. This panel brings together leaders from finance, energy, and government to examine how diverse forms of capital can scale infrastructure, strengthen the future grid, and secure long-term resilience.

Panelists

Thomas-Olivier Léautier

Chief Economist,
TotalEnergies

Moderator

James Stock

Vice Provost for Climate and Sustainability, Harvard University

POWERING DATA CENTERS

Present and Future

The race to power AI is reshaping the global energy landscape. How are today’s data centers powered, and what technologies will be needed to meet tomorrow’s unprecedented AI-driven demand? This discussion brings together utility, generation, and hyperscaler perspectives to examine current energy generation and transmission challenges, the evolving procurement landscape, and the frontier technologies that could define the next decade of digital infrastructure growth.

Panelists

Colleen Wright

VP - Strategy and Growth, Constellation

Moderator

Amy Nordrum

Executive Editor,
MIT Technology Review

FINANCING FAIR TRANSITIONS

Global Collaboration for an Equitable Energy Future

Emerging markets will define the pace of global decarbonization, yet gaps in capital, infrastructure, and policy alignment threaten to leave those most vulnerable behind. By reimaging risk-sharing mechanisms and cross-border partnerships, countries can unlock investment that advances both climate and development goals. Panelists will discuss how global institutions and industry can collaborate to build reliable, affordable, and low-carbon energy systems that drive shared prosperity.

Panelists

Catherine Wolfram

William Barton Rogers Professor of Energy Economics, MIT Sloan

Simon Black

Senior Economist, International Monetary Fund

Moderator

Jason Margolis

Climate Science and Transportation Editor, Boston Globe