Strategic speakers

Samantha Gross joined Brookings in 2017 and is the Director of the Energy Security and Climate Initiative. Her work in the role has involved extensive researching and writing on energy and climate geopolitics, climate change policy, and global energy markets. She has engaged public and policy-oriented audiences through congressional testimony, teaching engagements, conferences in the United States and abroad, and media appearances and interviews.

Prior to joining Brookings, she was a Visiting Research Fellow at King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center (KAPSARC), where she led an economics and technology study with Institute for Energy and Economics, Japan (IEEJ) on pragmatic climate policy and how to reach global goals in the bottom-up world of the Paris Agreement. She also was the director of Integrated Research at IHS CERA, now part of S&P Global.

Her career has also included two spells in US federal government, first as a Senior Analyst with the US Government Accountability Office (2002-2007) and, later, as Director of the Office of International Climate and Clean Energy at the US Department of Energy.