Our Team
Amy Vernon-Jones
Senior Fellow
Amy Vernon-Jones is the Founder and Principal of Hop Brook Solutions. With 20 years of experience in the field, she brings together law, policy, market analysis, and community building to help organizations and coalitions achieve their climate, energy, policy, and relational goals. She has particular expertise in the US and global LNG industry. She has managed strategic portfolios of philanthropic grants, guiding and supporting work to decarbonize industry, reform the US coal leasing program, and increase the strength and depth of climate litigators, among other efforts. She previously worked as an attorney, using litigation and advocacy to protect the Appalachian Mountains and to reduce the US’s reliance on fossil fuels. She holds a law degree from Harvard Law School.
Dr. Danny Richter
Senior Fellow
Dr. Danny Richter is the Principal and Founder of Richter Capitol Hill Strategies (RCHS) and the Director of the Pricing Carbon Initiative (PCI). With over 20 years’ experience at the interface of climate science and policy, he has helped pass bipartisan climate legislation through Congress that has been signed into law by both Democratic and Republican Presidents. He accomplished this by developing and implementing long-term legislative strategies that empowered regular Americans to communicate technical information to policymakers effectively. He has helped initiate and project-manage several studies, working with researchers to produce timely research tuned not just to the issues of the day, but to the needs and abilities of policymakers and the advocates presenting the research. At RCHS, he helps his clients translate between researchers and policymakers to drive policy with data. He earned his Ph.D. in Oceanography from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, where he was sent to all 7 continents for field work. He earned his B.S. in Environmental Geoscience from the University of Notre Dame.
Eric de Place
Senior Fellow
An independent consultant, Eric de Place has 25 years of experience using research to drive change. His expertise on the energy industry, especially its economics and physical infrastructure, positions him to develop and lead strategies for a range of philanthropies and civil society organizations. He has helped design, launch, and direct numerous initiatives that bring accountability to the fossil fuel industry and speed the transition toward clean energy, including Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Beyond Petrochemicals campaign and the Ohio River Valley Institute.
Jeremy Symons
President
Jeremy Symons is president of the Center for Energy & Environmental Analysis. Jeremy has thirty years of experience working on energy and the environment, including work at the US EPA and Congress. Jeremy is frequently consulted as an expert on energy and the environment by the media and has appeared on PBS News Hour, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, CBS News, CSPAN, and other media outlets. In the lead up to the 2020 elections, Jeremy co-founded and managed “The Climate 21 Project,” which tapped 150 experts with high-level government experience, including nine former cabinet appointees, to develop a rapid start climate blueprint for the Biden administration after his election. Jeremy holds a master’s degree in Public Policy from Georgetown University and a BA in Environmental Studies from Brown University.
John Kostyack
Senior Fellow
John Kostyack is Founder and Principal at Kostyack Strategies, a consultancy helping NGOs and grantmaking foundations achieve their climate change and clean energy policy goals. His experience includes over three decades in executive leadership roles at national nonprofits, management of policy advocacy campaigns, and representation of nonprofit and private sector clients in federal and state courts. His current focus is helping clients design and execute policy campaigns aimed at reducing climate-related financial risk and reorienting private and public finance toward deployment of low-carbon technologies.