Session : CAPTAINS OF THE FUTURE: EMPOWERING CHANGEMAKERS

Maria t. Vargas

Senior Program Advisor, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, US Department of Energy

Maria T. Vargas is a Senior Program Advisor at the Department of Energy and the Director of DOE’s Better Buildings Initiative, including the newly launched Better Climate Challenge.  Through this leadership platform, DOE works with hundreds of chief executive officers, state and local leaders, and university presidents who have committed to ambitious energy and greenhouse gas reduction goals and sharing their strategies as models for others to follow.

Ms. Vargas also spearheads DOE’s leadership of the C3E Initiative. Through C3E (Clean Energy, Education and Empowerment), DOE works to advance women’s leadership in clean energy.  

Prior to her work at DOE, Ms. Vargas was the Brand Manager for the ENERGY STAR program for almost 20 years while at the US Environmental Protection Agency.  She has been involved in policy work on the issues of ozone depletion, global climate change, and related environmental and energy issues since 1985.  Ms. Vargas received a Bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College (Swarthmore, PA) in Political Science and Economics and a Master’s degree from the University of Oregon (Eugene, Oregon) and was inducted in the Energy Efficiency Hall of Fame in 2014.