Mainspring CEO and Founder, Shannon Miller, wins the U.S. Department of Energy 2022 C3E Women in Clean Energy Award

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced the winners of the 2022 Clean Energy Education & Empowerment (C3E) Awards, honoring nine women for outstanding leadership and accomplishments in clean energy. The C3E Initiative aims to close the gender gap and increase the participation, leadership, and success of women in a diverse array of clean energy fields.

“For too long, there has been a significant gender gap in the energy sector, meaning half the population have had a minimized impact on one of our most important industries,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “As we transition to a clean energy economy, we will have to tap into the pool of amazing women working in energy and grow their ranks. That’s why DOE is proud to recognize the winners of this year’s C3E Awards, a diverse group of changemaking women tackling some of the biggest challenges in energy.”

Data show that many women leave the workforce mid-career, a trend that was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. C3E strives to retain women in the workforce by connecting those working in clean energy with information, insight, inspiration, and opportunities to engage with peers and mentors.

The C3E Award winners are creating scientific breakthroughs, increasing energy access, boosting community resilience, improving systems, and investing in groundbreaking technologies that will facilitate the clean energy transition. Each awardee receives a cash gift of $8,000 and national recognition of their efforts.

Now in its 11th year, the C3E Initiative is led by DOE in collaboration with the MIT Energy Initiative, Stanford University’s Precourt Institute for Energy, and the Texas A&M Energy Institute.

The 2022 C3E award winners are:

Business — Phoebe Wang is a clean tech venture capitalist who serves as an investment director at Shell Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of the energy company Shell. Wang leads investments in early- and late-stage startups working on technologies to accelerate the energy transition in the areas of hydrogen, carbon capture utilization and storage, energy storage, mobility, and power. She has invested more than $150 million over the past decade in frontier technology startups.

Education & Advocacy — Angelica Ramdhari is a director of Resilient Solar at Solar One, a nonprofit organization that provides technical assistance, training, and educational programs to foster sustainability in diverse urban communities. Ramdhari focuses on the deployment of projects in the high-barrier New York City energy storage market. She directed the design and installation of several groundbreaking solar and battery projects in low-income coastal communities in Brooklyn and the Bronx.

Entrepreneurship — Shannon Miller is the chief executive officer and founder of Mainspring Energy. Miller leads the design, manufacture, and commercialization of the Mainspring Linear Generator, a new type of clean power generator with a fuel-agnostic design that enables switching between fuel types, including clean fuels such as hydrogen, biogas, renewable natural gas, and ammonia. The generator is designed to firm renewable power, increase resilience, and accelerate the transition to clean fuels.

Government — Sylvia Louie is a director of business development at the New York Power Authority, the largest state public power organization in the United States. Louie focuses on development of large-scale renewables, energy storage, and transmission projects supporting New York State’s ambitious clean energy goals.

International — Sarah Bieber is the head of energy partnerships for Acumen, a nonprofit organization that is changing the way the world tackles poverty by investing in companies, leaders, and ideas. Bieber leads a global team working to provide clean energy access to the 733 million people living without it. She brings together donors, corporations, and other public- and private-sector stakeholders to devise investment strategies and create coalitions that support clean energy companies serving low-income communities.

Law & Finance — Rachel Taow is a process modernization lead at the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear, based at Idaho National Laboratory. Taow works on improving contracting mechanisms for advanced nuclear power. She implements strategies to modernize public-private partnerships to provide efficient access to national laboratory resources. She spearheaded a new agreement model to enable industry to access multiple national labs through a single agreement, saving negotiation time and resources.

Social, Economic, & Policy Innovation — Ramsay Siegal is a partner at Earthshot Ventures, a venture capital fund that supports entrepreneurs building technologies to address climate change. Siegal previously led a portfolio of more than 100 climate tech companies at Elemental Excelerator, which Earthshot Ventures spun out of in 2021. She is dedicated to funding and supporting founders from groups typically underrepresented in venture.

Technology Research & Innovation — Y. Shirley Meng is a professor at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago and chief scientist for Argonne National Laboratory’s Collaborative Center for Energy Storage Science. She is a pioneering scientist focusing primarily on energy storage materials and systems, including rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles and trucks, power sources for Internet of Things, and grid-scale storage. Her work on the cryogenic microscopic imaging method in the battery field received international acclaim.

Lifetime Achievement — Lisa Jackson is the vice president of Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives at Apple. Jackson oversees Apple’s efforts to minimize its impact on the environment by addressing climate change through renewable energy and energy efficiency, using greener materials, and inventing new ways to conserve precious resources. She also leads Apple’s Racial Equity and Justice Initiative, focused on education, economic opportunity, and criminal justice reform.