Wednesday, 13 May @ Kleinman Energy Forum
8:30am – 5:00pm
4th floor of the Fisher Fine Arts Library (Room 414)
220 S 34th St, Philadelphia, PA 19104
Click here to register by Wednesday, 6 May 2026
Agenda:
| 8:30am - 8:45am | Light Breakfast |
| 8:45am – 9:00am | Welcome/Opening Remarks (Shu Yang, NRT Program Director) |
| 9:00am – 9:15am: | NRT Faculty Leadership (PI) presentation (Professor Samantha McBride) |
| 9:15am – 9:45am | Climate and Energy Work at Penn: Meeting the Challenge, Sanya Carley, Vice Provost for Climate Science, Policy, and Action |
| 9:45am – 10:00am | Hannah Clarkson, Fellow to highlight Climate Leaders at Penn Fellow activities and NRT Climate Care Fellow experience to date |
| 10:00am - 10:15am | Morning Break (beverage and snacks) |
| 10:15am – 10:45am | NRT Faculty Leadership (PI) presentations (Professor William Braham and Professor Dorit Aviv) |
| 10:45am – 11:15am | Student Research presentations (Fellows - Rebecca Jiuhe Shi, Sophia Jackson) |
| 11:15am - 11:45am | From Technology to Systems: Designing Carbon Management for Real-World Deployment, Jennifer Wilcox, Professor of Chemical Engineering and Energy Policy |
| 11:45am – 12:00pm | Student Research presentation (Fellow – Ji Yoon Bae) |
| 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Lunch |
| 1:00pm – 2:15pm | Panel Discussion with Industry Advisory Board Members and Fellows |
| 2:15pm - 2:30pm | Student Research presentation (Fellow – Shelvey Swett) |
| 2:30pm - 2:45pm | Afternoon Break (beverage and snacks) |
| 2:45pm - 3:15pm | Student Research presentations (Fellows Zhan Shi, Hannah Clarkson) |
| 3:15pm – 3:30pm | Closing Remarks (Shu Yang, NRT Program Director) |
| 3:30pm – 4:30pm | Hackathon for Fellows/Visitor Tour - A guided tour of the new design school/Weitzman Hall done by KieranTimberlake with sustainability features (Professor William Braham, Professor Dorit Aviv, and Ryan Welsh, KieranTimberlake) |
| 4:30pm – 4:45pm | Hackathon Results/Presentation |
9:15am – 9:45am
Climate and Energy Work at Penn: Meeting the Challenge
Sanya Carley, Vice Provost of Climate Science, Policy, and Action
University of Pennsylvania, Presidential Distinguished Professor of Energy Policy and City Planning, Stuart Weitzman School of Design
Dr. Carley’s research focuses on energy justice and just transitions, energy insecurity, electricity and transportation markets, and public perceptions of energy infrastructure and technologies.
In these opening remarks, Dr. Carley will present on the mission of both Penn Climate and the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, featuring key priorities and topical areas, and highlighting accomplishments of both efforts and their affiliated Penn community members.
11:15am - 11:45am
From Technology to Systems: Designing Carbon Management for Real-World Deployment
Jennifer Wilcox, Presidential Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering and Energy Policy
University of Pennsylvania, Kleinman Center for Energy Policy and SEAS
Carbon management technologies, from carbon capture to carbon dioxide removal, are often evaluated based on technical performance and cost projections. Yet the primary barriers to deployment today are no longer scientific uncertainty, but the ability to integrate these technologies into real-world systems shaped by policy, infrastructure, markets, and communities.
This talk reframes carbon management as a systems design challenge. Drawing on insights from U.S. policy implementation, industrial decarbonization, and emerging carbon removal pathways, it explores when and where integration outperforms standalone deployment, how resource and infrastructure constraints shape viable pathways, and what design principles can enable near-term scale. The focus is on what can be deployed now - responsibly, efficiently, and at scale - rather than what may become viable in the future.