This Is CDR: Dr. Jennifer Wilcox on What’s Next for CDR in the U.S.

OpenAir is excited to present This Is CDR, an online event series that explores the wide range of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) solutions currently being researched, developed, and deployed, and discusses them in the context of CDR policies OpenAir seeks to formulate and advance at every level of government in the U.S., as well as in national and subnational jurisdictions globally.

This week on This Is CDR, we are pleased and ecstatic to welcome Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Dr. Jennifer Wilcox of the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) to tell us about her work leading FECM, and what’s next for the advancement, deployment, and scaling of CDR in the U.S.

About Dr. Wilcox:

Jennifer Wilcox is the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management at DOE and is on leave as the Presidential Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering and Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. In addition, as a senior fellow at the World Resources Institute (WRI), she led WRI’s Carbon Removal Program.

Having grown up in rural Maine, Dr. Wilcox has a profound respect and appreciation of nature. That appreciation permeates her work; she focuses on minimizing climate and environmental impacts of our dependence on fossil fuels.

Dr. Wilcox holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and an M.A. in Chemistry from the University of Arizona and B.A. in Mathematics from Wellesley College. Dr. Wilcox’s research takes aim at the nexus of energy and the environment, developing both mitigation and adaptation strategies to minimize negative climate impacts associated with society’s dependence on fossil fuels. She has served on committees of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Physical Society to assess carbon capture methods and impacts on climate. She is the author of the first textbook on carbon capture, Carbon Capture, published in March 2012. She co-edited the CDR Primer on carbon dioxide removal in 2021.