Dr. Elaine Ulrich is a Senior Advisor for strategy in the solar office at the U.S. Department of Energy. She formerly led the balance of systems/soft costs team that works to reduce the non-hardware (soft costs) of solar and lower barriers to U.S. solar adoption. She recently served as a Senior Advisor for Energy in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
A former American Physical Society/American Association for the Advancement of Science policy fellow and IREC “Energy Hero,” Elaine has spent the past several years working on renewable energy. She previously held positions in the office of former U.S. Senator Ken Salazar, U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology, the Energy Department’s Office of Strategic Planning and Analysis, and in the office of U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, where she worked to build a comprehensive solar energy portfolio.
She holds a B.A. in physics from Wellesley College and a Ph.D. in optical science from the University of Arizona.