My apologies! Glad I didn’t add pictures… fortunately there’s plenty of backcountry to share here!

DM me here or reach out through my website for details on availability, etc. (you can also see examples of my work there. Honoraria appreciated, and I’m happy to tailor talks to academic, practitioner, or student audiences. Thanks! /9

www.matthenryphd.com

If you’re organizing a class, colloquium, panel, or speaker series in 2026 and want to bring someone who connects humanities, justice, and real-world energy systems, I’d be happy to join you. /8

And for grad students, especially those in the humanities, talk about navigating an unconventional path. I have a PhD in English and now work in energy policy + transmission coordination. Yes, it’s possible. No, that training wasn’t a detour. /7

My expertise includes energy and environmental justice and the cultural politics of the energy transition (esp in rural spaces). I speak about my experiences in a national lab under Trump 2.0, being an academic in a red/rural spaces, career pathways, and more. /6

The lesson I learned: if your institution’s incentives or political context shift in ways that undermine your work, it’s not a personal failure. Sometimes the only grounded response is: it’s time to move. /5

Ultimately, I made the decision to leave NREL, to join Gridworks, where I now co-lead our facilitation and policy work in the Intermountain West. That transition, and what it took to get there, has resonated with a lot of people navigating their own institutional crossroads. /4

Struggling for job security despite research success (a book, grant $$$) and watching DOE and the labs pull back from even modest equity commitments was a clarifying experience. It pushed me to ask: What happens when the mission of the institution you serve no longer aligns with your values? /3

For those who don’t know my story: I have a PhD in environmental humanities, was an academic for 5 years, left for a role at NREL, did work on energy justice/community engagement, and then lived through the first 8 months of Trump 2.0, when support for EJ work evaporated almost overnight. /2

Like, reaching levels of cozy I didn’t know were possible over here. Sore legs under a fuzzy blanket, tea, deep damp cold burning off almost visibly.

In climate and energy work, you may find times in which your day job allows you to do work that is well-aligned with your values, but those times are finite. It is helpful to do a periodic reassessment, be ready to pivot if institutional missions become misaligned with your values.

For all the talk of just transition/energy justice from DOE and NREL, it's important to remember that those orgs represent the state, and therefore the status quo (racial capitalism, etc.) and will revert to the mean eventually despite brief periods of lip service to equity.

One of my biggest takeaways from the journey from an EJ scholar to a practitioner/facilitator is that there is no such thing as an EJ "career." Most institutions that will pay you to work are actively incentivized against EJ outcomes, so you have to find little "pockets" where you can do the work.