Adria Wilson

Adria is a director of policy on Breakthrough Energy’s U.S. Policy and Advocacy team, where she leads innovation policy, new initiatives development, and hydrogen policy. Her team’s work focuses on policy and advocacy efforts to expand federal support for clean energy innovation so that the public sector more effectively catalyzes the conversion of R&D into breakthrough technologies that address our decarbonization needs. This includes ensuring consistent funding across sectors and technology maturation levels, alignment with decarbonization needs, and developing the idea of a National Institutes of Energy Innovation. She also leads USPA’s work advancing hydrogen as a decarbonization tool.

Prior to joining Breakthrough Energy, Adria was Entrepreneurial Program Lead at Chain Reaction Innovations, a lab-embedded entrepreneurship program at Argonne National Lab, where she helped develop the then-nascent fellowship program and strategic partnerships across the clean tech innovation ecosystem. She also worked with the Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Office at the Department of Energy, managing applied R&D projects aimed at advancing the widespread adoption of hydrogen technologies. While at DOE, Adria was also engaged in innovation and commercialization efforts, including Energy I-Corps and SBIR program, and developed several programs to expand the innovation workforce. She began her career in energy and environment policy working in the Senate as a AAAS Congressional Fellow.

Adria has a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Duke University, and a B.S. in Chemistry from Drexel University. She lives in Washington D.C. with her wife and two dogs, and aside from getting into nature whenever possible, she aspires to get better at lifting heavy weights and to paint more (not at the same time), and is on a lifelong search for classic Italian movies to enjoy.