Dr. Noël Bakhtian

Noël Bakhtian is Senior Advisor for Technology, Energy, and Climate at Renaissance Philanthropy, where she helps identify, accelerate, and execute high-impact opportunities at the intersection of technology, innovation, and global challenges.

Dr. Noël Bakhtian has spent her career connecting ideas, people, and institutions in service of breakthrough solutions in climate, energy, and beyond. She most recently served as Director of Tech Acceleration at the $10 billion Bezos Earth Fund, where she led the launch of the Fund’s first prize initiative, designed the first philanthropic multi-sector roadmap for scaling greenhouse gas removals, and advanced new approaches for harnessing AI, biotechnology, and other frontier innovations for climate and nature.

Previously, Noël held leadership positions in the U.S. Department of Energy’s national laboratory system, including as founding Executive Director of Berkeley Lab’s Energy Storage Center and as Director of the Center for Advanced Energy Studies at Idaho National Laboratory. In these roles, she guided mission-driven research strategies, forged university–lab–industry partnerships, and testified before Congress on energy workforce opportunities. Earlier in her career, she served as a senior policy advisor for energy and environment at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and in Congress, where she advanced initiatives at the nexus of science, technology, and national security.

Her early work at NASA – developing a novel Mars landing technology – and her years in the national laboratories – rooted in the legacy of the nation’s first large-scale scientific enterprise – shaped her approach to solving global challenges through moonshot-level innovation, collaboration, and urgency.

Noël serves on the National Academies’ Board on Energy and Environmental Systems, the NASA Advisory Council Science Committee, and the inaugural Board of the U.S. Department of Energy’s nonprofit foundation - Foundation for Energy Security and Innovation (FESI). A first-generation American, she earned her PhD in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford, master’s degrees from Stanford and Cambridge (as a Churchill Scholar), and bachelor’s degrees in mechanical engineering and physics from Duke University.