What first drew your attention to clean energy and renewable energies?
My first awareness of energy more broadly—and the fact that it is not guaranteed for everyone—was from visiting my grandmother in Ghana as a young child.
I realized there was so much stress on the grid, and there were frequent blackouts. You really had to plan when you could watch TV or think about when you’d have access to electricity versus candles. That was very different from being born in Philadelphia and growing up in the U.S., where my lights were on very consistently. That early realization of energy’s critical importance, and the inequality of its access, formed the foundation of my current work.
Given this experience, after my undergrad in the U.S., I became much more conscious of renewables like solar and wind. I wondered why a country such as Ghana, with so much sunlight (solar potential), did not have so many solar panels on more of these homes. Then, 15 years ago, my parents put solar panels on their home in Ghana. It’s just interesting to see how things evolve over time.