Heather Clark

Heather Clark MSRED ’04 served as Senior Director for Building Sector Climate Policy in the White House Climate Policy Office under Biden. She led policy for the all-of-government mobilization to transition the U.S. building sector to zero emissions and mitigate the climate crisis, create good-paying jobs, boost clean manufacturing, and advance environmental justice through federal investments, executive actions, regulations, procurement-based initiatives, and federal/state/private partnerships.

As both a climate policy and technical building expert, Heather has orchestrated some of the most cutting-edge decarbonization projects in the US. Heather joined the White House from RMI where she worked on federal and state climate policy – including the Inflation Reduction Act – to advance equitable decarbonization of buildings with a focus on affordable housing. She also managed technical strategies to transform existing buildings from climate liabilities to carbon-storing assets through RMI’s REALIZE deep energy retrofit accelerator.

Prior to RMI, Heather founded Biome Studio, a creative design and real estate development studio, which uses art, architecture, and public interventions to catalyze built environments that power themselves, cleanse themselves, transform waste, provide wildlife habitat, produce food, enhance the lives of people, and support environmental justice. At Biome Studio, Heather implemented pioneering decarbonization projects, including the first large-scale deep energy retrofit in the U.S.; the redevelopment of vacant historic buildings into affordable housing; and community art such as Sky Stage that transformed a burned building shell into open air theater.

Earlier in her career, Heather established WinnCompanies green building program to implement energy efficiency and renewable energy at 90,000+ apartments of affordable housing and formed WinnSolar, one of the nation’s first solar power purchase entities for affordable housing. Heather was appointed by Governor Deval Patrick to serve on the MA Energy Efficiency Advisory Council that oversees $3 billion utility energy efficiency programs and the MA Zero Energy Task Force. While at NYSERDA, Heather was the NY Director for the US DOE’s Rebuild America Program. Heather is also an award-winning artist using immersive art installations to convey stories of social justice and environment.

Heather holds an MS in Real Estate Development from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a BS in Environmental Science and Community Planning, summa cum laude, from Cornell University.