Five Questions with Alex Hopkins
January 1, 2025
Meet interim director of the Energy Transition Initiative (ETI) Alex Hopkins!
Hopkins is the interim director of the Energy Transition Initiative (ETI), a joint program of the UNC Institute for the Environment and the UNC School of Law’s Center for Climate, Energy, Environment & Economics (CE3). His work focuses on engaging stakeholders at the federal and state level on the choices that will shape the future of the energy sector in North Carolina, the southeast region and around the world. Previously, Hopkins worked with Williams & Jensen, PLLC. and the Stimson Center in Washington, D.C. on a range of policy topics including energy and climate change, multilateral affairs and congressional engagement.
Tell us about your career so far.
Like a lot of people, my career has not been a straight line. After studying international relations and French at the College of Wooster and a series of summer internships on the Hill and at a law firm, I moved to DC. While at Williams & Jensen, I was convinced I wanted to be a Hill staffer working to solve the country’s most pressing foreign policy challenges, but soon realized that I wanted to spend my time learning and thinking about the issues and less time worried solely about politics. After going back to graduate school at the George Washington University’s Elliott School, I pursued opportunities that would allow me to be part of that thought leadership conversation at a time when our country was rethinking its place in the world.
I found my work at the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan research think-tank in DC to be a more attractive blend of policy-relevant writing and analysis and communicating the policy recommendations that emerge from research. While my dreams of working abroad and doing field research while at Stimson were somewhat dashed by the onset of the pandemic, I was exposed to the literature, emerging technology, and policy frameworks underlying the ongoing energy transition at the global and national level through my work on a project called “Powering Peace.” Looking back, I see this now as a major turning point in my career because it sparked my deep interest in crafting creative solutions to the energy transition, which is inarguably one of the most complex societal challenges we’ve ever faced.
The opportunity to join IE and expand its focus on the energy transition at the state, regional, and national level, through the creation of the Energy Transition Initiative in 2022, was both inspiring and daunting. Since joining the team as a Research Associate, I have transitioned into a leadership role where I am excited to continue building out the ETI’s work and strengthening its partnerships.
What are some of the similarities and differences between your work here at UNC and previous jobs with nonprofit thinktanks like the Stimson Center and lobbying organizations like Williams & Jensen?
There are several transferable skills and similarities that come to mind when I compare my experience working in DC to what I am doing now. Navigating complex bureaucracies and being mindful of the constraints and expectations to which those who work within those systems are beholden is important. This applies to working with folks in air quality offices and utility commissions in the southeast as much as it does when engaging with people who are covering certain countries at the State Department or issues in Congressional committees. The ability to communicate complex policy issues to a wide array of audiences is also crucial and is something that someone in my position is constantly honing. And lastly, my work across these roles has included linking aspirational goals of slow-moving organizations and entities with data-rich, evidence-based, nonpartisan research and analysis. That has taken the form of research papers, policy memos, and other written content. But just as often, that work revolves around well-facilitated discussions that create safe spaces for decision-makers to ask questions, test assumptions, and deepen their understanding of how to approach the work they are doing.
The biggest difference, other than audience, is probably my proximity to impact. For example, I enjoyed working on Powering Peace, which sought to leverage the physical footprint of United Nations peacekeepers in some of the least electrified countries in the world to introduce renewable energy and broader sustainable development, but my work often felt far removed from the desired impact on the ground. Closing that gap and reducing the proximity between my efforts and the change I am trying to make was a key reason I took the job at ETI.
What does your day-to-day look like as interim director of ETI?
A big focus of mine is finding creative ways to leverage the convening power of ETI and our partners, like Duke University’s Nicholas Institute, to bring state policymakers and regulators to the table to discuss and better understand the factors influencing the energy transition. These discussions are critical because the choices these state officials make will impact the electricity sector in North Carolina, the southeast, and around the country for decades to come. I spend a lot of my time managing these relationships, understanding the analytical gaps states are encountering and, as a way to fill those gaps, designing nonpartisan, data-driven convenings that bring together state-level decisionmakers with federal partners from DC, like the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency. To do my job well, I need to stay up to date on the rapidly changing power sector. Sometimes this includes traveling to energy and climate policy conferences, but most of the time it involves a lot of reading, emails, and endless Zoom calls with colleagues.
What advice do you have for people who are interested in following a similar career path to you?
Embrace the non-linear career path. Keep your options open by learning just as much from jobs or internships you don’t love as you do from the opportunities that feel “perfect” – I know I did. Above all, find and cultivate good mentors! I am always happy to talk to students to both offer advice and connect them with others in my network.
What’s something interesting about you that not many people know?
I’m a (part-time) wilderness canoe guide! Every summer, I guide groups of high school students on wilderness canoe camping trips in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. The BWCA is a wilderness comprised of over a million acres of glacially carved lakes, streams and pristine forest on the border of northeast Minnesota and Canada. I’ve been going on trips up there since 2012 and it is truly my happy place! I’d love to someday partner with student groups on campus to take a group of Tar Heels on a trip.
