About
Gray Bender is a Master in Public Policy candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School, with a focus on energy and climate change at the national and international level. He currently works as a Research Assistant in the Belfer Center, supporting the Geopolitics of Energy Project. In this role he focuses on applying subject matter knowledge to understanding the broader context of how energy informs, and is informed by, domestic and international affairs.
Prior to graduate school, Gray worked as a Senior Consultant and Project Manager on Arup’s Energy, Sustainability & Building Physics team. His work ranged from corporate sustainability and strategic planning, to government and utility consulting. This includes a combination of developing city-scale sustainability frameworks and strategic planning, as well as high performance building design and energy analysis. Gray has expertise in developing and deploying interactive digital tools to facilitate decision making across a range of project stakeholders.
He also served as San Francisco leader for Arup Ventures, building relationships with startups, venture capital firms, and accelerators across North America to apply Arup's engineering and design expertise toward addressing technical and market challenges in early-stage companies.
Gray’s undergraduate educational background is in civil engineering , with additional study in environmental and architectural engineering and a minor in business entrepreneurship. He is also accredited as Certified Energy Manager (CEM) with the Association of Energy Engineers and as a LEED AP BD+C with the U.S. Green Building Council.