Over the last 30 years, Sallie has been on a journey to understand how science, sustainability, and society coalesce, and how embracing this combination can enable greater innovations and results in the carbon management and energy transition sphere.

At the very beginning of her career, Sallie made the decision that she would be one to make change from the ground up. Sallie believed that for change to be effective it had to happen from inside existing systems; to make a meaningful difference in the world she would have to forge new paths that accounted for varying and new points of view to get science-backed results that are in the best interests of humanity.

Throughout her career, Sallie has been directly involved in the management of a project portfolio totalling over $200 million, including leading diverse teams of scientists, engineers, and policy makers in carbon storage projects such as FutureGen, Wabash Valley, the Illinois Industrial Carbon Capture and Storage project, and the Illinois Basin – Decatur Project, the world’s first bioenergy carbon capture and storage (BECCS) project as a Principal Research Scientist.

After receiving her undergraduate and graduate degrees in Geology from Alfred University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (respectively), Sallie was awarded a PhD in Secondary and Continuing Education in 2013. It is this unique combination of technical project expertise and deeply personal programmatic experience that allows her to communicate the societal aspects of complex scientific problems, helping scientists and teams understand the human impact of their work while helping society visualize the impacts of science in their lives.