The German Marshall Fund of the United States announced today that Cathleen Kelly, director of GMF’s Climate and Energy Program, will take a one-year leave of absence to work with the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), within the Executive Office of the President, to serve at the deputy associate director for climate change adaptation.

During her year at the White House, Kelly will take on a broad range of activities related to the development of a federal strategy climate change adaptation strategy, including helping to lead an interagency effort to help agencies understand the risks of climate change, assessing their vulnerability against those risks, and developing plans and adjust priorities in response. She will also help to establish a federal process to make information and scientific data available to stakeholders about the impacts of climate change, and will assist in developing the U.S. strategy on international financing of adaptation efforts. Her assignment at CEQ begins on September 20.

During her temporary absence, Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, GMF Senior Director of Policy Programs, and Thomas Legge, GMF Program Officer, will manage and implement GMF’s Climate and Energy program. Nigel Purvis, GMF Senior Fellow and President of Climate Advisers, will continue to provide write policy papers and provide strategic advice for the program. The Climate and Energy Program facilitates transatlantic cooperation and understanding on climate policy. GMF brings its considerable networks, research, and convening power to bear on a policy debate that has at times strained relations across the Atlantic. Through transatlantic dialogues, policy briefs and publications, and study tours, the Climate and Energy Program engages policymakers, climate negotiators, business leaders, academics, and members of the NGO community from both sides of the Atlantic.

Kelly has roughly more than 15 years of experience working on climate policy issues. Before joining GMF in 2008 she was the director of climate change policy at the Nature Conservancy, where she developed  recommendations on including incentives to reduce deforestation in U.S. policy and international agreements. Prior to her work at the Nature Conservancy, Kelly was a senior policy advisor at the Center for Clean Air Policy, where she worked with climate negotiators from more than 30 countries on the design of an international climate agreement. She also led climate and energy policy dialogues in Mexico, the Caribbean, Brazil and Poland. Kelly holds an M.A. in International Relations with a focus in Energy and Environmental Policy from the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and a B.A. in Political Science and Music from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.