Adria Brooks: 2025 Early Career Award recipient

Energy Analysis and Policy Certificate ‘18, PhDECE ‘20 (BSEP ‘11, University of Arizona)
Director of Transmission Planning, Grid Strategies LLC

An electrical engineer whose leadership and dedication to advancing transmission planning, energy policy, and grid innovation will help create a more resilient and equitable energy future.

When Adria Brooks started her graduate studies in 2015, the electricity grid wasn’t a particularly hot topic. “Ten years ago, talking to people in utilities, the feeling was that we had solved all the issues and there wasn’t really anything new to do with the grid,” says Brooks.

That sentiment changed, quickly; the integration of large amounts of renewable energy like wind and solar, the electrification of transportation, and the boom in energy intensive industries like AI data centers, among other issues, has put renewed focus on upgrading the grid. And during her brief yet influential career as an energy policy analyst and planner, Brooks has helped determine the policies and technologies to move the transmission network forward.

“It’s really incredible to see how quickly the industry is changing,” she says. “We’re trying to understand how we meet not only current growth, but new demands in the system.”

At UW-Madison, Brooks studied electricity markets, utility regulation and grid technologies, serving as a transmission planning engineer for the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin during the last year of her PhD. Then she was a AAAS science and technology policy fellow in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, where she covered cutting-edge energy technologies. Brooks ultimately took a full-time position with the office, and later joined the Grid Deployment Office when it formed in 2022 following the passage of the U.S. Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

There she oversaw many national laboratory energy projects, conducted in-house modeling, and regularly briefed the White House and the Secretary of Energy on grid-related topics. Brooks also led the National Transmission Needs Study and the National Transmission Planning Study—influential reports used in local, state and federal rulemaking. In 2023, she received the U.S. Secretary of Energy Achievement Award, one of DOE’s highest honors.

In 2025, Brooks transitioned to the private sector as director of transmission planning for Grid Strategies LLC.

How did engineering education enable your success?

The breadth of things I was exposed to in grad school has been invaluable. Being able to marry the engineering rigor at UW-Madison with the policy understanding of the Energy Analysis and Policy program at the Nelson Institute while working with folks across different colleges was really phenomenal. Learning how to communicate outside of these silos has probably moved me further in my career than a lot of other, equally qualified engineers.

What is the highlight of your career so far?

The Grid Deployment Office was an incredible place to work. People say there’s a lot of red tape in government service and it can be hard to get things done. But the office did an amazing job of hiring talented people from really unique backgrounds, and we all had a desire to work there. We were able to think innovatively about new programs that have never been attempted in the federal government before. I feel like leadership did a good job of putting together strong teams of people and giving us a problem and then letting us run with it.

Which do you prefer?

Camp Randall, the Kohl Center, or the UW Field House?
None of the above: I would say the TAA graduate worker union office, which is where I spent a lot of my time.

Favorite Babcock ice cream flavor?
You know, I wasn’t an ice cream fan until I moved to Wisconsin. It changed my opinion of what dairy tastes like. I was a grad student, so I liked any flavor involving coffee.