Alumni Distinguished Leadership Award
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-20-2020
Bio
Rhiana Gunn-Wright is the Policy Director at New Consensus. She has worked with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the creation of the Green New Deal. She has called for Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) to be as generously funded as DARPA, and the creation of a green bank that will offer financing to communities that do not have access to clean water or transportation. The Green New Deal includes a plan for 100% renewable energy, net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, sustainable jobs and high-quality healthcare. She has since been involved with the Ocasio-Cortez town halls and the CNN climate town hall.
Rhiana has written for The Guardian and was included in Time magazine‘s list of the top women fighting to end climate change. She was also a signatory on the Women Lead Climate campaign.
Rhiana attended Yale University for her undergraduate degree, majored in African-American studies and graduated with honors in 2011. She was inspired by the New Haven Promise initiative as a way to break the cycle of disadvantage. After graduating, she joined the Institute for Women’s Policy Research as a research fellow. Here she worked alongside Heidi Hartmann on paid maternity leave. In 2013, Rhiana was selected as a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford where she studied social policy. After graduating, she served as an intern to Michelle Obama.
Recommended Citation
Gunn-Wright, Rhiana '07, "Recipient of the 2020 Alumni Distinguished Leadership Award" (2020). Alumni Distinguished Leadership Award. 25.
https://digitalcommons.imsa.edu/alumni_leadership/25