Our Team

Millie leads innovative projects that produce actionable data to help solve environmental problems. She currently leads Mission Impact for EDF’s MethaneSAT. Its ability to find and measure methane emissions with unequaled accuracy will provide the data required to motivate and reduce methane emission globally.

Steve is the project lead of MethaneSAT and, in a separate capacity, Chief Scientist at Environmental Defense Fund, where he initiated and oversaw an unprecedented initiative involving over 150 scientists from more than 40 institutions measuring methane leakage across the U.S. natural gas supply chain. Steven serves as Chief Scientific Officer for the United Nations Environment Programme’s Global methane studies, a joint effort of UNEP, EDF, DG Energy (European Commission) and the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative companies. He was previously on the faculty of Brown University for 16 years. He has published more than 100 scientific papers and served as a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Fred is an influential voice on climate change, energy, and sustainability, and a champion for using the power of markets to protect our environment. Under his leadership since 1984, EDF has become one of the world’s largest and most influential environmental organizations. More recently, he coined the notion of a “Fourth Wave” of environmental innovation, where new technology, advanced analytics and collaborative problem-solving combine to shape smart policy and reward corporate responsibility, allowing both people and the planet to prosper. Fred introduced the idea for MethaneSAT in an April 2018 TED Talk.

Dr. Makenzie Lystrup is an aerospace executive, planetary astronomer, and science-policy leader whose career spans scientific research, public service, and major space programs. Most recently, she served as director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, becoming the first woman to lead the center in 2023. Before joining NASA, she was vice president and general manager of Ball Aerospace’s Civil Space business, where she oversaw programs in space science, operational weather, Earth observation, and advanced technology development, including work supporting the James Webb Space Telescope, the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, Landsat 9, and the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

Earlier in her career, Lystrup served as a Congressional Science & Technology Policy Fellow in the U.S. House of Representative, completed an NSF Astronomy & Astrophysics Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, and worked as an AmeriCorps volunteer focused on STEM education. She earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from Portland State University and a Ph.D. in astrophysics from University College London. Her scientific work has focused on planetary atmospheres and magnetospheres, and she has been recognized as a Fellow of AAAS, AAS, and SPIE for contributions spanning science, policy, and aerospace leadership.