Three alumni, a Bowdoin parent and a non-Bowdoin graduate who all work in the energy field returned to campus last week to speak to students about careers in energy and sustainability. The guests spoke about where they work, what they do and how they got there. The event was sponsored by Career Planning and the Environmental Studies program.

The five panelists represented a range of specializations within the industry, but were in agreement that the energy field offers much for young people to explore, and provides them an opportunity to have a tangible impact on the world.

Here is a snapshot of the panelists:

Katie Auth ’08 majored in history and French and earned a masters degree in natural resource science and management from the University of Akureyri in Iceland. She went on to work at the Arctic Institute, researching the impacts of climate change, environmental policy and foreign relations in the Arctic. She developed an index to identify populations at the greatest risk from climate change, food insecurity, water scarcity, environmental degradation and conflict over natural resources. Currently, she is a policy analyst for Power Africa, a USAID program that is trying to connect more of the African population to the electricity grid.

David Ruffin Funk ’10 majored in government and legal studies, with a concentration in environmental studies. He’s currently a senior financial analyst at Enel Green Power North America. After he graduated from Bowdoin, he worked for Massachusetts Clean Energy Center as an on-site renewable energy program associate.

Kristina Johnson works for analytics at WegoWise, a start-up in Boston with an online platform that tracks, monitors and benchmarks utility consumption for buildings across the country to try to increase efficiency, lower costs and mitigate effects of climate change. A 2014 graduate of Cornell University, Johnson majored in environmental engineering and minored in sustainable design.

Dan Revers, a parent of a Bowdoin student in the class of 2019, earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Lafayette College and an MBA in from the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College. He co-founded ArcLight Capital, a private equity firm focused on North American energy infrastructure, and has 26 years of energy finance and private equity experience.

Dave Wilby ’91 is vice president for state policy at SunEdison, the world’s largest renewable energy development company. He is responsible for state-level government relations and regulatory affairs across the country for SunEdison’s utility-scale business. Dave majored in government and history at Bowdoin, and he currently chairs The Trust for Public Land’s Maine advisory board.