Georgetown Law

Kathryn Zyla is a senior lecturer at Georgetown Law, and the Executive Director of the Georgetown Climate Center, where she oversees the Center’s work at the nexus of climate and energy policy, supervising staff and student work on climate mitigation and adaptation at the state and federal level. She also serves as faculty advisor for the student Georgetown Energy Law Group.

Professor Zyla served as Deputy Director and Director of Research and Policy Analysis for the Climate Center from 2009-2018. She has returned to Georgetown after three years as Program Director, Northeast Policy, for Energy Foundation, where she developed and funded regional and state strategies to achieve climate and clean-energy policy goals. Prior roles include Senior Associate in the Climate and Energy Program at the World Resources Institute and Senior Research Fellow for Domestic Policy at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. She has a BS in engineering from Swarthmore College, a Master of Environmental Management from the Yale School of the Environment, and a JD, cum laude, from Georgetown Law. Professor Zyla has served as a Commissioner on the District of Columbia’s Commission on Climate Change and Resiliency since 2017, and was a member of the Engineering Advisory Council for Swarthmore College from 2013-2018. In 2016, she received the Clean Energy Education and Empowerment (C3E) Law and Finance Award, given by the Department of Energy, MIT Energy Initiative, and Stanford Precourt Institute for Energy.