Dr. Aubrey Paris is a contracted Policy Advisor on Gender, Climate Change & Innovation in the Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues (S/GWI) at the U.S. Department of State, where she leads foreign policy development and public diplomacy related to the nexus of gender and climate change. Previously, she served as a Science, Technology & Innovation Policy Advisor in the Office of the Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary (E/STAS) and was the recipient of the IEEE-USA Engineering and Diplomacy Fellowship from 2019-2021. At the State Department, she launched the Innovation Station initiative to amplify the impact of woman and girl innovators developing translatable solutions to climate-related challenges, while simultaneously drawing subnational connections between domestic and international communities. The initiative includes development of an international network, virtual event series, quarterly newsletter, and weekly podcast. Dr. Paris authors the monthly “Science Speaks” and, formerly, “What’s Up with Science?” blog series on the State Department’s DipNote platform. Coming from a liberal arts background, she feels strongly that interdisciplinarity will be the key to ensuring innovations are applied creatively to address pressing global challenges.

Prior to joining the State Department, Dr. Paris was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and Energy and Climate Scholar at Princeton University, where she designed catalysts capable of transforming carbon dioxide into useful and marketable products, such as fuels and chemical feedstocks. During her graduate studies, Dr. Paris also contributed to research projects on water security implications of Chinese-financed, coal-fired power plants and the future of U.S. nuclear energy in the face of climate change.

Dr. Paris’s passion for science communication and public diplomacy stems from her diverse podcasting experiences. From 2015-2020, she co-hosted, wrote, and executive produced ISGP’s “The Forum,” a scripted series that specialized in contextualizing scientific topics for international audiences. Today, she co-hosts and executive produces “National Treasure Hunt,” a free-form podcast exploring niche intersections between academic disciplines (e.g., science, history, literature, ethics) and the National Treasure film franchise. As of 2022, she moderates and produces “S/GWI’s Innovation Station,” a discussion-based podcast featuring woman and girl innovators and hosted by the Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues at the U.S. Department of State.

Dr. Paris received her Ph.D. in Chemistry and Materials Science from Princeton University (2019), M.A. in Chemistry from Princeton University (2017), and B.S. in Chemistry and Biology, with a minor in French, from Ursinus College (2015).

Contact Dr. Paris via LinkedIn