Instructor: Dan Reicher

Biography: Dan Reicher is an entrepreneur, investor, policymaker, lawyer, and educator focused on clean energy and climate change. Reicher has served three U.S. presidents, testified before the U.S. Congress more than 50 times, led the launch of Google's pathbreaking climate and clean energy work, oversaw a $1.2 billion annual clean energy R&D budget as U.S. Assistant Secretary of Energy, and co-founded the nation's first investment firm focused exclusively on renewable energy project finance. Reicher served from 2011 to 2018 as founding executive director of the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, a joint center of the Stanford Law and Business Schools. He is currently a Stanford Doerr School senior scholar, senior fellow at Dartmouth's Irving Institute for Energy and Society, senior advisor with the Climate Adaptive Infrastructure Fund, and policy and business advisor. Reicher came to Stanford from Google, where he served since 2007 as Director of Climate Change and Energy Initiatives. Reicher's federal roles include: Assistant Secretary of Energy for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy; Department of Energy Chief of Staff and Deputy Chief of Staff; Acting Assistant Secretary of Energy for Policy; a member of the Obama and Clinton presidential transition teams; a member of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board; a member of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Energy and Environmental Systems; a staff member of the President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island; a law clerk to a federal district court judge; and a paralegal in the U.S. Department of Justice.Before his position at Google, Reicher was President and Co-founder of New Energy Capital, the nation's first investment firm focused exclusively on renewable energy project finance, and Executive Vice President of Northern Power Systems, one of the nation's oldest renewable energy companies. Earlier in his career Reicher was as an Assistant Attorney General in Massachusetts and an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. He was also an adjunct professor at Yale University, Vermont Law School and the University of Maryland.In 2012 Reicher received an honorary doctorate from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry and was also named one of the five most influential figures in U.S. clean energy by Oilprice.Com. Reicher holds a BA in biology from Dartmouth College and a JD from Stanford Law School. He also studied at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and MIT. An avid kayaker, Reicher was a member of the first expedition on record to navigate the entire 1888-mile Rio Grande (with support from the National Geographic Society) and to kayak the Yangtze River in China.

Classes by this instructor

Osher at Dartmouth 2026 Summer Lecture Series, How is Artificial Intelligence Transforming America? Lecture 3

The Osher Institute at Dartmouth is offering its summer lecture via livestream to Osher colleagues across the nation. Lecture 3 is 'Environmental Impact.' The session begins with the lecture, is followed by a half-hour break, then resumes with Q&A.
Wednesday, July 22, 2026, Synchronous Online