Brendon Steele is a Stakeholder Engagement Manager at Future 500, assisting with Future 500′s climate and energy projects. He joined Future 500 after spending a summer working with Oxfam America in Peru, learning about climate change adaptation and natural climate variability in the tropical Andes. His work with Oxfam highlighted the importance of creating ownership within local communities—and the need to respectfully involve all stakeholders—when formulating development and sustainability projects.

Brendon recently graduated with an M.A. in Climate & Society, an interdisciplinary environmental science and policy program at Columbia University in New York City. While at Columbia, he interned with The Urban Climate Change Research Network at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, collaborating with UN officials, local and municipal leaders, NASA scientists, development practitioners and stakeholders to promote knowledge sharing about all aspects of climate change and cities.

Brendon spent five years working in the environmental chemistry field in the San Francisco Bay Area, bridging the gap between business leaders and State and Federal regulators. He holds a B.S. from UC Davis in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, supplementing his studies with economics and political science coursework.

Brendon is an avid world traveler, backpacking independently throughout the Middle East, Asia, Europe and Latin America. He is fluent in Spanish.