NESEA is delighted to announce that we will sponsor an emerging professional woman from the Boston area to participate in the Boston-Copenhagen Learning Exchange, which is being organized by a group of women leaders involved in sustainable energy, high performance building, commercial real estate and urban planning. NESEA will access the Kate Goldstein Fund for Emerging Professionals to underwrite the travel expenses for the trip. A group of 20 women, who call themselves “Women Leading Change,” will travel to Copenhagen June 18-24, 2016 to study the efforts of the Danes with respect to carbon neutrality, climate change mitigation, resiliency, and related topics. View the trip itinerary below.

The Kate Goldstein Fund for Emerging Professionals was created to honor the memory of one of the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association’s most promising emerging professionals.  The untimely death of this rising star, in June 2014, was a tremendous loss to the NESEA community, and through the Kate Fund, NESEA strives to reward an emerging professional who shares her passion, her commitment to excellence, and her desire to create a better world.

The criteria for this award were inspired by all of the personal and professional attributes that made Kate such a powerful and unstoppable force in NESEA community.  There are no age restrictions associated with this particular travel scholarship, although it is open to women only. To be eligible, an applicant must have completed a professional degree or certificate program within the past five years and/or have entered the workforce as a professional in a sustainable energy-related role within that timeframe.

We encourage self nominations for the travel scholarship, but we also accept third-party nominations. If nominating another person, please inform your nominee and double check that she is available to make the trip, should she win.  If nominating yourself, please review this year’s full list of benefits and make sure that you are available to make the most of this award, should you win. This year's full list of benefits can be viewed at nesea.org/kate.

Applications for this opportunity are due by March 25, 2016. The winner will be selected by a committee of NESEA members, and will be notified by no later than April 15, 2016. To apply, click here.

The Kate Fund is intended to build an endowment rather than directly fund initiatives, though it will be drawn from when needed. Travel expenses for this trip are estimated at $3,500. Your donation can help preserve the endowment and demonstrate NESEA member interest in supporting emerging professionals. To donate, click here.