Faculty in Focus: The making of a climate leader
In his 20s, Matt Roling chased velocity and thrills. He rode a Ducati motorcycle for nearly a decade and has skied black diamonds from New Hampshire to Japan — drawn to anything that delivered an adrenaline rush. That appetite for intensity didn’t come out of nowhere. It is rooted in his childhood, by a seemingly opposite but deeply connected influence: nature.
Growing up in a rural part of Wisconsin — that slowly became exurban — and living next to Kettle Moraine State Forest, family walks were a frequent activity. “My mom was an amateur naturalist,” says Roling. “She'd be able to recognize plants and animals at a glance. She really imbued me with a deep and abiding love of nature.” This early exposure to the natural world fostered an awareness of its beauty and complexity. Now, Roling has learned that Intensity can be lived in both quiet observation and in the rush of motion.
As the inaugural executive director of the Abrams Climate Academy (the Academy), Roling brings the same drive to advancing climate action. “You need people who are focused on being effective,” he says. “People who are not going to allow their biases or prejudices to prevent them from meeting people where they are and driving positive action.”
For Roling, strengthening human networks is integral to helping push that change forward. He views culture and politics — not technology — as the biggest barrier to climate action. “Everyone wants clean air, and everyone wants healthy food, I try as best I can to keep the partisan culture war out of the classroom because it's not about telling both sides of the story but about focusing on the facts,” Roling shares. “Effective leadership is about how you do hard things inside of complicated organizations.”
Making climate action tangible
Nature is all encompassing — everything from land to sky to water and the microcosms that sustain life itself. For Roling, that vastness presents the greatest challenge to understanding it and acting on its behalf. “It’s hard to protect something you’ve never had the chance to touch. For most Americans, nature isn’t a lived experience anymore — it’s an abstraction,” he says. “I knew this was the defining problem of our era: the climate crisis. Every year it was only going to get warmer and the pressure to drive action was only going become more acute.”
Thanks to an aggressive investment that paid off during the early days of the pandemic, Roling seized a once‑in‑a‑lifetime opportunity. He pivoted from corporate finance and consulting into the sustainability and clean‑energy space, using a master’s in public administration at Harvard Kennedy School as the bridge. The program gave him the analytical and policy grounding he needed to approach climate from multiple angles. “Climate touches everything. Working in this space gives me the chance to engage with everything from politics, technology, culture, and human health,” Roling says. “And I find a lot of joy in that.”
His work within the Academy has allowed him to lean further into his passion for understanding nature and turning this knowledge into climate action. This year, the Academy welcomed a group of 31 students, across several team projects, collaborating with global impact leaders to help build more sustainable solutions. “The Academy has two key elements: an in-class classroom ‘masterclass’ in the climate crisis and a year-long experiential learning component where students work on real-world problems with businesses, non-profits or governments,” says Roling. “I want students to walk away with a strong baseline understanding of an incredibly large and complicated issue.”
Guest speakers for the masterclass component of the course have included luminaries such as entrepreneur and podcaster Jigar Shah, investor and Exxon board member Jeff Ubben, environmental activist Wawa Gatheru and Mastercard Chief Sustainability Officer Ellen Jackowski.
However, for Roling, it’s not just about what students leave Kellogg with but also how they engage in the challenging work of climate action. Finding creative ways to energize them, he begins every class on a high note. “We always start each class with ‘climate good news’ and a climate or clean energy themed cartoon or meme because sometimes working in this space can be emotionally taxing,” he says. “I think it's a blessing to work in climate action, and I want to model that joy because I'm so grateful that I get to do this for a living.”
Building climate leaders through experience, not credentials alone
Even amid shifts in environmental policy and uncertainty in the job market, the volume of student interest in this experiential opportunity inspires Roling. “The response was overwhelming,” he says. “At a time when climate jobs are limited and clean energy has taken a step back, that level of interest was incredibly validating. It shows how much appetite Northwestern students have for exploring climate action.”
The students are working on real projects with real problems. Roling is already considering ways to build the program’s structure to help drive even greater impact. “Any currently enrolled Northwestern graduate student is eligible to apply to the academy, and we’d love to have students from as many diverse academic backgrounds as possible,” he says. “It doesn't have to be limited to traditional professional programs like business or engineering. Driving durable climate action really requires interdisciplinary thinking.”
For Roling, the experiential learning component — the projects themselves — is an opportunity for bonding, connection and professional networking. Over the course of 30 weeks, students get to know each other deeply while gaining industry exposure. This year’s projects range from product‑packaging circularity to developing creative financing strategies for climate adaptation in the Bay Area.
Looking ahead, Roling is focused on continuing to offer compelling, cutting-edge projects at the forefront of climate action. Through the Academy, he also sees value in helping students build lasting relationships that extend beyond the program itself. “We always ask the students to be radically transparent with what we can do better,” says Roling. “We also always try to give them feedback about what they can be doing better.” As the program expands, he will continue thinking intentionally about how to foster strong connections among cohorts that create a sense of long-term stewardship.
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