Abrams Climate Fellows drive climate changes for good
By Lou Carlozo
The Abrams Climate Academy (the Academy) Summit recently celebrated the culmination of a groundbreaking initiative that brings together Northwestern graduate students, corporate partners, non-profits and administrators to tackle a pressing issue: driving real-world climate solutions for a planet in peril.
The inaugural effort took concrete steps to promote and support sustainability as a public- and private-sector call to action — by conscious design, noted Wendy Abrams ’90 MBA founder and CEO of the Eleven Eleven Foundation.
Abrams traced the genesis of the Academy to discussions with Dean Francesca Cornelli that went back several years. “I said, ‘If we do this program and just educate the students it will be a failure,’” Abrams recalled. “I want them to solve problems.”
Dean Cornelli attributed the Academy’s success to an all-encompassing team endeavor. “This was an effort that required so many moving parts,” Cornelli told summit attendees. “Remember that you will always be the first in an effort that we hope will have a huge impact and become a huge success. I’m so thankful that you believed in what we wanted to do, raised your hand and became part of our founding cohort.”
A rush to apply
How did the Academy attract so many passionate students — who also represented the McCormick School of Engineering, Pritzker School of Law and Medill School of Journalism? Looking back, the Academy’s staff started with the requirement that climate and sustainability could not represent merely a theoretical interest.
“We wanted every single graduate student who cares about this topic and who was interested in it, to at least have the opportunity to explore it,” said Matthew Roling, the Academy’s executive director. “We really wanted to find the right type of person to be a part of this. You have to apply, but we also wanted to build a room so cool that everyone wants to walk into it.”
They didn’t just walk in: they rushed. 50 people applied for 25 spots, which led to an expansion of the student group.
Split into seven teams, 31 students – 22 of whom attend Kellogg – tackled a wide variety of issues. Taking names from their sponsors, they worked to remove existing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, accelerate recycling reform and redesign capital flow into the climate tech ecosystem.
Roling singles out the San Francisco initiative as one of the most critical. “They have to raise $110 billion in 10 years to avoid the worst impacts of severe flooding in the Bay Area,” he noted. “It's just a perfect example of the urgency because you have the wealthiest city in the history of humanity that is very at risk for climate impacts and also very liberal. However, they’re having a hard time figuring out how to raise the money and they’re understaffed. And so, the students can add capacity and expertise.”
Bridging sustainability and business viability
Ashley Szydel ’26 MBA, an inaugural Abrams fellow, found deep satisfaction in working to show how sustainable aviation fuel can move from a costly alternative to a competitive option by capturing and valuing its broader environmental benefits.
Linking the corporate bottom line to sustainability held special significance because growing up in Honduras, “the message was clear: You can have economic growth and you can have sustainability, but you can’t have both,” she said.
The fellowship, she noted, challenged that assumption. As part of it, Szydel attended the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials in Switzerland, where “it was clear the intent was to look at them together. It was a very powerful moment and for me, an answer. I leave this fellowship totally invigorated.”
“Building this network over the last year has restored my faith in our shared responsibility to address sustainability,” said McCormick student Soham Shah ’28. “But we have a lot more work to do — it’s not just an abstract issue but one that affects our homes, our values and our future.”
In his remarks to the cohort, Roling encouraged students to embrace the values foundational to their success in the Abrams Academy: “I have three hopes for each of you: think big because you have to think anyway; find joy in whenever life takes you; and stay in touch with each other. Find strength in your connections and community.”
He added: “You’ve said it best: All jobs are climate jobs.”
Scenes from the celebration
