Dr. Adria Brooks is Director of Transmission Planning at Grid Strategies, where she helps clients achieve well-designed regional transmission systems. Sitting at the intersection of engineering and policy, Adria has over 15 years of public service experience at the academic, utility, state, and federal levels. Her expertise includes power system modeling, industry practices, wholesale electricity markets, state utility regulation, grid technologies, energy justice and labor concerns.

Prior to joining Grid Strategies, Adria served as a Senior Technical Advisor in transmission planning with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Grid Deployment Office. Her portfolio at DOE included national generation and transmission assessments, system reliability studies, renewable energy integration, large load integration, grid-enhancing technologies, transmission permitting, and energy justice. Early in her career, Adria served as a transmission planning engineer at the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin and as a solar energy researcher at the University of Arizona. She had a particular focus in educational outreach for young students.

Adria holds both an M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering with a focus in energy policy and environmental resources from the University of Wisconsin—Madison. She has a B.S. is in engineering physics from the University of Arizona. At heart, Adria is a power grid and renewable energy nerd who is happiest when backpacking the nation’s forests.