WRISE’s Wind at Our Backs scholars, meanwhile, are entering wind technology specifically, and received $2,500 scholarships along with attending the conference. Wind at Our Backs fellow Ashley Hobbs earned a wind turbine technician certificate while raising two girls as a single mother.įischer was among the Rudd Mayer fellows (named for a Colorado sustainability campaigner who passed away suddenly in 2002) who are considering a range of policy and other jobs in renewable energy. Fischer was among 11 women who received two different fellowships to attend last month’s annual WINDPOWER conference in Chicago. She is among a cohort of young women whom an organization called WRISE (Women of Renewable Industries and Sustainable Energy) hopes will increase representation of women in the wind energy field. and eventually related to international development. The more she learned about the role of deforestation and natural resource exploitation in creating poverty, the more she became interested in sustainability and renewable energy as ways to address injustice.įischer, who recently graduated summa cum laude from Ohio State University with a degree in sustainability economics and business, hopes to work in renewable energy policy, first in the U.S. The couple opened Fischer’s eyes to human rights and international development issues and sparked a desire to make a difference in such situations. Sarah Fischer’s journey into the renewable energy field began with a high school French teacher whose husband had been a child slave in Haiti. wind and solar energy jobs, higher than other technology fields.

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