Tarak Shah is a Senior Fellow with the Technology and Innovation Team. Most recently, Tarak served in the Biden-Harris Administration as Chief of Staff for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). As Chief, Tarak designed and implemented the largest reorganization of DOE in its history, standing up a new division to focus on energy demonstration and deployment.
In addition, Tarak established DOE’s Clean Energy Corps to hire for Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act programs. Tarak also played a key role in reinvigorating DOE’s Loan Programs, restarted the appliance efficiency standard program, developed a new focus area on industrial decarbonization, and required the agency to create procedures to incorporate equity, justice, domestic manufacturing, and jobs considerations in financial grants and awards. Tarak was the first person of color, first Indian-American, and first LGBTQ person to serve in the position. Prior to that, Tarak served as personnel lead for the climate and science team on President Biden’s Transition Team, where he recruited 200 day one appointees across six federal agencies. From 2014-2017, he served as Chief of Staff to the Under Secretary for Science and Energy at DOE. Earlier in his career, Tarak worked in energy policy roles at the White House Council on Environmental Quality and Pentagon. Prior to his time in government, Tarak worked for then-Senator Barack Obama in a variety of roles on his 2004 and 2008 campaigns, for his political action committee and with his transition team. Tarak holds an MBA from Cornell’s Johnson School of Graduate Management and Bachelor’s degrees in Political Science and Urban Planning from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.