Policy Talk with Rachael Nealer

In this talk on lessons learned, Dr. Rachael Nealer will reflect on the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation (JO), an institutional experiment: the first federal office to span two Cabinet departments (DOT and DOE), built to test whether a purpose-built, cross-agency structure could move faster while staying accountable. She joined the JO as its first federal hire in 2022 and left in 2025 as Acting Executive Director. Nealer is also a former non-resident fellow of the Scott Institute for Energy Innovation.