2021 Breakthrough Senior Fellows Announced

The Breakthrough Institute’s work would not exist without the contribution of the many path-breaking thinkers with whom we have interacted and collaborated over the years.

Breakthrough’s Senior Fellow program was created in recognition of this debt. Our Senior Fellows are our intellectual mentors, colleagues, and fellow travelers. This year, we are proud to announce the individuals joining their ranks: Jennifer Hernandez, W. Gyude Moore, Jessica Jewell, and Linus Blomqvist.

The collective expertise of our newest Senior Fellows covers a remarkably wide range of topics integral to the ecomodern vision.

We are grateful to these individuals and hope their work continues to help pave the way towards a bright future for humans and nature.

Jennifer Hernandez

Jennifer has practiced land use and environmental law for more than 30 years, and leads Holland & Knight's West Coast Land Use and Environmental Group. Ms. Hernandez is the only California lawyer ranked by her clients and peers in Chambers USA in the top tier of both land use/zoning and environmental lawyers. In addition, she was recognized as the top environmental litigator of the year in the San Francisco Bay Area by Best Lawyers, and received a California Lawyer of the Year award from the State Bar of California for her work on California's largest and most innovative land use and conservation agreement between her private landowner client and five major environmental organizations, including the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council. She also has received numerous civil rights awards for her work on overcoming environmentalist opposition to housing and other projects needed and supported by minority communities.

Ms. Hernandez graduated with honors from Harvard University and Stanford Law School, and clerked for Region 20 of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) before beginning her land use and environmental law career. Ms. Hernandez is the daughter and granddaughter of steelworkers and was raised in Pittsburg, California. She and her husband live in Berkeley and Los Angeles.

W. Gyude Moore

Gyude is a Senior Policy Fellow at the Center for Global Development. He previously served as Liberia’s Minister of Public Works with oversight over the construction and maintenance of public infrastructure from December 2014 to January 2018.

Prior to that role, Moore served as Deputy Chief of Staff to President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and Head of the President’s Delivery Unit (PDU). As Head of the PDU, his team monitored progress and drove delivery of the Public Sector Investment Program of Liberia—a program of over $1 billion in road, power, port infrastructure, and social programs in Liberia after the civil war. As one of the President’s trusted advisors, he also played a crucial role in supporting President Sirleaf as Liberia responded to the West Africa Ebola outbreak and shaped its post-Ebola outlook

At CGD, Moore’s research focus is on financing infrastructure in Africa and the changing landscape of development finance on the continent. His research tracks the channels of private sources of finance, the rise of China and its expanding role in Africa, and Africa’s response to these changes. He currently serves on the Board of Advisors of the Master of Science in Foreign Service Program at Georgetown University. He holds a BS in Political Science from Berea College and an MS in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.

Jessica Jewell

Jessica is an Assistant Professor in Energy Transitions at Chalmers University of Technology where her research focuses on mechanisms of energy transitions particularly with respect to fossil fuel phase-out and low-carbon electricity growth. She is particularly interested in identifying feasible pathways for climate change mitigation and expanding the feasibility space of climate action. She also holds a joint appointment at the University of Bergen and has worked at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and the International Energy Agency.

Linus Blomqvist

Linus is a Ph.D. student in Environmental Economics and Science at UC Santa Barbara. He is also the former director of the Conservation and Food & Agriculture programs at the Breakthrough Institute and a co-author of the Ecomodernist Manifesto. Linus's interests center on how technology can help decouple environmental impacts from economic growth, and specifically how to design and evaluate policies that drive agricultural intensification while also protecting natural habitats.

Linus is widely published in the areas of conservation, agriculture, and environmental policy. He has co-authored seven peer-reviewed papers and two book chapters, covering topics from ecological tipping points to livestock systems, food demand, ecological footprint accounting, planetary boundaries, ecosystem services, and forecasting methods. His work has been featured in publications such as The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Scientific American, New Scientist, Wired, New York Times, and The Guardian.

Linus holds a MESc from Yale School of the Environment and a BA in Geography from Cambridge University. Linus was born and raised in Sweden and has been based in the US since 2011. In his free time, he enjoys birding, motorcycling, photography, jazz, and running.