The 19 students in the Class of 2026 are first to earn the new Master of Energy Transition degree.
On June 12 a cohort of 19 students celebrated completing the Master of Energy Transition (MET) program with Dartmouth's Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society.
The ceremony, conducted in the atrium of the Irving Institute, celebrated the Class of 2026. Coming from a wide range of academic disciplines and countries, the students received their MET Class of 2026 pins to the warm applause of both ceremonial speakers and attending families and friends.
The MET is a nine-month professional degree program at Dartmouth that equips early-career professionals with interdisciplinary training, real-world experience, and expert mentorship—all in the service of powering a more sustainable, climate-stable future.
The MET degree is conferred by Dartmouth's Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies, and the program is administered by the Irving Institute.
Amanda Graham, the Irving Institute's director of academic programs and the MET, reminded the students of their new profession's importance.
"Our energy systems are the backbone of modern life, and they're under extreme pressure to transform," said Graham, who holds a PhD in environmental communication. "The challenges this creates do not respect borders of any kind—disciplinary, national, or geographic."
"It's been a dream to build a program that is laser-focused on increasing society's capacity to not just address the challenges of energy, but also to use them as an opportunity to build a better world," reflected Graham.
Megan Litwhiler, the Institute's assistant director of academic programs, who holds a PhD in ecology and evolutionary biology, told the graduating students, "What you have accomplished in the last nine months is truly extraordinary."
The inaugural MET cohort brought a remarkable range of diversity to the program. Their academic backgrounds included undergraduate degrees in subjects ranging from political science to math/physics to economics to engineering. In addition, roughly a quarter of the cohort came to New Hampshire from international locations, including Bangladesh, India, Italy, Singapore, Uganda, and Vietnam.
Many of the students have already received job offers in the energy industry. Among them is Riley Roach, a MET graduate who is now joining Grid United, a Houston-based developer of next-generation transmission infrastructure, as a commercial analyst.
"Receiving this job offer was one of the greatest 'yeses' of my life," Roach said, "second only to my acceptance into the MET program."
After the opening and welcome, a special address was delivered by Scott Fisher '93, TH'93, TU'98, chair of the Irving Institute Advisory Board, MET mentor, and a partner at The NorthBridge Group, a consulting firm that serves the electric and natural gas industries.
"This is an awesome day, a milestone," Fisher told the assembly.
"You're in for a wild and exciting career, but a rewarding one," he said. "The energy and society space is one of the most unpredictable and turbulent sectors in the world. Moreover, the stakes in this space are high, because just about every aspect of our lives is dependent on our energy system."
But there's good news, he added: "There is no better one-year program in the United States and probably the world than the Dartmouth MET program to prepare future leaders to take on the challenges and opportunities in the energy sector for the betterment of society."
Next up was Barbara Will, Dartmouth's vice provost for academic and international affairs.
"It's my incredible pleasure to celebrate with you this inaugural class," Will said, adding, "This is truly an innovative program."
"The energy transition is not a problem that belongs only to engineers or economists or environmental scientists or artists," she said. "It belongs to all of them, and to all of us simultaneously."
Will alluded to the MET program's early days, saying, "I remember seeing this as a slide deck, and now it's a reality. I'm blown away by how great this program has become, and so quickly."
The ceremony was next joined by Sandra Irving A'72, and her daughter, Sarah Irving '10, TU '14, members of the Irving Institute Advisory Board. Both were instrumental in launching the Irving Institute, made possible through their generous contributions alongside Irving Oil Limited, the Arthur L. Irving Family Foundation, and the late Arthur L. Irving.
Sarah Irving recounted how her parents had originally proposed the creation of the Irving Institute as a place that would bring together people from different backgrounds to solve some of the world's greatest challenges.
"In every conversation that I witnessed, it would always come back to the students," she said. "And that's all of you."
Speaking of her late father, Institute benefactor and namesake Arthur L. Irving, Sarah added, "He would be so very proud of what the Institute—with you—has become."
Indeed, the MET celebration highlighted presentations by three students from the graduating class.
First up was Kadijat Alakiu, who told the crowd, "Energy has always been woven into my background."
Alakiu recalled growing up in Houston, one of the nation's oil centers, and how she knew from an early age that she would pursue a career in energy. However, she added, upon joining the MET's interdisciplinary program, she realized her education had been incomplete.
"I had the technical background," Alakiu said, "but I was missing the policy and market understanding, and, most importantly, the relationship piece."
She filled those gaps, in part, with the MET program's "career treks," group trips around the country to get a behind-the-scenes look into the energy industry and meet with leaders in the energy field, including California's Public Utility Commissioner, J. Andrew McAllister '87, who is also an Irving Institute Advisory Board member.
The treks, she added, are part of what "sets this program apart."
The next student speaker, Matteo Tafuri, brought an international perspective. He joined the MET program from Italy, where he earned an undergraduate degree in economics.
Tafuri recounted how his Irving Institute-sponsored participation in the CERAWeek energy conference gave him the opportunity to meet with Dan Yergin, the vice chairman of S&P Global.
"He argued that what we're living through is not the transition of fuels, but the rewiring and re-engineering of the entire global economy," Tafuri said.
Jordon Schisler, the third and final student speaker, began by thanking the Irving Institute's founders, board, staff, professors and mentors. "Your dedication," she told them, "does not go unnoticed."
Speaking of her cohort, Schisler said, "We represent a global perspective on transforming the energy industry for good….The tapestry of our experience is our competitive advantage."
The day's keynote address was delivered by Abigail Ross Hopper '93, a member of the Irving Institute's Advisory Board and MET mentor; founder of Solar Sisters, a community for women in the clean-energy industry; and immediate past president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association.
Hopper explained that she sought help preparing her keynote by appealing to the crowd wisdom of LinkedIn. There, she asked her followers, "What wisdom would you provide to folks upon their graduation? And what do you wish someone had told you?"
Hopper's LinkedIn query was viewed 14,000 times, and she received more than 120 comments.
"The wisdom I'm sharing today is not just mine," Hopper told the graduates. "It belongs to an entire industry that has been waiting eagerly for you to show up."
Among the advice: The energy transition is not really about energy. Instead, it's about people.
"The projects that succeed," Hopper said, "will succeed because of the people behind them."
Another piece of wisdom: While technical knowledge matters, adaptability matters even more.
"Learn how to handle change," Hopper said. "Learn to communicate across disciplines. Learn how to make yourself useful in complicated rooms where the answer is not obvious."
Wherever students get hired, she added, they should strive to be "someone who helps the organization think better, move faster, and adapt more honestly."
The ceremony culminated with each of the 19 graduates being presented with their MET class pins by Dan Kalafatas '96, a member of the Irving Institute Advisory Board, MET mentor, and chairman of 3Degrees, a provider of renewable energy and carbon offset solutions to large corporations. After receiving their MET pins, the students marched down the aisle to return to their seats; big smiles and proud applause ensued.
The day's closing remarks were offered by Geoffrey Parker, the Irving Institute's faculty director and the Charles E. Hutchinson '68A Professor of Engineering Innovation at Dartmouth.
"It's a profound honor to stand with you today," Parker told the graduates. "You could have studied anything, but you chose to study how to work across sectors with communities to create a new energy future. That choice says something about who you are."
Parker described this moment in time as a "phase change" that he likened to the dot.com boom of the 1990s and early 2000s.
"After that, the world was never the same," he said, "and I think we're in that same kind of moment of utter transformation in the global economy."
"The energy transition may not move in a straight line, but powerful economic forces continue to push it forward," Parker added. To further encourage the students, he quoted Marie Curie: "Nothing in life is to be feared; it is only to be understood."
Earlier in the day, several of the graduating students shared their thoughts about the MET program. Here's some of what they said:
In addition to the MET Inaugural Graduation Celebration, the MET Class of 2026 was honored at the Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies Investiture and Dartmouth Commencement, where the degrees were conferred.
Learn more about Dartmouth's MET degree program.
Watch a video of the MET 2026 Inaugural Graduation Celebration.
Peter Krass is a contributing writer to the Irving Institute.
