On a warm Saturday morning, hundreds of college students made their way to an energy conference at 9 a.m. They remained indoors, attending panels, until 8 p.m. that night. 

“It’s really encouraging to see that kind of interest,” said Scott Tinker, the keynote speaker for the Chicago Energy Conference on April 11. “When the sun came up this morning, I thought, ‘I’d be out there. I wouldn’t go to that thing.’ It was really cool.” 

A panel of students from Northwestern University and the University of Chicago organized the conference. Over 30 speakers made up the program throughout the day, featuring two keynote addresses and eight panels. Conversations ranged from sustainability to resilience to innovation, and students from both schools were provided free tickets and transportation to the city. 

McCormick fourth-year Lynna Deng is one of five executive directors responsible for organizing the conference. Deng said the “strong pre-professional” nature of the undergraduate space at Northwestern meant there was a unique opportunity to build “a larger network of different corporations in Chicago.” 

“It’s really important to also have conversations about where energy is going across policy, technology and financing,” Deng said. “This conference in particular is focused on undergraduates entering energy [and] informing them about how we can best adapt the energy industry in this time of intense flux.” 

At the inaugural Chicago Energy Conference in 2025, Deng said there was a lack of conversation about the social impacts of energy policy. This year, having more panels highlighting that impact was a personal goal for Deng. 

University of Chicago fourth-year and executive director Riley Bruce said she was particularly inspired by Tinker’s keynote speech. 

“I was blown away by the way that he was able to relate to a general audience,” Bruce said. “Our world is very interconnected. You can’t ignore the other 85% of the world that doesn’t live with the same energy security that we do.” 

Tinker said he spoke about how energy, economy and environment “are all related.” He highlighted the importance of putting energy conversations in a global context.  

In his travels to over 60 countries, Tinker said he learned about the differences in energy resilience and access across countries. 

“We won the lottery,” Tinker said. “If you’re here at this university, we won the lottery in terms of access to things, food you can eat, water you can drink, a home you can live in. I could go to the airport today and fly anywhere on the planet.” 

Weinberg third-year Nathan Scott said he attended the conference with the goal of determining what he wants to pursue in the future. 

As a physics major, Scott said he is primarily interested in the research and science aspects of energy. Before attending the conference, he thought all major technical problems had already been solved, and energy was all about policy. After sitting through all of the speakers, he said he views the field differently.  

“One of the things I’ve been learning here is that actually the technical aspect has a lot to improve on,” Scott said. “There’s a lot of things we can do to make it a lot easier on ourselves and more economically viable to transition to green energy.” 

Scott was not the only student to have learned thought-provoking new ideas and plan to apply them to work on campus.  

University of Chicago first-year Ariadne Lazaridou started a commodity club on campus, focusing on all types of energy. The club produces a newsletter every Sunday, where the latest issue was a lesson on carbon markets. 

“I’m very involved in this world of looking at energy, looking at how we can hedge against the risks,” Lazaridou said. 

Her involvement on campus is what interested her in attending the conference. She said that Tinker’s keynote also captured her attention the most. 

“We talk so much about renewable energy, but a lot of people fail to consider that everything has a trade-off and everything has a limiting factor,” Lazaridou said. “It made me want to be more curious and question things more, not just accept them as fact.”