Dr. Valerie Sarisky-Reed is the director of the Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). In this role, she manages efforts to improve performance, lower costs, and accelerate market entry of bioenergy technologies. She assists in overseeing strategic planning to meet aggressive goals covered by the BETO research and development budget of approximately $250M annually, working with the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) national laboratories, academia, and industry. Dr. Sarisky-Reed has more than 30 years of experience in addressing energy and environmental issues faced by the United States and globally. In addition to her programmatic activities, she is a founding member of the Metabolic Engineering Working Group, chartered by the Biotechnology Research Subcommittee, an inter-agency coordinating committee under the Office of Science and Technology Policy. She also spent two years serving the chief scientist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, helping to build bridges between DOE and the U.S. Department of Agriculture in support of the bioeconomy. She also served as acting director for EERE's Wind Energy Technologies Office where she enabled the development of the most recent Multi-Year Program Plan with a heavy focus on bringing offshore wind to the United States. The Bioenergy Technologies Office current focus areas include scaling up renewable hydrocarbon fuel technologies with an emphasis on sustainable aviation fuels and on the recycle and upcycle of plastics through DOE’s Plastics Innovation Challenge which aims to reduce ocean-bound plastic waste. Dr. Sarisky-Reed holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Georgetown University, and is a graduate of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Senior Executive Service Career Development Program.