Stephen D. Comello is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center and an executive vice president at the EFI Foundation, where he leads cross-cutting efforts to accelerate the deployment of energy technologies and advance innovative financing mechanisms to support a next-generation energy system. He also serves as the executive director of the Nuclear Scaling Initiative—a collaboration among the EFI Foundation, Clean Air Task Force, and Nuclear Threat Initiative—focused on catalyzing multi-reactor nuclear energy deployments across the United States and internationally. In addition, Comello is chair of the National Academies’ Forum on Energy Systems Transformation and Decarbonization, which convenes leaders from government, industry, academia, and civil society to inform evidence-based pathways for a resilient, decarbonized energy system.

Comello’s expertise spans techno-economic analysis, project finance, innovation systems, and the industrialization of emerging clean energy technologies. He is the managing director of the EFI Foundation’s Energy Futures Finance Forum, which develops frameworks to mobilize private capital at scale through catalytic finance structures and public–private partnerships, addressing the “missing middle” financing gap for emerging energy technologies. He also serves on the external advisory board of the Georgia Tech Energy Policy and Innovation Center and is an affiliated faculty member of the Rapid Decarbonization Initiative at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Previously, Comello spent more than a decade on the faculty of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he co-led major research programs on decarbonization, energy innovation, and technology commercialization. His academic work includes publications on energy policy, industrial organization, project finance, and carbon accounting. Earlier in his career, he worked across the energy and environmental sectors on technology deployment, market design, and large-scale infrastructure development.

Comello holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical and industrial engineering from the University of Toronto and a PhD in civil and environmental engineering from Stanford University. Originally from Canada, he resides in Washington, DC.