Justin Schott serves as Director of the Energy Equity Project since February 2021, where he led am interdisciplinary team of 40 researchers, community advocates, regulators and utilities to develop and implement a standardized framework for measuring and advancing equity in the energy system. 

Schott has been quoted by more than a dozen public media sources, published opinion pieces, and published work on energy equity in academic journals. He has served as an expert witness in ~10 utility rate cases and integrated resource plan proceedings. In recognition of the success of the Energy Equity Project, Schott received an appointment as a lecturer in the School for Environment and Sustainability in 2022, where he teaches an interdisciplinary graduate level course on energy justice, advises masters projects focused on community-led energy equity, and is expanding applied, lab-based courses on inclusive history and energy justice. 

Prior to U of M, Schott served as Executive Director of EcoWorks, a Detroit non-profit, a position I held from June 2015 to November 2020. He was responsible for overseeing all aspects of financial management, development, communications and public relations, staff recruitment, administrative operations, and risk management. Schott managed a team of 30 staff members with an annual budget of $2.8 Million. Schott was a project manager for Detroit’s Climate Action Strategy and Sustainability Action Agenda, leading efforts to engage more than 7,000 Detroiters in the design of each. Schott coordinated efforts to create a Climate Equity Advisory Board of community members, designed and led a sustainability ambassadors program, conducted large scale surveys, co-facilitated town halls and focus groups, and worked closely with city staff to secure and analyze data and develop measurable action steps. In Detroit, Schott also collaborated with  Dr. Tony Reames, U of M’s Urban Energy Justice Lab, and other U of M faculty to study connections between weatherization, health, and affordability. Schott oversaw an effort to coordinate a ground-level heat mapping project and was selected by the Federation of American Scientists for Extreme Heat Policy Spring in 2024.  From 2019-2020, Schott was an intervenor in DTE Energy’s Energy Waste Reduction bi-annual plans and successfully made the case to increase the budget for single family and multi-family low-income programs, by $10 million.