Katie Dykes

Katie Dykes is the Principal of Fern Street Advisory, where she advises organizations on energy, environmental, and climate strategy where government and markets meet. From 2019 to 2026, she served as Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CT DEEP), leading a 900-person agency responsible for energy policy and procurement, climate, environmental protection, and natural resource management. She previously chaired Connecticut's Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (2016–2018) and served as DEEP's Deputy Commissioner for Energy (2012–2016).

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Dykes brings deep, hands-on knowledge of how state and federal government works, and how companies can work with it. She has run competitive procurements and negotiated long-term contracts for offshore wind, solar, storage, and nuclear power; overseen utility rate cases, grid modernization, and the design of utility-administered efficiency and incentive programs; served on Connecticut's facilities siting board and managed environmental permitting, including reforms that cut Connecticut's legacy permit backlog by 70 percent.

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She has designed and launched innovative state grant and financing programs that leverage public dollars to attract private investment in stormwater, climate resilience, sustainable waste management, and energy infrastructure; and managed federal grant compliance and funding disruptions. She also brings experience with legislative strategy, regulatory proceedings before FERC and EPA, regional market and multi-state initiatives involving ISO-New England and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

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Earlier, Dykes served as Deputy General Counsel at the White House Council on Environmental Quality and as Legal Advisor to the General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Energy, and clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.  

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She holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, and was a Henry Luce Scholar in Mongolia.