Colin McCormick is a Principal Scientist at Carbon Direct and an Adjunct Professor at the Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. Trained as an experimental physicist, he has a wide range of experience in energy and climate technology development, science and technology policy, and data science. His research focus areas include technology development priorities for carbon dioxide removal, pathways for industrial deep decarbonization, and remote sensing methods for greenhouse gas emissions monitoring.

Colin served as Senior Technical Advisor at the US Department of Energy during the Obama Administration, where he helped coordinate R&D strategy across the applied energy offices, including building technologies, vehicle technologies, renewable energy, power transmission and control, fossil energy, and nuclear energy. Before that he worked as an energy and security analyst at the Federation of American Scientists, a staff member with the House Science and Technology Committee, and a AAAS Congressional Fellow in the Office of Rep. Ed Markey. Colin has a PhD in atomic and optical physics from UC Berkeley and was a postdoctoral researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).