Gail Chalef

Gail Chalef is the director of communications and public affairs at the Center for Global Sustainability at the University of Maryland. In the role, Chalef is responsible for the Center's external relations, including the promotion of CGS's research. Chalef also handles media relations for the Center's leadership and researchers. 

An accomplished communications professional and a former award-winning television journalist, Chalef possesses expertise in strategic, policy, advocacy, executive and crisis communications, having worked for a Fortune 500 global energy company, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, The Brookings Institution and CNN and ABC News.

Most recently, Chalef served as the director of global external relations for The AES Corporation, a leading energy company that operates in 14 countries and works to accelerate the world’s clean energy transition. In that role, she oversaw media relations, executive communications, and crisis communications management, working to raise the company’s profile by securing exclusive interviews and coverage in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Financial Times, among numerous other U.S. and international news outlets.

At Harvard Kennedy School and The Brookings Institution, Chalef promoted the work of leading scholars and academics who produced actionable policy recommendations on U.S. national security and foreign policy issues, as well as on the challenges related to energy security, climate change and environmental justice. Chalef oversaw the promotion and dissemination of policy research to the White House, Congress, Pentagon, and the Departments Energy, Commerce, and State, securing briefings with high-level government officials and key staff members.

A former journalist with more than 20 years’ experience, Chalef worked for CNN and other media outlets, producing award-winning news coverage in the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. She received Emmy, Peabo, and other awards for CNN’s coverage of the 9/11 attacks, the first Russian presidential election, U.S. presidential elections, Hurricane Katrina, the election of South African President Nelson Mandela, and the wars and crises in Iraq, Syria, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Pakistan, to name a few.

Chalef holds an undergraduate degree from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School of Communication. When not working, she loves traveling, volunteering with a DC area animal rescue group, and creating very bad pottery (not on purpose).