LAKE LIAO

Lake is a student at Princeton University majoring in Political Economy with a minor in Sustainable Energy and plans to pursue a joint law school and Ph.D. program after college. 

Lake has been involved in climate politics for four years and is currently a Regional Advisor to the Chair of the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) Climate Council. Lake also has a background in elections, working on campaigns like the 2020 presidential campaign, the 2021 Ossoff, the Warnock Senate races, and Andy Levin for Congress in 2022 in his home district of MI-11. Additionally, in 2022, Lake worked on a public transit expansion measure in Metro Detroit, and in 2023, he worked on climate-relevant ballot measure campaigns with Maine's public power initiative. 

Lake is interested in elections that run on climate, public utilities, public transportation, and the role of labor unions in decarbonization. At Princeton University, he founded and led a student research group called Democracy Decarbonized that studies the difference between perceived and substantive roles of tactics in the climate movement and builds a conjecture of how electoral, legislative, labor, legal, and other forms of organizing cohere into quantifiable political outcomes based on case studies and potential future campaigns. Lake is very interested in the role of state legislature and judicial elections in creating favorable legal terrain for climate litigation.