Joint Energy & Environment & AI, Technology & Innovation Policy Committee Meeting – February 6

As director of state policy solutions, Burdis manages a team of professionals who endeavor to harmonize emerging state electricity policies with wholesale market design and transmission system planning policies. His organization specifically focuses on: offshore wind development; clean energy development; resource adequacy evolution; grid modernization; and, grid security maintenance.
Before his current post, Burdis served as the business operations manager to PJM’s General Counsel / Senior Vice President of Law, Compliance and External Relations. Here he managed a portfolio on matters relating to corporate governance, regulatory filings, development of policy and messaging, and long-term corporate strategy.

Prior, Burdis served as manager of policy analysis & strategy, managing a team of economists focused on the outreach and strategy development for state government engagement; focusing on policy assessment, market design and transmission planning. Additionally, he managed PJM’s engagement with the Organization of PJM States, Inc. (OPSI) and its interaction with the company’s Executive Team and Board of Managers.

Burdis started his career as an engineer working in PJM’s markets and operations divisions.
He is a graduate from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, holds a Master of Science in Engineering from West Virginia University and a Bachelor of Science from Lebanon Valley College.

Burdis started his career as an engineer working in PJM’s markets and operations divisions.

He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He holds a Master of Science in Engineering from West Virginia University and a Bachelor of Science from Lebanon Valley College.

Varun Jain is Of Counsel in K&L Gates’ Public Policy and Law practice group. His broad public and private sector experience—the White House, U.S. Department of Transportation, a multinational ridesharing company, and a physical artificial intelligence (AI) startup—help him solve tough legal, regulatory, and policy issues in the transportation and emerging technologies spaces, especially AI.

Varun was most recently a Deputy General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Transportation, where he provided strategic guidance on regulation, consumer protection, and other matters as well as helped oversee a departmental legal team of nearly 500 attorneys. Before that, Varun served as Senior Counselor to the Administrator at the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, where he led high-impact regulatory initiatives across a broad portfolio that included transportation, health, labor, education, agriculture, veterans, and defense; as well as led the office’s experimentation with AI. Varun began his legal career working on administrative law and regulatory matters as an Assistant General Counsel at the White House’s Office of Management and Budget.

Between his time in public service, Varun was in-house counsel at a multinational ridesharing company and a physical AI startup. There he provided extensive advice on day-to-day regulatory and operational issues, product launches, permitting strategy, investigations, and crisis management. He also worked closely with federal, state, and local policy officials, regulators, and agency staff to advance thoughtful legislation and regulations, including by testifying before a public utilities commission.

Varun grew up in New Jersey and hopes to return one day (if he can ever convince his wife).

Senator Andrew Zwicker is a physicist and a member of the New Jersey Senate representing Central NJ’s 16th Legislative District. He serves on the Budget and Appropriations, Higher Education, Labor, and Military and Veterans’ Affairs committees. Additionally, he is a member of the Manufacturing Caucus, the Disability Caucus, the NJ Commission on Science, Innovation, and Technology, and was Vice-Chair of the NJ Biotechnology Task Force. He served in the NJ General Assembly from 2016 – 2021 where he was the Chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee. His legislative focus includes the role of R&D as an economic driver, addressing global warming, and voting rights, among others.

A lifelong New Jersey resident, Andrew is head of Communications and Public Outreach at Princeton University’s Plasma Physics Laboratory, a world leader in developing an advanced form of energy known as fusion.

He has taught classes in bioethics and writing, and led plasma physics workshops for faculty and students. The American Association of Physics Teachers named him as one of the 75 leading contributors to physics education in the US.

Andrew was raised in Englewood, NJ where his love of learning and passion for science came from his mother, a public school English teacher, and father, a chemical engineer. Andrew earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from Bard College and a master’s and Ph.D. in physics from Johns Hopkins University.

Andrew and his wife Barbara, an elementary school educator, raised three children and one pitbull-boxer mix named Rocky.

Please visit https://andrewzwicker.com, for more information.