Building Sector Expertise Taken to New Heights at JHU

Published March 7, 2025

Mention the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center to Blake Lajiness, ’24 MS in Energy Policy and Climate graduate, and you’ll create a smile radiant enough to generate renewable energy. Point out that the magnificently retrofitted building is LEED Gold Certified, and Lajiness is overcome with even more emotion.

“The Hopkins Bloomberg Center is such a staple for the University, and I feel so fortunate to have had two in-person classes in that amazing building,” he said of the former Newseum building in Washington, D.C. that was painstakingly and environmentally renovated and repurposed. “I loved stepping foot into it every time.”

Of course, Lajiness embraced, even relished, his time there. Built environments – and energy and sustainability more broadly – have been the focus of his early career, and his decision to enroll at Johns Hopkins was directly related to that journey.

“This was an amazing global program, and I have nothing but great things to say about it,” said Lajiness, 25, who formerly worked in the non-profit sector and in the Building Technologies Office at the U.S. Department of Energy as an ORISE Fellow. He is now a consultant with the global consulting firm Guidehouse. “I chose Johns Hopkins because it checked all my boxes – affordability, content and network, and location. I could have enrolled in the program completely online, but I decided to move to D.C., and I was happy to be able to attend a few in-person classes in the Hopkins Bloomberg Center.”

Lajiness, who lived most of his life in Michigan and completed a pair of undergraduate degrees at Michigan State University (one in environmental science and sustainability and one in political science/public policy), churned through his master’s program with the same fervor.

“It was an ambitious and arduous one-and-a -half years, but I am proud to have completed the JHU program,” he said. “Turning in my capstone represents not just months of insane dedication, with balancing full-time work and part-time school, but also a turning point in my academic and professional careers. This truly is a working person’s degree, and I can’t wait to see where this achievement takes me.”

Lajiness also was complimentary of the “cool hand-in-hand experience” the program delivered.

“The program applied perfectly with what I am doing in the buildings space, a space I really enjoy,” he said. “I have a special interest in urban architecture, sustainability, and clean energy which come together in this really cool niche area of the built environment. It’s fast-paced, exciting, and ever-changing.”

In particular, he points to three classes as pivotal in his growth.

“My Introduction to Energy Law and Policy course with Dr. Paul Bubbosh, who was also my capstone mentor, was one of my favorite courses,” Lajiness said. “He is a great instructor and mentor, and he brings great energy and interesting flow to his course. I learned about the history of energy policy, which was very interesting and applied to my time at the DOE. Having this context in my current roles helps me to navigate complex topics with my clients. I also took a behavioral science course with Dr. Lama Elhatow. She is amazing, and I learned about the importance of informing public decision-making to direct behavior change. I also enjoyed the core course on Climate Change Policy Analysis with Dr. Marcus Sarofim. He is great instructor who rounded out the climate-focused perspective for me.”

As Lajiness contemplates his professional career development, he could see himself someday moving to an even bigger city, perhaps in the Midwest, in pursuit of a role in a state energy office where he could focus on fast-moving state energy policy.

“I am interested in clean manufacturing because states that are bringing in manufacturing jobs and data centers are also bringing problems with pollution and emissions,” he said. “In this building space, you get to dabble in residential, commercial, and industrial. There are a bajillion environmentalists like me in California, and I am ‘Midwest nice.’ Some people might see this as a hindrance, but I think it is more of a superpower. I love stakeholder engagement and public speaking, public facing things. I am working to become the go-to person for that type of engagement, and it will all come down to where the opportunities are. I think my Midwest roots and my Johns Hopkins degree can take me to the next level.”