Dan Gluck

Project: Creating a small multidisciplinary nonprofit volunteer community to explore small-scale nuclear fusion to retrofit fossil-fuel plants, aiming to cut emissions and combat climate change. The initiative will address fusion science, engineering, materials, AI, economics, the social aspects of energy economics, regulation, and climate justice. By fostering collaborations across disciplines and communities, we hope to replicate our earlier nonprofit success (the 1986 LIPA Act) in forging a clean energy future.

Dan Gluck was raised in the Rochdale Village housing project in South Jamaica, Queens, where his sister’s untimely death ignited in him a lifelong dedication to service and learning, values also instilled by his public-school-teacher parents. At Harvard, he earned a BA in Social Studies, a cross-disciplinary blend of government, history, sociology, psychology, philosophy, and economics. Driven by insatiable curiosity, Gluck led community projects at home and abroad: organizing backyard toxic-waste cleanups; helping rebuild Nicaragua’s post-revolution health system; co-founding Mexico’s first battered women’s shelter; supporting agricultural development in Guatemala and India; strengthening India’s Self-Employed Women’s Association with computerization; and engaging in human-rights work in South Africa, Singapore, and beyond. He also authored budget travel guides to Mexico, Israel, Egypt, and Jordan to foster firsthand understanding of regions where the U.S. was deeply involved.

After orchestrating a campaign to free imprisoned friends in Singapore, Gluck earned his JD at Georgetown University Law Center, then joined a large law firm in New York where he worked on landmark cases, including the Kidder Peabody trading fraud and the Towers Financial Ponzi scheme, in addition to major environmental and cogeneration projects.

To align utility incentives with environmental goals, Gluck founded Citizens to Replace LILCO. By facilitating dialogue between activists and business leaders, his team persuaded New York’s divided legislature to enact the Long Island Power Authority Act, transforming a major investor-owned utility into a ratepayer-owned authority prioritizing renewables, demand management, and transparent governance.

Building on these experiences, Gluck now aims to advance clean-energy innovation through Columbia’s A’Lelia Bundles Community Scholars Program and INCITE.