Joelle Novey serves as Director of Interfaith Power & Light (DC.MD.NoVA), a position she has held since the fall of 2009, bringing congregations of many faiths together to respond to the climate crisis. She speaks widely on the role that faith communities can play in the climate movement. Joelle is active in several Jewish communities in the DC area, including Minyan Segulah, and also serves on the advisory board of Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action.

Joelle loves opening conversations with people of all ages and backgrounds about what is happening to our world, and how we are each called to protect the people, places, and creatures we love. She is grounded in her own Jewish tradition’s fierce spirit of intervention which demands that we act boldly even when we feel uncertain, if life may be at stake.

Prior to coming to IPL-DMV, Joelle worked at Green America, where she screened applicants to the Green Business Network and wrote dozens of articles about greener living for the organization’s newsletter and magazine. For more than a year, she counseled hospital patients of all backgrounds and led interfaith worship services through a chaplain training program at Washington Hospital Center.

Joelle was a featured guest on The BTS Center’s podcast, Climate Changed, in Season 3. Listen to that conversation, entitled “Jewish Perspectives on Climate Change.”

Joelle is a graduate of Harvard University where she received a BA in Social Studies and completed the coursework for a minor in the Study of Religion. She has received numerous awards for her work, including Strathmore’s  Monuments: Forces of Nature (2024), The Bethesda Magazine Green Award (2017), Sustainability Advocate of the Year from Pearlstone Center (2017), The Maryland Clean Energy Advocacy Award (2014), and The Heschel Vision Award from Jews United for Justice (2008).