Riley Wagner

About Me

I'm a product manager and engineer working at the intersection of climate, data, and technology. I grew up in a small town in rural Virginia, studied chemical and biological engineering at Princeton, and have spent the years since doing work that tends to involve difficult problems in places most people don't think about.

After graduating, I joined Ingeniería Sin Fronteras in Argentina, managing an engineering project to deliver clean water systems to rural communities in the Peruvian Andes. That work taught me more about what it means to ship something real — with real constraints, for real people — than any classroom did.

I then spent a year in Brazil as a Fulbright Research Fellow at Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, researching solar energy and green hydrogen as a path to decarbonising off-grid Amazonian communities. It was my first serious exposure to carbon and climate at a technical level.

In 2022 I joined BeZero Carbon as one of its first employees — a research analyst helping to build the analytical foundations of what would become the leading ratings agency for the voluntary carbon market. Over the next five years, I worked across research, innovation, and product, eventually becoming Senior Data Product Manager. I've helped ship the industry's first large-scale standardised carbon project dataset and built interactive tools used by the world's largest carbon market participants.

I'm currently an MBA candidate at Imperial College Business School, and increasingly focused on building with AI — both as a product discipline and as a hands-on hobby.

I've lived and worked across the UK, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Peru, and the Philippines. I speak English natively and Spanish professionally.

Education

  • MBA Candidate — Imperial College Business School (2024–2025)
  • B.S.E., Chemical and Biological Engineering — Princeton University
  • Fulbright Research Fellow — Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil

Selected honours

Overall Excellence in Chemical Engineering Award
Princeton University, 2020
Presented to the top student in each graduating class in Chemical and Biological Engineering.
Michelle Goudie '93 Senior Thesis Award
Princeton University, 2020
Awarded for outstanding accomplishment in the energy and environmental area, as voted on by the full faculty.
Ernest F. Johnson Distinguished Service Award
Princeton University, 2020
Presented to the CBE senior who has displayed exemplary character, service, spirit, and leadership from which their classmates have benefited.
Christodoulos A. Floudas Chemical Process Design Award
Princeton University, 2020
Awarded to the group producing the best solution to the capstone design project in CBE 442.
Princeton ReachOut International Fellowship
Princeton University, 2020
Fellowship sponsored by Princeton alumni, awarded to one Princeton senior to execute a year-long public service project of their own design following graduation. Used to volunteer with Ingeniería Sin Fronteras Argentina.
Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange Program
US Department of State, 2015
One of fifty scholarships to participate in the CBYX programme, jointly sponsored by the US Congress and German Bundestag.