MELISSA HOFFER, who was tapped by Gov. Maura Healey as the nation’s first state-level climate chief, is leaving her role.

Hoffer, whose cabinet-level position was announced by Healey on her first day as governor, is leaving to take over as president of Vermont Law and Graduate School effective December 1.

“It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve as Massachusetts’s — and the nation’s — first cabinet-level climate chief, and to make our whole-of-government approach a successful model for other states and local governments,” she said in a statement.

Hoffer’s climate chief role was created amid a wave of momentum toward fighting climate change and adapting to a warming world. The position touched on a dizzying array of issues on Beacon Hill, from state procurements to insurance costs to biodiversity goals, in order to infuse ambitious emissions reduction targets across state government.

She’s credited, among other initiatives, with helping launch the state’s climate bank, establish a disaster response and resilience fund in the wake of devastating 2023 floods, and launched the state’s first youth climate council.

The state is confronting rising power demand, soaring energy costs, and climate commitments that are teetering, a confluence that’s rattling state officials around the country. What’s more, President Trump has moved to stifle an offshore wind industry that Massachusetts officials had been bullish on.

The contentious nature of the current energy affordability landscape in the Bay State has also collided with Healey’s bid for a second term as state residents rank energy costs as a top household concern. Massachusetts electricity prices are double the national average as the governor pursues an “all of the above” approach to energy, which underscores the importance of natural gas in the energy mix in addition to a push for clean power sources.

Those dynamics – marked by the pivot away from a single-minded focus on clean energy — have further strained Hoffer’s job, and left some in state government, advocates, and energy insiders to wonder what exactly her role is in the administration and what kind of influence she holds on policy issues.

In a wide-ranging interview with CommonWealth Beacon earlier this summer, Hoffer seemed to recognize the challenges in a job that’s basically something of an experiment.

“We are asking people to do things differently, and that can be quite threatening sometimes,” she said of her role to push others in state government on climate issues. “You’re asking somebody who’s been quite successful at doing something one way for a long time to think about something else when they’re already very busy, they’ve got an overflowing plate. Because it’s state government, most of them could go out into the private sector and get paid three times what they’re getting paid here. And then here’s the climate chief knocking on your door and asking you to do something else.”

Hoffer was chosen for the new position after holding several high-powered roles in climate policy, serving under then-AG Healey as head of the office’s energy and environment bureau before working at the Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency as principal deputy general counsel and then moving back to the Bay State to link up with Healey again under this newly crafted role.

The relationship between Hoffer and Healey dates back to their time at law school together at Northeastern University in the 1990s.

Hoffer’s departure comes at a natural pivot point toward the end of a governor’s four-year term. But it’s also another data point in the exodus from Healey’s Cabinet, which has seen more than half of her top lieutenants leave the administration in about a year.

In this case, questions have swirled around Hoffer’s level of authority and place in the decision-making pecking order alongside a number of other top energy and environmental officials in the administration — and whether Healey feels as tied to the necessity of the climate chief role itself as the state’s climate commitments face attack both from the federal level and from within Beacon Hill’s Democratic supermajority.

Healey previously told CommonWealth Beacon that Hoffer’s job is a “national model,” and her administration said on Thursday that it would name a successor to Hoffer prior to her departure.

“Melissa Hoffer has been an extraordinary partner and climate leader for Massachusetts,” Healey said in a statement. “When I created the nation’s first cabinet-level climate chief position, I knew we needed someone with the expertise, determination and vision to make climate action a whole-of-government priority — and Melissa delivered on that mission.”

Vermont Law and Graduate School is regarded as one of the leading schools in the country for environmental law.

“I cannot wait to get to work with the VLGS community and help build on its remarkable legacy of educating leaders who are ready to make a difference,” Hoffer said.