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Kathleen Merrigan

Executive Director of Sustainability, The George Washington University

Kathleen Merrigan is Executive Director of Sustainability at the George Washington University, where she leads the GW Sustainability Collaborative and GW Food Institute and serves as Professor of Public Policy. GW sustainability accolades include a “Gold” rating by the Association for Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education and designation by the US Department of Education as a “Green Ribbon” higher education institution. Kathleen serves as a Co-Chair for AGree, Board Director for the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture and FoodCorps, a member of the Harvard Pilgrim Healthy Food Fund Advisory Committee, Senior Advisor at the Kendall Foundation, and steering committee member of the Council of Environmental Deans and Directors of the National Council for Science and the Environment and the United Nations Environment Programme-led initiative TEEB for Agriculture & Food.

From 2009-2013, Kathleen was US Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer of the US Department of Agriculture, a $150 billion, 110,000 employee institution. As Deputy Secretary, Kathleen created and led the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food Initiative to support local food systems; was a key architect of First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign; and made history as the first woman to chair the Ministerial Conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Before joining the USDA, Kathleen held a variety of agriculture policy positions, including faculty member at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, Administrator of the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, and senior staff on the US Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, where she wrote the law establishing national standards for organic food.

Kathleen holds a PhD in environmental planning and policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Master of Public Affairs from the University of Texas, and a BA from Williams College. Recognizing the history and scope of her work, Time magazine named Kathleen among the “100 most influential people in the world” in 2010.

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