W&M Featured Events

Location

The Environment and Sustainability Program invites you to the second lecture of our annual spring series. Our second guest speaker is Katie MacCormick with a presentation titled "A Case Study: Virginia’s Journey to Environmental Justice," under this year's theme "Environmental voices from the margins." Kathryn “Katie” MacCormick is an Environmental Justice Consultant for Dominion Energy; in the past 3 years, she has implemented environmental justice reviews for over 150 major projects across the company and trained over 1,000 employees in the fundamentals of environmental justice, tribal engagement, and how to follow the review process. Strong technical foundations in the natural sciences and geospatial analysis, lived experience as a Pamunkey tribal member, volunteer experience in community organizing, and a passion for law and policy all combined to prepare Katie for this role; she does not have a degree in environmental justice, but rather in biology. Katie earned a bachelor’s degree in Biology from Arizona State University in 2007 and a master’s degree in Biology from William & Mary in 2015. In fact, she was part of Matthias Leu’s Applied Ecology and Research, or ACER, lab. After graduation, she taught a semester of Introduction to GIS at the CGA under Rob Rose’s leadership and worked from 2016 to 2019 as an instructor of Biology at Rappahannock Community College. She tried her best to be an advocate for Virginia’s Native American communities, including service on the Virginia Health Commissioner’s Advisory Council on Health Disparity & Health Equity from 2016 to 2019 and her current appointment to the Virginia Council for Environmental Justice. Katie lives with her partner Justin on the Pamunkey Indian Reservation, near King William County, Virginia.

Contact

Lecture series coordinator: [[lponcedelavega, Lidia Ponce de la Vega]]