Nicholas Institute Board of Advisors

Cornelia Quennet-Thielen
Prior to joining the staff of the president in 2004, she was deeply invested in environmental and sustainability policy in various positions at the Federal Ministry for the Environment. Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.  From 1999 to 2004 she served as Deputy Director General with primary responsibility for strategic planning including the national strategy for sustainable development, the research program of the ministry, environmental legislation, economic and trade issues and relations to stakeholds.  Heading the German negotiating team in the climate change negotiations from 1990 to 1999 and holding several international functions during that process she helped shaped the UN Framework Convention on climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol.  She was also responsible for the German policy on sustainable development regarding the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 and its follow up.  From 1985 to 1990 she was Personal Assistant to State and then Federal Environment Minister Klaus Toepfer.  Having received her final law degree in 1984 she started her professional career as a judge.

Until 2004 Quennet-Thielen served on a corporate and various non profit boards.

She received fellowhips of the German National Fellowship Foundation (1976-1984) and the German Marshall Fund of the United States (1987), became Young Leader of Atlantikbrucke in 1989 and Would Fellow of Yale University in 2003.