New Duke Environmental Policy Institute Names Timothy Profeta Director
DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University has named Timothy Profeta, counsel for the environment to U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, as the first director of its new Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, President Richard H. Brodhead announced Tuesday.
Officials said they envision that the Nicholas Institute will have a global reach and will marshal the broad resources of the university to assist in setting a national environmental agenda.
“Tim Profeta represents the environmental leaders of the future,” Brodhead said. “He is experienced, enthusiastic and savvy about science policy and the political arena, and strategic in thinking about how Duke can best work with others to forge a positive environmental agenda for our nation. He will be a strong leader for this important new institute.”
Brodhead also announced that William K. Reilly, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator under 41st President George H.W. Bush and currently president and CEO of Aqua International Partners, has agreed to serve as senior adviser and chair of the board of advisers for the Nicholas Institute. Reilly also chairs the World Wildlife Fund board and is a trustee of the National Geographic Society and The Packard Foundation, among other positions.
Brodhead said the Nicholas Institute Board will be created to bring leaders and experts from industry, government, foundations, non-governmental organizations and other groups from across the globe to help its policy, research outreach and advocacy missions.
“Bill Reilly is recognized as one of the best-informed and most creative leaders associated with environmental issues,” Brodhead said. “His career has been aimed at identifying environmental solutions. He will be a strong chair of the Nicholas Institute board and, with Tim Profeta, gives the institute unparalleled leadership.”
Said Reilly, “At a time of planet-wide environmental transformation, the Nicholas Institute will not lament the problems but will hone in on solutions. And I look forward to helping it find them.”
As Lieberman’s counsel, Profeta was a principal architect of the Lieberman-McCain Climate Stewardship Act in 2003. He is credited with helping to build the coalition of support and coordinating a political and media campaign to promote the act’s passage. Profeta oversaw all activities of the Senate Subcommittee on Clean Air, Wetlands and Climate Change during Lieberman’s term as chair in the 107th Congress. He has represented Lieberman in legislative negotiations pertaining to environmental and energy issues as well as coordinated the senator’s energy and environmental portfolio during his runs for national office.
“By the end of the decade, I want the Nicholas Institute to be on the ‘first-call-made list’ by a wide range of groups interested in environmental issues,” Profeta said. “It should be a resource for businesses seeking to craft strategies to address environmental problems, policymakers seeking to draft effective solutions, advocates seeking credible insight into environmental challenges, and reporters and the public seeking objective analysis.”
Profeta, who will start his new job June 1, received his bachelor of arts degree in political science from Yale University in 1992, and earned a Master of Environmental Management degree at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment concurrently with a J.D. in the Duke Law School in 1997. At Duke, he was editor-in-chief of the Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum and the recipient of both the Cummings Fellowship in Environmental Law and the 1996 Nicholas School Alumni Fellowship.
Profeta also has served as a visiting lecturer at Duke Law School, where he taught a weekly seminar on the evolution of environmental law and on the Endangered Species Act. Before joining Lieberman’s staff, he was a law clerk for Judge Paul L. Friedman, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He has been a member of the New York Bar since July 1998.
Brodhead said the university is planning to build Nicholas Hall, a free-standing new “green” building on West Campus that will house the school, the Nicholas Institute and all related centers, programs and faculty that address environmental issues at Duke.
The Nicholas Institute will be the only environmental policy institute of its kind with a resident faculty, said William Schlesinger, dean of the Nicholas School of which the institute will be a part. The institute will forecast important environmental problems and recommend effective policy based on unbiased data and careful analyses of issues.
“This is an exciting time for the Nicholas School, and we welcome back one of our most distinguished graduates to help us offer the best science and policy that academia can provide at a critical time for the environment, and for decision makers in corporations, government and nonprofits,” Schlesinger said. “With Tim Profeta at the helm of this new institute, we are poised to supply what is needed.”
A three-day environmental summit on the Duke campus Sept. 20-22 will launch the Nicholas Institute, introduce Profeta to the campus community and others, and provide an opportunity for participants to focus on current environmental issues. Officials said the summit will showcase how the institute will work with partners from business, government and nonprofits to develop results-driven environmental plans.
The institute is made possible through a gift from Duke Board of Trustees Chairman Pete and Ginny Nicholas of Boston, who gave the school that bears their name $70 million in December 2003 to push ahead with the new institute and other activities for Duke to assume environmental leadership and achieve worldwide impact.
CONTACT: David Jarmul
(919) 684-6815
david.jarmul@duke.edu
or Scottee Cantrell
(919) 613-8074
scottee@duke.edu
