Michael K. Dorsey


Dr. Michael K. Dorsey is an environmental scientist, advocate, scholar, and entrepreneur. He is a co-founder of the Sunrise Movement and also a co-founder and principal of Around the Corner Capital, an energy advisory and impact finance platform. Dorsey has contributed op-eds to the Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Education

Dorsey holds a B.S. and Ph.D in Natural Resources and Environmental Policy from the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability. He also holds a Master of Forest Science from Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies in 1996 and an M.A. in Anthropology from Johns Hopkins University in 1998.

Career

Since the late 1980s, Dorsey has worked with firms, non-profits, foundations, governments and a multitude of others on the interplay of multilateral environment policy, finance and economic development matters across the Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe. In 1991, Dorsey served as a youth delegate to the U.S. First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit. In 1992, Dorsey served as the youngest NGO representative on the United States Department of State Delegation the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In 1993, Dorsey served on the task force for Bill Clinton's Council on Sustainable Development. In the mid-1990s Dorsey worked at the African Centre for Technology Studies at the at the request of the Centre's founder Calestous Juma.
After completing his Ph.D., from 2005-2012, Dorsey was assistant professor in Dartmouth College’s Environmental Studies Program and also the Director of the College’s Climate Justice Research Project. . Dorsey has also been a visiting professor at Wesleyan University; in South Africa at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the University of the Witwatersrand; and in Sweden and at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. In South Africa at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the University of the Witwatersrand Dorsey worked closely and co-published with Professor Patrick Bond on climate justice, environmental racism and problems with emissions trading.

Leadership

In the late 20th century and early 21st century Dorsey served as Director of the Sierra Club. His first two consecutive terms were from 1997–2003. Dorsey was appointed and re-elected to the Sierra Club Board of Directors in 2012 and 2014. In total he has served eleven years as a Director on the national board of the Sierra Club. Dorsey is also a founding member of the San Francisco-based Center for Environmental Health and a co-founding director of the Environmental Leadership Program. In 2017 he was appointed to the board of Food First.
While he was at Dartmouth College, from 2007–2008, Dr. Dorsey served as an environmental advisor on the Barack Obama 2008 presidential campaign.. In 2010, Dorsey was appointed to the Advisory Committee of the United States Environmental Protection Agency. In 2012, Dorsey was re-appointed.
Following Dartmouth College Dorsey was a visiting professor at Wesleyan University. There he collaborated with two former Wesleyan students: Evan Weber and Matthew Lichtash, and obtained a $30,000 grant plus free office space provided by the Sierra Club to draft an ambitious plan for climate action, which was the basis for the incorporation of the US Climate Plan 501 nonprofit incorporated in January 2014.
Dorsey is also co-founder and former board member of Islands First, a multilateral negotiating-capacity-building organization for small island developing states facing disproportionate threats from unfolding climate change; a co-founder of Detroit XPAC, a nonpartisan political action committee whose goal is to help the expats of Detroit and of Michigan connect with their hometowns by collecting contributions and supporting candidates who will revitalize Detroit in a fiscally and environmentally responsible manner; and U.S. Climate Plan, the predecessor to the Sunrise Movement Education Fund, a climate policy advocacy group elevating the national dialogue, engaging the American people, and building political support for real climate policy solutions.

Awards

Dr. Dorsey has published dozens of articles on a variety of environment, development and sustainable finance matters. A at Google Scholar.
Dorsey has been featured on CNN International, Democracy Now!, and Al Jazeera. His writing has been published in Institutional Investor, the Los Angeles Times, New Scientist, The New York Times, the Orlando Sentinel, The Sacramento Bee, U.S. News & World Report, and The Wall Street Journal.