Michael K. Dorsey

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Dr. Michael Dorsey (born May 28, 1971) is Assistant Professor on Dartmouth College's Faculty of Science (Hanover, New Hampshire). Dr. Dorsey teaches in the Environmental Studies Program. Dorsey is a graduate of the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment; Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and the University of Michigan Dept of Anthropology, from which received his PhD. Prior to joining Dartmouth's faculty, he held the Thurgood Marshall Fellowship in Environmental Studies and Geography at Dartmouth College from September 2001 to January 2002.

Dorsey's work covers a wide variety of international and domestic environmental policy concerns. In 1996 he began researching the political-economy of biodiversity conservation and management, as well as the development and deployment of biotechnologies. His research also concerns the interplay of environmental regulations and transnational corporations. He teaches courses on the aforementioned areas as well as on the topic of environmental justice and ethics.

Dorsey was the youngest NGO representative on the U.S. State Department Delegation to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED or the Earth Summit) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Following the Earth Summit in 1993, he was a lecturer in the University of Michigan's College of Literature Science and the Arts, where he taught the seminar: Environmental Justice: Issues of Race, Poverty and the Environment.

Later that year Michael was a visiting scholar at the World Resources Institute (WRI). After a short stint with WRI he continued to Africa, per the direct request of Calestous Juma (former Secretary General of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity), where he served as a Research Fellow with the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS), under then Executive Director Juma, in Nairobi, Kenya. At ACTS, Dorsey conducted research on the environmental consequences of World Bank-sponsored economic policy reforms.

Dorsey also worked closely with Friends of the Earth (FOE) Ecuador (Acción Ecológica) on a variety of extractive industry (i.e., oil, mining, and bioprospecting) and human rights issues. He was the co-principal investigator on their biopiracy campaign that focused on the five countries of the Andean Pact.

Dorsey is also a founding member of several organizations. Internationally, between 1991-92 he worked with an international steering committee to start Action for Solidarity Environment and Development (ASEED) now based in the Netherlands. He is a founding member of the San Francisco-based Center for Environmental Health. Currently he is working to develop and staff the Environmental Leadership Program (www.elpnet.org/office). He also sits on the board of the U.S. based CorpWatch. From 1997-2003 he sat on the national board of the U.S. based Sierra Club.

Dorsey was a delegate to the U.S. First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in 1991 he worked to build and maintain the Northeast Network for Environmental and Economic Justice. As an early member of the U.S. based Student Environmental Action Coalition (SEAC) Dorsey worked on a wide-range of environmental campaigns - from recycling drives to building solar cars to raising awareness about the adverse environmental impacts of the multilateral aid agencies -on many campuses across the U.S., some of which include: the University of Michigan, Yale University, the University of Colorado, Wesleyan, the University of Dayton, Brandeis University and Bunker Hill Community College.

Dorsey lectures on a variety of matters, especially in the realm of international environment and development, as well as social justice concerns.

In 1992, Dorsey's efforts to promote and foster widespread social, economic and environmental change were captured in the television documentary: Green for Life. In addition to Dorsey the documentary profiled the work and lives of some of his close colleagues: Juliet Majot, co-founder of the International Rivers Network in California and David Brower, a former Sierra Club Board Member and Founder of Friends of the Earth.

In 1997, in Glasgow, Scotland, Dorsey was the recipient of Rotary International’s highest honor, the Paul Harris Medal, for Distinguished Service to Humanity. In 2000 he was nominated for the Ford Foundation's Leadership for a Changing World Award.

In the late 1990s Dorsey served as the Special Senior Advisor on International Affairs and Policy at the Center for Genetics and Society [1], representing and lobbying for the interests of a consortium of NGOs seeking a global ban on human cloning. Also during the Clinton Administration, Michael served as a Task Force member on President's Council on Sustainable Development.

In fall of 2001 Dorsey was a visiting lecturer at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands) and co-proctored a multi-day short course on the nature of international negotiations since UNCED in the Department of Regional Planning at Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. In early 2002 he went on to lecture in South Africa at the University of Witwatersrand.

Later in 2002 Dorsey, as a Director on the board of the U.S. based NGO the Sierra Club, led the organization's delegation to the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD).

For more than a decade Dorsey's opinions and ideas have been covered by a wide range of media. Domestically, in the U.S., The National Journal has interviewed him on population and environment issues. Newsweek, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Detroit Free Press and many others sought his insights into the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the Earth Summit); as well as the ten year follow-up, the World Summit on Sustainable Development. More than 30 national outlets, including the New York Times and USA Today reported his thoughts and letters on the Gore-Bush-Nader US presidential campaign.

International media outlets also seek out Dr. Dorsey's perspectives on a variety of global concerns, including, environment and development policy; multilateral negotiation processes; globalization and related matters. Dorsey's views have been found in the Asian Wall Street Journal and the Wall Street Journal Europe, Institutional Investor Magazine, US News and World Report, the Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB), Malaysiakini.com and many others.