Joel Clement
Joel Clement, senior fellow, Harvard Belfer Center, has a background in climate and energy issues, resilience and climate change adaptation, landscape-scale conservation and management, and Arctic social-ecological systems. Before coming to Harvard, Mr. Clement served as an executive for seven years at the US Department of the Interior.
In July, 2017, he became the first public whistleblower of the Trump Administration, accusing Secretary Zinke of stifling science, ignoring climate change, wasting taxpayer dollars, and risking the health and safety of Americans in the Arctic. He was awarded The Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage and resigned from public service in October of that year. Before serving in the federal government, Mr. Clement was conservation science program officer for a private foundation, where he supported and developed climate change adaptation and landscape-scale conservation efforts. Prior to his career in philanthropy, he spent a decade as a field biologist developing and contributing to research and conservation science programs in temperate and tropical ecosystems around the world. Throughout his career, he has focused on the critical need to bridge gaps between science and policy. He is also an associate with the Stockholm Environment Institute and a Senior Fellow with the Union of Concerned Scientists.