The Stone Living Lab is thrilled to announce Melissa Hoffer, Massachusetts’ first ever Climate Chief, will join us as a Keynote Speaker during our April 2023 Conference, Nature-Based Coastal Resilience in Urban Settings.
Join us for conference proceedings on Wednesday April 26, 2023 to hear the keynote live!
About Melissa Hoffer
Melissa Hoffer joined the Biden Administration as a Day 1 political appointee, serving as the Acting General Counsel and Principal Deputy General Counsel of the Environmental Protection Agency. She led the EPA’s Office of General Counsel through the transition until November 2021, and continued to serve as Principal Deputy General Counsel.
Prior to that, she worked in the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office as Chief of the Environmental Protection Division beginning in 2012 and was named Chief of AG Healey’s newly formed Energy and Environment Bureau in 2015. Hoffer oversaw the work of the Bureau’s attorneys on matters including prosecuting civil and criminal enforcement of environmental laws, proceedings before the DPU, energy policy, and defensive cases. She led the Office’s litigation against ExxonMobil for deceiving Massachusetts investors and consumers about the risk climate change poses to Exxon’s business and global financial markets, and the impacts of its fossil fuel products on climate change.
Prior to joining the Attorney General’s Office, Hoffer held senior roles at the Conservation Law Foundation and practiced for many years as a litigator and environmental lawyer at WilmerHale. She also served as a law clerk for the Honorable Magistrate Judge Joyce London Alexander, Boston Federal District Court.
She received a J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law, Certificate in Environmental Management from Tufts University, M.Ed. from the University of Massachusetts, and B.A. from Hampshire College.
In her spare time, she raises a small herd of Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats at her farm in Barre, Massachusetts.
Climate Chief Hoffer in the news
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A defining issue of our time’: Massachusetts’ first-ever climate chief is bringing an all-of-government approach to climate change | Boston Globe | March 9, 2023
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Meet Massachusetts’s first-ever climate chief | Washington Post | March 9, 2023