Dr. Anthony D. Cortese is a Senior Fellow of Second Nature, the Boston-based advocacy organization committed to promoting a healthy, just and sustainable society through higher education. He was its co-founder along with U.S. Senator John Kerry (D-MA), Teresa Heinz Kerry and Bruce Droste. He served as president from March 1993-August 2012.
He was the organizer of the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment and co-founder of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education and the Higher Education Association Sustainability Consortium.
He is a frequent consultant to higher education, industry and non-profit organizations on institutionalization of sustainability principles and programs.
Tony was formerly the Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. He was the first Dean of Environmental Programs at Tufts University and founded the award-winning Tufts Environmental Literacy Institute in 1989 that helped integrate environmental and sustainability perspectives in over 175 courses. He also organized the effort, for Tufts President Jean Mayer, which resulted in the internationally acclaimed Talloires Declaration of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future in 1990 now signed by over 350 presidents and chancellors in over 50 countries.
Tony is a trustee of Tufts University and Green Mountain College and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was a founding member of the board of directors of The Natural Step US and of the Environmental Business Council of New England. He has been a consultant to UNEP, a member of the EPA Science Advisory Board, President Clinton’s Council on Sustainable Development’s Education Task Force and a Woodrow Wilson Fellow for Higher Education. He has been actively engaged in climate change and other large system sustainability challenges for 30 years.
He is a frequent presenter to a wide variety of professional audiences. His writing can be found in a wide spectrum of publications. His essays on Education for Sustainability serve as foundational reading for transforming the process, content and practice of higher education.
As a Tufts alum, he has been an advisory board member, Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service; member of Tufts University Alumni Council, faculty advisor to the Leonard Carmichael Society and co-organizer of class reunions since graduation. He has been a recipient of Distinguished Service Awards from the Tufts University Alumni Association and Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering; GSAS alumni award; and the Christopher Columbus Legacy Award.
Dr. Cortese has two degrees from Tufts University: a B.S. in Civil Engineering in 1968 and M.S. in civil and environmental engineering in 1972. He received a Doctor of Science in Environmental Health Sciences from the Harvard School of Public Health in 1976 as well as an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Allegheny College and the University of Maine Presque Isle. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with his wife Donna DiGioia (M’89).
As of: November 28, 2012
