Lynn Scarlett

A leading thinker on environmental issues for over three decades, Lynn Scarlett has held influential positions both inside and outside of government. She is currently a senior Visiting Scholar at Resources for the Future (RFF) in Washington, DC. Scarlett was recently appointed co-director of RFF’s Center for the Management of Ecological Wealth (CMEW). She is an environmental analyst focusing on climate change adaptation, environmental risk management, green business and infrastructure, energy and water issues, landscape-scale conservation, and science and decision-making.

In 2009, Scarlett was a Distinguished Visiting Lecturer on climate change at the University of California Bren School of Environmental Science and Management.

From 2005 – 2009 she was Deputy Secretary at the Department of the Interior, where she chaired the Department’s Climate Change Task Force. Previously, Lynn served 4 years as the Department’s Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management, and Budget.

She is a former President of the Reason Foundation and Director for 15 years of the Reason Public Policy Institute, where she focused on environmental, land use, and natural resources issues.

She is a former president of Executive Women in Government, a member of the national Commission on Climate and Tropical Forests, and was chair of the federal Wildland Fire Leadership Council. She also serves on the boards of the American Hiking Society, and the Continental Divide Trail Alliance, and RESOLVE (nonprofit environmental dispute resolution), and is a trustee emeritus of the Udall Foundation.