Rhea Suh

A speaker at the Pulitzer Center's  September 2018 "Losing Earth" event in San Francisco, Rhea Suh is the president of NRDC, a leading nonprofit group that protects people's health, preserves wild places, and fosters vibrant communities.

Under her leadership, NRDC helped forge the historic global climate agreement in Paris; joined the citizens of Flint, Michigan to ensure an end to the city's toxic drinking water crisis; and served as a presenting partner at the Women's March on Washington.

Before joining NRDC, Suh served as the assistant secretary for policy, management, and budget at the U.S. Department of the Interior. She led several initiatives on federal land conservation, climate adaptation, and international affairs. She also helped reorganize the agency responsible for offshore oil and gas oversight in the midst of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Prior to her appointment to Interior, Suh worked at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, where she steered conservation and clean energy initiatives in the West, and at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, where she designed a climate change initiative and led the effort to create Great Bear Rainforest.

Suh graduated from Barnard College and earned a master's degree in education, administration, planning, and social policy from Harvard University.