Jonathan Lash

Education

Harvard University.

Career

Jonathan Lash assumed the role of sixth president of Hampshire College in May, 2011. He was inaugurated on April 27, 2011. In 1993, he became President of the World Resources Institute.

From 1993 to 1999, Lash was co-chair of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development. He played a key role in the creation and success of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, which in 2007 issued the highly influential "Call to Action" on global warming. From 1987 to 1990, Lash served as Secretary of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, having served the previous two years as Vermont’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation.

In 1990 he became director of the Environmental Law Center at the Vermont Law School, rated the best program of its kind in the United States. A former Peace Corps volunteer and federal prosecutor, Lash worked as a senior staff attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) from 1978 to 1985, litigating and lobbying on issues related to pollution control, federal coal leasing, strip mining, and energy conservation. Lash received an A.B. from Harvard College and a law degree and master’s degrees from The Catholic University of America.

Achievements

• During his tenure in Vermont government, Lash helped write, win enactment of and implement innovative statutes on issues ranging from pollution prevention and solid waste management to protection of pristine streams.

Works

• Other Work

  • A Season of Spoils: The Reagan Administration's Attack on the Environment, by Jonathan Lash, David Sheridan, and Katherine Gillman, New York: Pantheon Books, 1984.