LEADER SPOTLIGHT

Celebrating Women’s History Month

A Conversation with Environmentalist Patricia M. DeMarco, Ph.D.

by Rebecca L. Lucore

March 18, 2025

In the month of March each year, we celebrate women from all professions, sectors and walks of life. In Pittsburgh, there are so many women doing extraordinary work and providing exemplary leadership, especially in sustainability and the environment. There is one woman that I have crossed paths with several times over the years. You can find her promoting one of several published books; teaching classes at a local university; fundraising for nonprofits she leads; advocating for critical environmental programs and policies; running meetings as an elected official; and more.

Patricia M. DeMarco is a Pittsburgh leader and author with a doctorate in Biology from the University of Pittsburgh and Post Doctoral Fellowships from Yale University and Boston University, School of Medicine, Department of Biochemistry. She has spent a fifty-year career in energy and environmental policy in both private and public sector positions. She now writes and lectures in the fields of sustainability, energy and environmental policy, and natural history.

DeMarco learned her craft in public policy from Connecticut Governor Ella T. Grasso, for whom she served as policy advisor to the National Governors Association Low Level Nuclear Waste Compact negotiations. Following her position as Demand Side Manager for the Connecticut Municipal Electric Energy Cooperative, she served as Commissioner of the Regulated Utilities Commission of Alaska. It was over lunch at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens where she shared stories with me about her time living in Alaska, including her experiences as a woman there and what it was like every day walking her dog while living amongst polar bears.

“I am proud of the significant impact I had with the Anchorage Economic Development Corporation where I implemented The Four Economic Engines of Anchorage as part of the strategic planning process,” shared DeMarco. “This initiative carried over many years after I left Alaska and drove a new direction for the economic fate of the city.”

Making Her Mark on Pittsburgh

She returned to Pittsburgh in 2006 and served as Executive Director of the Rachel Carson Homestead Association and then as Director of the Rachel Carson Institute at Chatham University, where she now holds an appointment as Senior Scholar and Adjunct Faculty. 

“During my long career, my favorite work came from reviving the Rachel Carson Homestead Association and presenting a series of high-quality Rachel Carson Legacy Conferences,” said DeMarco. “I was astonished at the power of convening in the name of Rachel Carson. So many outstanding people came to Pittsburgh to speak - E.O. Wilson, Francesca Santoro of UNESCO, Paul Anastas for green chemistry, Devra Davis and so many others. The outreach and education programs reached thousands of people from children to adults each year.”

DeMarco considers her roles in Pittsburgh to be some of her most impactful work. She served as an Elected Member of Council for the Forest Hills Borough from 2016-2023. “Some of my most effective work came from the climate action planning for the Borough of Forest Hills as the 2018 new municipal building reached a net zero energy profile resulting in several other buildings adding solar,” said DeMarco. “I was called the catalyst in that endeavor, but it was a team of many people joining in the effort.”

Vision for a Resilient Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh has certainly gone through its share of transformations or renaissances, reinventing what it’s all about based on the people who work and reside here, and the industries they create and lead.

DeMarco shared, “Pittsburgh sits as the magnet city for the entire four-state region. As so often in the past, Pittsburgh can drive new initiatives from the base of its intellectual capital in eight accredited universities, and the natural capital of its geography at the junction of three great Rivers.”

When asked about what will make Pittsburgh resilient, she responded, “The transformation of our economy from an extractive, fossil industry base to a regenerative resource base is underway. Many people are now vested in the realities of a clean energy future, a future with greater equity for workers and potential for shared prosperity.”

Demarco added, “The advances in environmental justice made possible from locating clean manufacturing on the footprints of former extractive industrial sites will not retreat even as administrations change.”

To learn more about Patricia DeMarco, her books, or to follow her bimonthly blog, see her LinkedIn profile or visit patriciademarco.com/blog

Published Books

Pathways to Our Sustainable Future - A Global Perspective from Pittsburgh

(University of Pittsburgh Press 2017.) is a peer-reviewed collection of material from DeMarco’s teachings in Science, Ethics and Public Policy at Pitt used for classroom readings and as a way to give people a well-documented background in sustainability practices and an environmental ethic to support decisions on public policy.

In the Footsteps of Rachel Carson - Harnessing Earth’s Healing Power

(Urban Press 2022) is a collection of essays taken mostly from DeMarco’s cancer journals where she focused on the healing power of the natural environment on one’s state of mind and perseverance.

ReImagine Appalachia - Healing the Land and Empowering the People

(Springer Nature 2024) documents the grass roots origin of the ReImagine Appalachia Blueprint and the unique success story of listening to communities as they face economic challenges and change. The economic impact analyses and many of the issue papers had a direct effect on components of the Bipartisan Infrastructure and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.