Marilyn Averill is a senior fellow with the Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment at the University of Colorado Law School. She previously served as an attorney for the U.S. Department of the Interior, where her primary clients were the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service. Marilyn’s research interests focus on international environmental governance, the politics of science, and the ethical implications of environmental issues, primarily in the context of global climate change. She is particularly interested in the role of the courts in shaping public policy in response to complex and controversial environmental problems.
Marilyn has been following the UNFCCC climate negotiations since 2003. She is a member of the steering committee for the Research and Independent Non-Governmental Organizations (RINGOs), one of the nine civil society constituencies to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change secretariat. She also serves as an observer member of the Emerging and Cross-Cutting Issues Task Force, which is a working group of the UNFCCC Technical Executive Committee.
Marilyn holds a J.D. and an M.A. in Educational Research and Evaluation Methods from the University of Colorado at Boulder, an M.P.A from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and a B.A. from Wellesley College.