Marilyn Cornelius

Marilyn was born and raised in Fiji, a small island nation with disproportionate political and ecological challenges. She came to California in 1997 to pursue a degree in Art. After attaining an Associates degree in Graphic Design (summa cum laude) from Chabot College in the East Bay, Marilyn realized her real passion was to study the human aspect of environmental challenges. She changed her major to Environmental Resource Management and transferred to Menlo College in Atherton as a Presidential Scholar. At Menlo, she co-founded SERV, an ongoing program that incorporates environmental and social justice education and community service for all scholarship recipients. In 2003 she graduated as valedictorian, summa cum laude, with a Bachelor of Science.

After graduation, Marilyn returned to Fiji and worked with the local government as Assistant National Director of the International Waters Program, a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) project that spanned 14 Pacific Island countries and focused on conservation of freshwater and coastal resources, as well as waste management. A year later she joined the UNDP multi-country office in Fiji to manage new environmental projects in 10 Pacific Island nations, focusing on climate change, land degradation, energy, and biodiversity. Upon returning to California in 2005, Marilyn worked for two years with Stephen Schneider, one of the world’s eminent climatologists, and professor at Stanford.

In these roles Marilyn experienced first-hand the crucial role of understanding culture in creating common ground; the difficulties of harmonizing national environmental priorities and global donors’ policies; the unprecedented challenge to humans of global climatic change, and of communicating its risk effectively. As an IPER student, Marilyn intends to explore how ecological principles can inform conflicting ethical values with the aim of achieving greater cooperation and more effective and fair environmental policies. Using IPER’s flexible framework, Marilyn looks forward to learning in new ways and making a meaningful contribution to addressing environmental challenges through interdisciplinary research.