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Marian Chertow is an Industrial Ecology pioneer, researcher and teacher of environmental management and strategy.  Her best known work is the development of Industrial Symbiosis, involving the shared management of physical resources by geographically close enterprises in business clusters around the world. 

She is Associate Professor of Industrial Environmental Management and Director of the Center for Industrial Ecology at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.  Marian is also appointed at the Yale School of Management and has been visiting professor at the National University of Singapore since 2001, teaching a core class on business and the environment in the Masters of Science in Environmental Management program she helped to establish there. 

Marian recently completed work for a 2020 edited volume with Oxford University Press about science, technology and innovation for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  She is currently lecturing on topics related to industrial ecology and the circular economy to bring important principles about material and energy efficiency to businesses and policymakers.  She is the Founder and Convener of The Industrial Symbiosis Research Seminar, an annual meeting initiated at Yale in 2004, and is now held all over the world. In addition to her work through Yale she has held positions related to the Connecticut government for over thirty years including service on the Connecticut Council for Environmental Quality, the Tax-Exempt Proceeds Fund, and the Governor’s Task Force on Recycling Modernization. 

Marian serves on the External Advisory Board of the Center for Energy Efficiency and Sustainability at Ingersoll Rand, the Board of Directors of Terracycle U.S. Inc, and the Board of the Alliance for Research in Corporate Sustainability (ARCS). Marian was President of the International Society for Industrial Ecology (ISIE) for two years from 2013-2014 where she deepened relationships in Africa, Latin America, and East Asia.  In 2019, she won the ISIE’sSociety Prize, its highest recognition of professional achievement.  

Marian graduated magna cum laude from Barnard College and received both her Masters of Public and Private Management (MPPM) and PhD from Yale University. 

Marian is married to Matthew Nemerson and mother of Elana and Joy Nemerson. 

Related Links:

The Ecology of Recycling