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Dr. Michael K. Dorsey

Co-Founding Partner
IberSun North America

Areas of Expertise:

Dr. Michael K. Dorsey is a recognized expert on global energy, environment, finance and sustainability matters. In 1997, in Glasgow, Scotland, Dorsey was bestowed Rotary International’s highest honor, The Paul Harris Medal for Distinguished Service to Humanity. In 2013 the National Journal named Dr. Dorsey one of 200 national “energy and environment expert insiders”. That same year he was made a “Full member” of the Club of Rome. A graduate of the University of Michigan, Yale and the Johns Hopkins University, presently Dr. Dorsey is Senior Program Officer for Sustainability at the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. Dr. Dorsey is also the Senior Innovation Fellow and the Director of Energy and Sustainability Programs at Duke University’s Innovation and Technology Policy Lab (the ITPLab). Dr. Dorsey is a serial organization builder and active advisor to for-profit, non-profit and governmental concerns. In the for-profit arena, Dr. Dorsey advises several pools of private equity finance on renewable energy, infrastructure and illiquid asset matters globally. In 2016 Dorsey helped finance one of the largest non-utility owned and backed solar installations in Michigan. In non-profit realms, in 1997 Dorsey, in cooperation with the founding and current executive Director, helped to co-create the northern California headquartered Center for Environmental Health. In 2005 Dorsey and a partner co-launched IslandsFirst.org at the gentle urging of the late Ambassador Stuart Beck—Palau’s first permanent representative to the United Nations. Dr. Dorsey sits on a number of non-profit boards, most notably on the national board of the Sierra Club—one of the largest and oldest US environmental organizations.rnrnDr. Dorsey’s significant government engagement began in 1992 as a member of the U.S. State Department Delegation to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, “The Earth Summit.” From 1994-96 Dorsey was a task force member of President William Jefferson Clinton’s Council on Sustainable Development. From April 2007 until November 2008 Dorsey was a member of Senator Barack Obama’s energy and environment Presidential campaign team. In 2010 Lisa Jackson, the US Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA) Administrator, appointed Dr. Dorsey to the EPA’s National Advisory Committee (NAC). Jackson reappointed Dr. Dorsey to the US-EPA NAC in 2012 and Administrator McCarthy reappointed him again in 2014. Further in 2014, after more than two decades of collaboration and engagement with the United Nations Non-Governmental Liaison Service (UN-NGLS)—a specialized unit of UNCTAD (the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development), Dr. Dorsey was designated UN-NGLS’ advisor on “climate, energy sustainability and SIDS (Small Island Developing States)”.