Karenna Gore, MA ’13
Teaching Professor of Practice of Earth Ethics
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education
M.A., Union Theological Seminary, 2013
J.D., Columbia Law School, 2000
B.A., Harvard College, 1995
biography
Karenna Gore is the founder and executive director of the Center for Earth Ethics and teaching professor of practice of earth ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Karenna formed CEE in 2015 to address the moral and spiritual dimensions of the climate crisis. Working at the intersection of faith, ethics, and ecology, she guides the center’s public programs, educational initiatives, and movement-building. She is an adjunct faculty member at the Columbia Climate School.
Her previous experience includes serving as director of Union Forum at Union Theological Seminary, a platform for theological scholarship to engage with civic discourse and social change. She also worked at the legal center of Sanctuary for Families, which serves victims of domestic violence and trafficking, was director of community affairs for the Association to Benefit Children, which provides early childhood education and other services for New York City families living in poverty, and was an associate with the law firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.
Karenna is the author of “Lighting the Way: Nine Women Who Changed Modern America” (2006) and has written for numerous publications, including Slate, El País (Spain), and the New York Times. She serves on the boards of the Association to Benefit Children and Riverkeeper, an organization that protects and restores the Hudson River and safeguards drinking water. She is also an expert in the United Nations’ Harmony with Nature Knowledge Network, an online platform of practitioners, academics, and researchers.
A graduate of Harvard College, Karenna earned her law degree from Columbia Law School and a master’s in social ethics from Union Theological Seminary.