Alumni Spotlight: Patrick Drupp heads climate policy for Sierra Club
Patrick Drupp
SOEST alum Patrick Drupp was selected as the director of climate policy and advocacy for Sierra Club, the nation’s oldest and largest grassroots environmental organization. Having worked with Sierra Club since 2019, Drupp will continue his work to advance policy in Congress and the Administration, for example with the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy, to rapidly deploy clean energy, clean up air pollution, and fight climate change.
Drupp completed his master’s degree in 2010 and doctorate in 2015, both in the Department of Oceanography. Specializing in marine geochemistry, his doctoral research primarily focused on the effects of climate change and ocean acidification on coral reef ecosystems.
Read his career profile in Oceanography Magazine, the official journal of the Oceanography Society.
Drupp spent 2015 as a Sea Grant Knauss Fellow, a marine policy fellowship program that provides a unique educational and professional experience to graduate students who have an interest in ocean, coastal and Great Lakes resources and in the national policy decisions affecting those resources. The program and his placement in the NOAA Office of Education allowed him to expand from the specific focus of his dissertation research topic to a much wider range of work related to oceanography and marine policy.
Soon after assuming his new role with Sierra Club, Drupp was called on to comment on the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2023 announcement that greenhouse emissions had increased 5.5 percent during 2021. He called the report “a sobering reminder that while the U.S. and President Biden have made significant progress against deadly climate pollution, the job is far from finished. … The Biden Administration must use every option available to continue to protect our climate and public health, including equitable and just implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act paired with stronger EPA standards limiting dangerous air and water pollutants.”
Read more on ARCS Honolulu and The Oceanography Magazine