Mathy Stanislaus
At this moment of climate crises The Environmental Collaboratory was established to transform the historic asymmetric power dynamics of environmental challenges by facilitating co-designed transdisciplinary solutions with community leaders with a focus on locally developed solutions that consider equity. To realize this vision, The Environmental Collaboratory seeks to support research, education, civic engagement and public programming in collaboration with faculty, students, and professional staff in colleges, schools, and offices across Drexel University.
Stanislaus brings his passion for authentically facilitating trust building among diverse stakeholders to credibly design and implement pragmatic solutions that addresses environmental and social justice while aligning financing, policy and economic drivers.
Stanislaus joined Drexel from the Global Battery Alliance, a multi-stakeholder initiative established at the World Economic Forum. There, he served as its first interim director and policy director with a focus on establishing a global transparent data governance system to scale up electric mobility and clean energy in alignment with circular economy, human rights and community development.
Mr. Stanislaus was nominated by President Obama and served for eight years as the Senate-confirmed Assistant Administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Land & Emergency Management for the Obama Administration, leading programs to revitalize communities through the cleanup and redevelopment of contaminated sites, hazardous and solid waste materials management, chemical plant safety, and oil spill prevention and emergency response.
During this Administration, he led USEPA engagement with White House National Economic Council, the Department of Commerce and Economic Development Administration, to integrate environmental justice, climate and sustainability opportunities into the Administration’s community development programs. He led the delivery of technical assistance programs to enable disadvantaged communities to secure federal funding. He was recognized by IBM Center for Business in Government for designing and leading President Obama’s Memorandum on Open Government through the community engagement plan as one of leading actions to foster inclusion of “full range of demographic, income, and geographic groups” impacted by EPA programs and policies.
Among his other achievements at the USEPA was advancing President Obama’s Climate Action Plan by leading the U.S. government’s first adaptation plans to address emergency preparedness, and protect Superfund sites and hazardous waste facilities from the consequences of more intense, frequent storms and sea-level rise. Stanislaus led his office’s development of the RE-Powering America’s Land initiative to foster renewable energy development on contaminated lands — providing legal clarity for clean energy financing and identifying optimum sites for clean energy in collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Mathy was the founding co-director of the New Partners for Community Revitalization in New York — an organization dedicated to strengthening low-income communities and communities of color by linking technical assistance, land use planning and finance through the redevelopment of brownfield properties in community based-environmental justice organizations, government, financiers, and property developers. He is a former chair long-term member of the Board of the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance.
Mathy is an environmental lawyer and chemical engineer.