Miranda Massie

Miranda Massie (she/her) is the director and founder of the Climate Museum. In 2014, Massie left a career in social justice litigation to lay the groundwork for the Museum, which in 2018 had its breakout year of public programming. It has created an activist, cultural approach to community engagement with climate, recognizing that most Americans are worried about the climate crisis but unsure how to take meaningful action. The Museum’s free, accessible exhibitions, art installations, advocacy tools, events, youth programs, and more have touched hundreds of thousands of visitors and participants and received extensive recognition, broadening the climate movement with an emphasis on community, justice, and inclusion.

The Museum has now secured a permanent home that will open in 2029 near Hudson Yards in New York City.

Massie’s prior honors as a civil rights litigator include Fletcher Foundation, W.E.B. Dubois Institute, and Harvard Law School Wasserstein Public Interest Fellowships, as well as a Mentorship-in-Residence at Yale Law School. Her previous governance board service includes a Head Start organization for migrant farm families and the Center for Popular Democracy. Massie holds a J.D. from New York University, an M.A. from Yale University, and a B.A. from Cornell University.

Massie has been featured in national publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The New Yorker. She is a Public Voices Fellow with the OpEd Project and the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. Her numerous guest teaching engagements include the Masters programs in Museum Studies at NYU, in Architecture and Landscape Architecture at RISD, in Arts Administration and Policy at School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and in Climate and Society at Columbia University.

Massie is active within several international coalitions focused on climate- and futures-oriented work within the cultural sector; has served on numerous arts and design juries, such as the Rockefeller Center Flag Project, the Tokyo International Photography Competition and the Reimagining Museums for Climate Action International Design Competition; and sits on a number of editorial and advisory boards and committees, including those of The Journal of Climate Action, Research, and Policy and the Woodwell Artists’ Residency. 

She speaks frequently on the need for programming on the climate crisis across the cultural sector, and the transformational power of arts and cultural programming for climate engagement.