Conn Nugent

Conn Nugent (born September 13, 1946) is President of the Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, a Washington think-tank. He oversees programs in ecosystem management, carbon pricing, and environmental health. Nugent's career has been devoted primarily to non-profit organizations, most notably International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize when he was its executive director.[1]

Background

Conn Nugent was born in Dublin, Ireland, but raised in Larchmont, New York, with 4 siblings, John, Patrick, Kate, and Rory. He is the son of the late J. P. Nugent of New York, a civil engineer, and grandson of James J. Nugent, a labor-union organizer and Tammany politician. His mother is the late Polly O’Donnell of Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania, whose father was a coal industry lobbyist in Harrisburg. He graduated with honors from Harvard College in 1968 and Harvard Law School in 1973. He served two years with the US Peace Corps in Costa Rica, then taught English and history in California high schools and Massachusetts prisons. In 1976, his appointment as executive director of Boston's Vingo Charitable Trust marked the first in what became a back-and-forth pattern of running both philanthropies and non-profits.

Professional life

Nugent has run a variety of organizations: Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California; New Alchemy Institute; International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW); Five Colleges, Inc.; Liberty Tree Alliance; and the Citizens Union of the City of New York. On the philanthropic side, Nugent headed the Vingo Trust, served as the first environmental director of the Nathan Cummings Foundation, and served as executive director of the JM Kaplan Fund from 2000 to 2012. He began his presidency of the Heinz Center in March 2012.

Nugent-run philanthropies often featured the organization of new donor collaboratives to address some key long-term issues: transportation; agriculture; fiscal policy; urban park lands; marine protection; and immigration policy. He and the Kaplan Fund were particularly interested in international work, as evidenced by varied projects in Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Turkey, Norway, Russia, and the United Kingdom. The Kaplan Fund sponsored the first worldwide database on human migrations (via a grant to the Migration Policy Institute), the re-introduction of bison to northern Mexico with the Instituto Nacionál de Ecología), the first compendium of national and international laws and regulations governing the circumpolar arctic (Arctic Governance Project) and the establishment of new multi-national initiatives to protect ocean waters beyond national jurisdictions (Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, International Programme on the State of the Ocean, and High Seas Alliance).

At the Heinz Center, Nugent has maintained the Center’s roster of landscape management projects as well as branching out into environmental economics and health policy.

Writing, editing, and publishing

From undergraduate days on the Harvard Lampoon, Nugent has kept up a side career as writer and editor. He was the founding editor and chief reporter of two prize-winning websites (Liberty Tree Alliance; Gotham Gazette) and won attention in 2003 as one of the instigators of WeLoveTheIraqiInformationMinister.com, an early example of a comedic Internet site going viral.[2] Nugent's published works include:

Environment

Nuclear weapons

New York City

Philanthropy

Miscellaneous

Personal

Nugent lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife, actor Kati Kormendi, and their four young children, John, Daniel, Molly, and Isabel.

References

  1. ↑ "The Nobel Peace Prize 1985".
  2. ↑ Whatever Happened To... Muhammed Saeed Al-Sahaf, forbes.com, May 12, 2003.
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