Mary Anne Hitt

Speaker: Climate Change & Sustainability

**Mary Anne Hitt** is director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign, which is working to eliminate coal pollution, stop climate disruption and re-power the nation with clean energy. In 2012, \_Mother Jones\_ described the campaign as "a grassroots rebellion [that] is winning the biggest victory yet on climate change." Mary Anne was named one of the 10 most influential people of 2013 by SNL Energy and she was listed in 2013 by the \_Washingtonian\_ as part of "The New Guard: People Who Are Shaping Washington" in Obama's second term. In 2014, she and the Beyond Coal Campaign were featured in the Showtime climate series Years of \_Living Dangerously\_. She previously served as executive director of Appalachian Voices and other grassroots organizations. She received her master of science from the University of Montana and her bachelors degree from the University of Tennessee, where she later received the 2008 Notable UT Woman Award. She grew up in the mountains of east Tennessee and now lives in West Virginia with her family.