Environment & Justice Scholar Inspired by the arts.
About Marissa Ng
Marissa is an international scholar and policy advocate whose work centers on environmental security, biodiversity conservation, and the social justice dimensions of gender and race. She has received full scholarships for graduate study at the University of Oxford and Harvard Kennedy School, where she was awarded the John F. Kennedy Fellowship and will be pursuing a Master of Public Administration. At Harvard, she is also a Belfer Young Leader Fellow and Charles Edison Fund Fellow, and will be conducting research at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
Marissa has led strategies for forest and coastal conservation in East Africa and Canada, as well as advised on sustainability topics as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company. Her conservation work has taken her from vanilla farms in Madagascar to Mpingo forests in Tanzania and the coastal waters of her home in British Columbia—while her environmental advocacy has led her to the UN Climate Change Conferences in Scotland and Egypt.
Most recently, she worked at The Nature Conservancy, providing interim leadership for the Marine Program Director role in Canada and supporting Indigenous-led conservation in the Great Bear Rainforest and Sea. She has also researched marine heatwaves and kelp forest decline—recognized and supported by the Rhodes Trust—and co-authored a report on gender equality, internationally featured at the Women Deliver Conference. Her work with First Nation communities and experience in community-based conservation continue to shape her perspectives on equity and the environment.
Marissa holds an MBA and an MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation, and Management from the University of Oxford, where she was an Oxford-Pershing Square Scholar. She graduated with honours from the University of British Columbia at age 19 with a bachelor’s degree in business, and has also studied at Sciences Po Paris.
Originally from Canada, Marissa is now based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She has also lived in China, Ethiopia, France, the UK, and elsewhere in the US.
Trained in classical piano, ballet, and competitive figure skating, Marissa remains devoted to the arts. She adores photography and books, travels for Balboa (swing dance), and writes the occasional poem or song. She speaks conversational French and broken Mandarin.
