Miranda Massie


Miranda Massie is the Founder and Director of the Climate Museum, the initiative to create a museum dedicated to climate change and climate solutions in New York City.

Early life and education

Massie was born in New York City in 1966. She grew up first in Brooklyn Heights, then in New York’s Hudson River Valley.
Massie earned a French Baccalaureat and attended Cornell University, where she studied US History and won several honors upon her graduation in 1989. She enrolled in a Ph.D. program in History at the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, which she left in 1991 with a master's degree. She then lived in Mexico City before pursuing a law degree at New York University School of Law.

Professional career

After graduating from New York University School of Law in 1996, Massie moved to Detroit, Michigan to work as a civil rights impact litigator, being awarded professional honors including a Fletcher Foundation Fellowship and, at Harvard University, a W. E. B. Du Bois Institute Fellowship. Her lead counsel roles included the representation of the defendant-intervenors in the University of Michigan Law School affirmative action case, Grutter v. Bollinger.
Massie moved back to New York City in 2007 to serve as a senior attorney in the environmental justice unit at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest. She became Legal Director at NYLPI, overseeing the firm's work in the areas of environmental, health, and disability equity. Massie also served periods as NYLPI's General Counsel and Interim Executive Director. During her tenure at NYLPI, she was a Wasserstein Public Interest Fellow at Harvard Law School and a Mentor-in-Residence at Yale Law School.
Increasingly concerned about climate change, in 2014, Massie left her career as a lawyer to found the Climate Museum, where she is the current Director, and has overseen the presentation of several exhibitions and special programs.