(Winston-Salem, NC – March 14, 2025) – What’s ahead for Environmental Protection? Wake Forest University’s Sabin Center for Environment and Sustainability will host two former high-ranking Environmental Protection Agency leaders on March 25.

“The Future of Environmental Protection: An Evening with Gina McCarthy and Janet McCabe” will begin at 7 p.m. in Farrell Hall’s Broyhill Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public with advance registration.

McCarthy, the former EPA Administrator who led the agency under President Obama, will deliver an address reflecting on lessons learned over a lifetime of service working to protect the environment and promote public health.

Following her remarks, she will join Janet McCabe, Deputy EPA Administrator to President Biden, for a discussion of the future of environmental protection. Stan Meiburg, former EPA Acting Deputy Administrator and current executive director of the Sabin Center, will serve as moderator for the conversation.

The panelists will address environmental priorities, regulatory challenges and opportunities for collaboration.

“Wake Forest is very fortunate to be able to hear from both of these outstanding leaders, and it’s unusual to have them at the same time in the same place,” Meiburg said. “We are at perhaps the most significant inflection point in American environmental policy since the first Earth Day and EPA’s creation in 1970. Gina and Janet are experts in environmental policy at both the state and federal level, and will have unique insights about the current landscape.”

Gina McCarthy’s leadership at the White House Climate Policy Office resulted in the most aggressive climate action in U.S. history, creating clean energy jobs and investments nationwide. McCarthy played a key role in developing climate provisions in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, which helped put the U.S. on track to meet its target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions 50-52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. McCarthy has been known throughout her career, both at EPA and in the states of Massachusetts and Connecticut, for developing common-sense strategies that work across partisan lines and with diverse stakeholders, including states, communities, businesses and labor organizations.

Janet McCabe most recently served as EPA Deputy Administrator from April 2021 to October 2024, where she helped shape environmental policies and managed agency operations. Her distinguished career includes service as Principal Deputy and later Acting Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation from 2009 to 2016 during the Obama administration. Between these roles, McCabe directed Indiana University’s Environmental Resilience Institute, and also worked in Indiana state government. Her expertise spans environmental law, policy implementation and public health protection.

Stan Meiburg was EPA’s Acting Deputy Administrator—the agency’s second-highest position–from 2014 to 2017. Meiburg returned to his alma mater in 2017 after 39 years with EPA to become director of graduate programs in sustainability at Wake Forest, and also chaired the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission between 2019 and 2021. Among other honors, he received EPA’s Distinguished Career Service Award, EPA’s Gold Medal for his work on Clean Air Act Amendments; the Commander’s Award for Public Service from the Department of the Army; and the Distinguished Federal Executive Award, the highest civilian award for a Federal senior executive.