Marisa Vertrees has cared deeply for creation since her time growing up on a small island in Florida’s Gulf Coast, where she was fortunate enough to spend time in beaches and swamps, inspiring her to study environmental policy in school and become engaged in care for creation. She has also been a passionate advocate for social justice for the Church. After college, she was the Social Justice Director at St. Charles Borromeo in the Arlington Diocese, running the international missions programs, an advocacy ministry, and leading lobby days to the state capitol in Richmond and in Washington, DC.

Since then, she has been engaged in social justice in a number of avenues, primarily working on immigration, global solidarity and ending global poverty, and care for creation and climate work. Vertrees is currently the National Campaign Director for Clean Transportation at the Union of Concerned Scientists and previously served as the global Organizing Director at the Laudato Si Movement (formerly the Global Catholic Climate Movement) for two and a half years.

Marisa Vertrees currently lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and three children, and is involved at her parish community at St. Ann’s.