Meet Our Director

Georgine Yorgey is the Director of the WSU Energy Program, as well as Affiliate Faculty in the Department of Biological Systems Engineering and a Senior Research Fellow with the Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources. She brings to the Energy Program a wealth of experience collaborating with non-academic and academic partners to move forward extension and research at the nexus of food, energy, water, and climate. Her work includes a focus on developing a more circular economy within agriculture, including via the recovery of nutrients, energy, and products from organic wastes. She also works on questions relating to the mitigation of climate change within agriculture, and on ongoing climate change impacts to agriculture.

Previously, she was Associate Director at WSU’s Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources, where she worked for 15 years. She has a Masters in Public Administration from the University of Washington, and a Bachelor of Arts with High Honors from Swarthmore College in 1999, with a major in Biology and a minor in Sociology & Anthropology.

Honors and Awards: WSU College of Agriculture, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences (CAHNRS)( Excellence in Extension Award (2024); WSU Provost’s Leadership Academy (2022-2023); Washington Organic Recycling Council, Excellence in Education and Outreach Award (2015); WSU CAHNRS Interdisciplinary Team Award (2011); USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Partnership Award for Innovative Program Models (2009).