Patricia Siemen

Patricia Siemen, OP, JD, is a Dominican Sister from Adrian, Michigan, and a civil attorney. Her passion is to protect the long-term ecological and spiritual health of humans and all members of the Earth community. She does this through her work as director of the Center for Earth Jurisprudence (CEJ), at Barry University School of Law, Orlando, Florida. The Center takes a cosmological context and interdisciplinary approach to law, science, ethics, economics and the humanities to recognize the inherent rights of the natural world – and it calls people to embrace their duty to protect the integrity of natural systems which sustain life.

Pat was selected in 2013 to do a TED talk in Jacksonville, Florida, on the Rights of Nature. She participated in the first World Ethics Tribunal on the Rights of Nature in Quito, Ecuador, in January 2014 sponsored by the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature. She is currently spending a ministerial sabbatical year to write on Earth ethics. Pat holds a Juris Doctorate from Northeastern University and a master’s in culture and spirituality from Holy Names University in Oakland, California, and a master’s of public affairs from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin.