Sharon S. Tisher

Tisher teaches environmental law and energy policy courses; as well as courses in the Honors College “great books” curriculum. Prior to joining the University of Maine in 1994; she was a trial partner in the Connecticut law firm of Day; Berry and Howard. She has served as chair of the boards of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) and the Natural Resources Council of Maine; and directed MOFGA’s Public Policy Committee for ten years; focusing on stricter regulation of genetically engineered crops and genetically modified organism (GMO) labeling; and pesticide notification and reduction policies. She served for seven years as a member of the Steering Committee of the Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine; advocating for stricter national and state regulation of chemicals in consumer products. She has served on the Governor’s Task Force to Promote Safer Chemicals in Consumer Products; on the Maine Commission to Study Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering; and on a variety of advisory committees to the Maine Board of Pesticides Control. She has given testimony in regulatory and legislative hearings related to Constitutional takings law; GMO regulation and labeling; pesticides regulation; and safer chemicals regulation. She is a member of Al Gore’s Climate Reality Leadership Corps and has delivered slide shows at venues throughout Maine incorporating Gore’s Nobel Prize-winning presentation and materials from her climate policy course.  She is currently focused on the development of  A Climate Chronology ; a 230-page color coded chronology of developments in climate science and in U.S. and international policy from 1824 through to the present.  She is fundraising to create a selective; interactive; illustrated “Milestones” presentation of the full Chronology.