Vernice Miller currently serves as the Director of the Environmental Justice Initiative of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). NRDC is a national environmental organization founded in 1970, which is dedicated to protecting natural resources and the public health through effective litigation, persistent advocacy, and hard-hitting research to protect our air, water, land and food supplies. Ms. Miller is responsible for developing NRDC's environmental justice strategies to fight the disproportionate burden of pollution borne by people of color and the poor, and for coordinating all environmental justice efforts within NRDC's various programs. Ms. Miller comes to NRDC with a decade of environmental justice and organizing experience. She served as the principal research assistant for the landmark report "Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States", published by the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice, in published by the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice, in 1987. In 1988, Ms. Miller co-founded West Harlem Environmental Action (WHE ACT), one of the leading community-based environmental justice advocacy organizations in the nation. Ms. Miller also served as the Northeast Region facilitator for the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, and served as a member of the drafting committee that wrote the "Principles of Environmental Justice." Ms. Miller has also served as the Director of Development of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and as the New York Coordinator for the U.S. Citizens Network for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the Earth Summit). Ms. Miller has traveled to Brazil, South Africa, Fiji, and Hungary to present in International fora about environmental justice and environmental policy and race in the United States. Ms. Miller is an Urban Planner with both graduate and undergraduate degrees from Columbia University. She is the recipient of Columbia's Revson fellowship, and was recently awarded a Kellogg National Leadership Fellow by the Kellogg Foundation. Ms. Miller has published several articles, as well as book chapters on environmental justice issues, and has received serveral awards and honors for ther work as an environmental justice advocate.