Nicole Darnall is the Arlene R. and Robert P. Kogod Eminent Scholar Chair in Sustainability at American University, where she is a professor in the Kogod School of Business and School of Public Affairs. She previously served as Foundation Professor and Associate Dean in Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability and is now Professor Emerita. In her leadership roles, she has helped build and govern academic institutions, research initiatives, and scholarly networks dedicated to advancing sustainability research, education, and impact.

Darnall studies how organizations translate sustainability commitments into meaningful change. Working at the intersection of management and public policy, her research examines the governance structures, incentives, capabilities, and institutional conditions that shape organizations’ sustainability decisions. She has particular expertise in sustainable procurement and how organizations can leverage their purchasing power to improve environmental and social outcomes across supply chains.

Darnall is Founding Director of the Sustainable Procurement Research Initiative, a global research collaborative that produces actionable knowledge about sustainable purchasing. She served as President of the Group for Research on Organizations and the Natural Environment (GRONEN), an international network of more than 3,000 scholars advancing research on organizations and sustainability, and as a Commissioner on the U.S. General Services Administration’s Acquisition Policy Federal Advisory Committee advising the agency on how it should embed sustainability into $700 billion of annual federal acquisition. She has also held prominent editorial roles at Cambridge University Press, Production and Operations Management, Business & Society and Organization & Environment, Public Administration Review, and Business Strategy and the Environment.

An elected Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and an Abe Fellow, Darnall has received numerous international awards for her scholarship and leadership, including being recognized on the list of the Global 50 Women in Sustainability. Across her research and leadership, she focuses on the organizational and institutional conditions that enable sustainability initiatives to move from commitment to implementation and impact.

Prior to her academic career, Darnall worked as an economist for the U.S. Forest Service and as a data analyst for a biotechnology startup that pioneered algae-based technologies to remove and recover heavy metals from contaminated water and industrial wastewater.