Maro Kakoussian is a climate and environmental health advocate working at the intersection of public health, environmental justice, and community power building to shape policy. She serves as Director of Climate and Health Programs at Physicians for Social Responsibility - Los Angeles, where she leads local and statewide strategies to address the health harms across the fossil fuel and petrochemical lifecycle, strengthen climate resilience, and advance energy justice and utility affordability through community driven solutions.

Maro’s work in the environmental movement began in 2011 through the California Student Sustainability Coalition, where she organized around climate change, clean energy, sustainability, and food justice. She later trained as an organizer with the Sierra Club and was active in the Sierra Student Coalition, volunteering with the My Generation Campaign and serving on the San Gorgonio Political Endorsement Committee. As a student, she interned with the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, gaining on-the-ground experience addressing environmental justice challenges in Inland Empire communities disproportionately impacted by pollution and industrial development.

After graduating, Maro worked on one of her first major campaigns supporting the 2016 Plastic Bag Referendum Ballot Measure. She also helped organize the 2017 People’s Climate March in Wilmington, where she first connected with environmental justice leaders in Los Angeles working to address neighborhood oil drilling. Inspired by the movement to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, she began volunteering with the STAND-LA campaign that same year. In 2018, she was hired as an organizer for STAND-LA through PSR-LA and has been leading the campaign to end neighborhood oil drilling in Los Angeles ever since.

Maro currently serves as President of the Los Angeles League of Conservation Voters, helping elect environmental champions across Los Angeles County. She holds a B.A. in Political Science and Philosophy from University of California, Riverside.