Virginia Palacios, Principal of VP Environmental, is an environmental science and policy consultant with over 12 years of experience working on environmental issues. She has expertise in air, water, climate, electricity and oil and gas development. Approaching her work through a lens of equity, Virginia seeks to eliminate disparities in public health outcomes that occur on the basis of race, ethnicity or income.
Palacios recently returned to the South Texas border region, where she was born and raised, to establish VP Environmental. Previously, she was State and Local Policy Manager at South-Central Partnership for Energy Efficiency as a Resource, and was an analyst with Environmental Defense Fund’s oil and gas team for five years.
Her work on estimating greenhouse gas emissions and utilizing cost-effective emission mitigation technologies has been published in Public Utilities Fortnightly, and the peer-reviewed Environmental Science and Technology Journal. In 2018, she served on the City of San Antonio’s Energy & Buildings Technical Working Group for the city’s first-ever Climate Action and Adaptation Plan.
Palacios holds a Bachelor of Science in Aeronautical Science from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and a Master of Environmental Management degree from Duke University with a concentration in Global Environmental Change.