Donella Meadows was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on 13 March 1936. She completed her secondary education at the University of Pittsburgh, where she received a bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1957. After graduation she took a position with the United States Atomic Energy Commission in Washington, DC, where she worked for three years.She then moved to Denver, Colorado, where she worked as an assistant professor of mathematics at Wesleyan University. She was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship to study the hydrology of the Colorado River basin in 1961
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After completing her graduate work at Stanford University in 1962, she moved to Washington, DC. There she worked as a statistician with the United States Weather Bureau until 1968. During this time she completed her Master's degree in meteorology at George Washington University.
The following year she became the Director of Research for the American Academy of Environmental Sciences (AAES). In 1972 she began her course work toward a Ph.D., which was completed in 1975 with a dissertation entitled "Integration of Socio-Economic and Environmental Systems." She then accepted an appointment as Professor of Civil Engineering at Stanford University; during this time she continued to work part-time with the AAES and taught courses at Stanford University and Rice University. She held both positions until 1984 when she resigned from Stanford to become a full-time writer and consultant on environmental issues.
Ms Meadows currently works out of San Diego, California, where she lives with her husband, Dr Donald A. Worster.