Fellow Directory

The Switzer Network Directory includes listings for all current and past Switzer Fellows. Searches can be done by name, geographic location, Fellowship year, organization affiliation, or keywords. Use quotation marks around phrases in the keyword field to search for exact phrases. Click on the dropdown menu to perform a Network-wide search by area of expertise.

Jessica (Hamburger) Davenport (1997)
Academic Background: Yale School of Forestry - Master of Forest Science
Coastal Planner , SF Bay Conservation & Development Commission
Jessica is a coastal planner working on climate change adaptation, water policy, and wetland restoration in San Francisco Bay. She graduated from Columbia College in 1991 with a bachelor's degree in Chinese language and culture. From 1992-96, Jessica helped create a non-profit energy efficiency center in Beijing and promoted energy efficiency technology and policy transfer between the U.S. and China. While pursuing her master's degree at Yale, Jessica received a Switzer Fellowship to study lake management in Yunnan Province, China. In 1999, Jessica received a Switzer Leadership Grant to work at Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) on an effort to link organic and sustainable agriculture and farmland conservation. While at PANNA, she also worked to promote community-based efforts to reduce reliance on pesticides in World Bank agricultural projects in China and Mexico. She went on to create an organic farmer-to-farmer training program for California Certified Organic Farmers. From 2005-2007, she coordinated a community-based collaborative process to develop a watershed plan for the Mount Diablo Creek Watershed in Contra Costa County, California. Jessica joined BCDC in 2007 to work on dredging, wetland restoration and Bay-Delta water policy. She joined BCDC's planning team in 2010.
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Leslie Abramson (2008)
Academic Background: UC Santa Barbara - MS
Sanctuary Advisory Council Coordinator , Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, NOAA
Reducing the impacts of anthropogenic noise and shipstrikes on endangered whales off the coast of California
Leslie Abramson (2008)'s picture
Leslie Abramson (2008)'s picture
Leslie currently is the Advisory Council Coordinator at the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary in San Francisco. She is the recipient of a Switzer Leadership grant this year, to coordinate a stakeholder process focused on reducing the risk of shipstrike on endangered whales off the coast of California. Last year, Leslie was a NOAA Sea Grant Legislative Fellow with the Senate Commerce Committee, Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard. The committee provides oversight to NOAA and the USCG on issues such as: oil spills, fisheries management, endangered species protection, marine spatial planning, ocean acidification, marine debris, commercial shipping, Arctic issues and offshore renewable energy. Leslie received her Master’s degree in Environmental Science and Management at UC Santa Barbara in 2009, with a specialization in Coastal Marine Resource Management. While at UCSB, Leslie worked with the NOAA Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary to protect large cetaceans from fatal ship strikes in Santa Barbara channel. She has also worked in Prince William Sound, Alaska for the Oil Spill Recovery Institute, assessing the predictive capabilities of weather and oceanographic circulation models for oil spill response. Leslie’s background also includes time as a professional mariner, diver and outdoor educator. She spent seven years working for non profits such as Outward Bound, Sea Education Association and the Los Angeles Maritime Institute, sailing along both coasts of the United States, the Caribbean islands, Mediterranean Sea and twice across the Atlantic. She also spent 1½ years on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) hydrographic research vessel RAINIER, where she worked as a Seaman Surveyor throughout Southeast Alaska and down the Aleutian Island chain.
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David Albright (1993)
Academic Background: UC Berkeley - MPH
David has a BS degree in Biology from the Univ. of North Carolina - Chapel Hill and an MPH in Environmental Health Science from UC - Berkeley. While at UC, he undertook research on California pesticide policy for the Environmental Health Policy Program. Since graduating from UC in 1994, David has been employed at the USEPA Region IX in San Francisco, working on air quality, strategic planning, and ground water issues. In 2003, David became the Manager of the Ground Water Office, where he oversees a staff of engineers and scientists implementing the underground injection control, source water protection, and sole source aquifer programs under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
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Joseph Aldy (2003)
Academic Background: Harvard University - Ph.D.
Special Assistant to the President for Energy and Environment , National Economics Council
Joseph Aldy (2003)'s picture
Joseph Aldy (2003)'s picture
Joe Aldy is Special Assistant to the President for Energy and Environment at the White House. He reports through both the National Economic Council and the Office of Energy and Climate Change. Aldy is an assistant professor and currently on a public service leave of absence from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Previously, Aldy was a Fellow at Resources for the Future where his research focused on climate change policy, mortality risk valuation, and energy policy, and has been published in Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Review of Economics and Statistics, The Energy Journal, and other academic journals. He has co-edited two books: Architectures for Agreement: Addressing Global Climate Change in the Post-Kyoto Worldpublished in 2007 and Post-Kyoto International Climate Policy: Implementing Architectures for Agreement published in 2009, both by Cambridge University Press. Aldy served on the staff of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers from 1997 to 2000 where he was responsible for climate change policy and other energy and environmental issues. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University, a Master of Environmental Management degree from the Nicholas School of the Environment, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in water resources from Duke University.
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Lisa Alvarez-Cohen (1990)
Academic Background: Stanford University - Ph.D.
Lisa is assistant professor of environmental engineering at UC Berkeley. Her areas of research interest include innovative hazardous waste treatment systems including biological and sorption processes, bioremediation of contaminated aquifers and surface waters, and subsurface microbial transport. Her research is currently focused on biological processes for hazardous contaminant destruction.
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Jeanne Anderson (2002)
Academic Background: University of New Hampshire - Ph.D.
UNH
Jeanne is doing post-doctoral work with the Complex Systems Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. She is interested in applications of remote sensing to questions in conservation biology and ecology. Her research will look at the capability of an airborne remote sensor, generally known as lidar or laser altimetry, to accurately depict and reveal differences in forest structure across the landscape and relate those differences to land-use legacies, ecological function, and biological diversity. Lidar is an innovative approach to measuring vertical and volumetric profiles of forest vegetation remotely. She would like to use this technology to assess the variation in structural complexity of forests on a landscape scale and apply such information to conservation planning for large forested systems. Jeanne has worked as the Director of Ecological Management for the Massachusetts Audubon Society and as the Director of Science and Stewardship for the New Hampshire Chapter of The Nature Conservancy. She has contributed to recent statewide assessments of biological diversity in both Massachusetts (2001) and New Hampshire (1998). She holds a Masters in Forest Science from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. She was presented with the Massachusetts State Award from the New England Wild Flower Society in 1997. She was a NASA Earth Systems Science Fellow from 2003-2006.
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John Andrew (1995)
Academic Background: UC Berkeley - MPP
Assistant Deputy Director , California Department of Water Resources
John Andrew (1995)'s picture
John Andrew (1995)'s picture
John Andrew is Assistant Deputy Director of the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), where he oversees all of DWR's climate change activities and is the Department's primary liaison to the Governor's Climate Action Team. Most recently, John served as the water sector lead for the California Climate Adaptation Strategy and led development of DWR's first sustainability policy. His previous management positions include Drinking Water Quality Program Manager and Southern California Regional Coordinator for the CALFED Bay-Delta Program, and Chief of Special Planning Projects and Chief of Fish Facilities for DWR. From 1991-98, John was a publicly elected director of the Stege Sanitary District in the San Francisco Bay Area, and from 1999-2005 he served on the City of Sacramento's Citizens Advisory Committee for Parks and Recreation, including four terms as chair. From 2003-04, John also served as president of the Berkeley Engineering Alumni Society. He has over 20 years of experience in water resources and environmental engineering, and is a licensed Civil Engineer in the state of California. John holds degrees in civil engineering and public policy from the University of California at Berkeley.
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Patrick Archie (2000)
Academic Background: UC Berkeley - Ph.D.
Patrick Archie is a Ph.D. student in the Environmental Science, Policy and Management Department at U.C. Berkeley. He is studying the development of sustainable food systems in the United States. Before entering graduate school, Patrick worked for five years in urban agriculture and community development. He teaches ecological horticulture and manages the Student Organic Garden at U.C. Berkeley.
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Nicole Ardoin (2002)
Academic Background: Yale School of Forestry - Ph.D.
Assistant Professor , Stanford University
Nicole Ardoin (2002)'s picture
Nicole Ardoin (2002)'s picture
Nicole Ardoin holds a joint appointment with the School of Education and the Woods Institute for the Environment. Professor Ardoin's research focuses on motivations for environmental behavior, with a recent emphasis on the links among sense of place, geographic scale, and environmental behavior. She researches the use of social strategies--such as education, communications, and social marketing--by non-governmental organizations to engage individuals and communities in decision-making related to natural resource management. Professor Ardoin is conducting several studies related to monitoring and evaluation of the effectiveness of social strategies in motivating pro-environmental behavior and achieving on-the-ground conservation results. Professor Ardoin also works in the area of visitor studies and environmental education program evaluation in settings including environmental education centers, parks, natural history museums, zoos, and aquariums.
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Ludmilla Aristilde (2007)
Academic Background: University of California-Berkeley - Ph.D.
NSF Postdoctoral Fellow , Princeton University
In 2008, Ludmilla completed her doctoral degree in Molecular Toxicology at UC berkeley focusing on the aquatic chemistry and toxicology of pharmaceuticsls in our waters. Following her graduation from Berkeley, Ludmilla went to France on a Fulbright Scholarship where she learned the tools needed to understand how contaminants can be captured and protected from degradation in soils. She is currently a NSF postodoctoral Fellow in the Instutue of Integrative Genomics at Princeton University where she is acquiring molecular biological skills to address biological controls in the release of toxins in the aquatic environment. Ludmilla’s long-standing interests in water pollution and environmental human health issues stemmed from her experiences growing up in Haiti. Her interests had led her to work in other developing countries. In India, she worked on assessing the linkage between the use of urban wastewater for irrigation and its impacts on groundwater pollution and human health in several villages. She also participated in a short-term assignment in Peru to conduct on-site measurements of water quality parameters and collection of fishes and micro-invertebrates in an effort to evaluate the water quality and ecological health of tributaries to the Amazon River. Now, through her doctoral research, Ludmilla seeks to contribute to the environmental risk assessment of pharmaceuticals, which are important emerging water pollutants due to their extensive use in agriculture and human medicine and their continual discharge into our waters. She is investigating the interactions of fluoroquinolone antibiotics with metals and soil particles in our waters and their potential toxicity to organisms important to the ecological health of our aquatic habitats. Throughout her career, Ludmilla wants to continue to work at the interface of water quality and associated environmental and public health issues and contribute to the implementation of policies to help remediate these issues. She has particular interests in the fate and effects of the continual release of biologically-active compounds in our environment. Ludmilla holds a Bachelor of Science in Geological Sciences with a concentration in environmental chemistry from Cornell University and a Masters of Science in Environmental Engineering from UC-Berkeley.
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