 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Leslie Abramson
Sam Borgeson
Matthew Davis
Sherrie Gallipeau Sherrie is pursuing her doctoral degree in Integrative Biology (specifically Endocrinology) at UC Berkeley. Her motivation for her work stems from her belief that lack of education about biological processes has direct negative impacts on environmental quality. Her current research concerns the effects of pesticides on amphibian health. Upon completion of her Ph.D, Sherrie will obtain a position teaching in a low-income community where she can help new generations of students make educated decisions about their lives and the natural world.
Linda Helland
Christina Hemphill
Elizabeth Hoover
Diana Humple
Brian Johnson
Jamillah Jordan
Chris Larson
Christine Lee
Nathan McClintock
Beckie Menten
Brian Milakovsky
Urvi Parekh
Jackie Prange
Thu Quach
Kim Smaczniak
Jessica Strauss
Brad Timm
Elena Traister
Dipti Vaghela
Mele Wheaton
Joshua Wickerham
|
|
|
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
After receiving her bachelor’s degree in Cultural and Social Anthropology from Stanford University, Leslie began a career 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.
Leslie is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Environmental Science and Management at UC Santa Barbara, with a specialization in Coastal Marine Resource Management. While at UCSB, Leslie interns with the NOAA Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, where she works to protect large cetaceans from fatal ship strikes in Santa Barbara channel. She is interested in the interactions between society and marine environments and believes in the potential of ecosystem-based management and cooperative fisheries. She hopes to continue her work in resource protection with NOAA Sanctuaries after graduation.
Sam is pursuing M.S. degrees in Building Science and Energy and Resources at UC Berkeley. He hopes to improve our understanding of the interface between built and natural environments and is interested in developing effective technical, economic, and policy tools to support the widespread delivery of low impact buildings. For his Building Science thesis, Sam is developing computer models to assess the potential for climate-responsive, low energy cooling strategies in commercial buildings to displace conventional HVAC systems. His research focuses on natural ventilation, radiant cooling, and the challenges associated with hybrid manual and automated building controls. Through the Energy and Resources Group and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Sam has been examining achievable reductions in emissions from buildings using models that track building features, floor space, and equipment as they change over time under varying technology and policy scenarios. Sam is also co-recipient of a Green Initiative Fund grant to support his work as a Berkeley Institute of the Environment Fellow designing and building an interactive web-based system to track and visualize campus resource use in support of mitigation goals, research, and education. Sam holds a B.A. in Physics from Wesleyan University. In 2000, he co-founded Carbon Five, a San Francisco based software consulting firm. He left his position as a managing partner to pursue his passion for reducing the environmental impacts of our built environment full time.
Matthew is entering the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice to pursue a Master of Public Health. He looks forward to investigating the interface between human health and environmental quality, and using this research to forward policy in both arenas. Before enrolling at Dartmouth, Matthew was the Organizational Development Regional Director for Environment America and U.S. PIRG, overseeing and advising the work of Environment Maine, Environment New Hampshire, Environment Iowa, Environment Georgia and Georgia PIRG. As part of that work, he wrote and managed grants for more than $400,000 annually to fund work in various states, and co-authored numerous policy reports on issues ranging from water pollution to global warming emissions from the transportation sector. He was the founder and Advocate at Environment Maine from 2003-2006, representing the organization to Maine media, organizations and decision makers. Previously, he was U.S. PIRG’s New England Field Organizer, organizing in Maine since 2001. Matthew graduated from Swarthmore College in 2001 with a B.A. in Biology and an Environmental Studies concentration, Phi Beta Kappa.
Linda intends to use her master’s degree in public health to make clear the links between environmental quality and human health. Through her work at the Mendocino County Public Health Branch, Linda helps develop a local food system. Current projects include increasing access for low-income people to fresh produce by accepting Food Stamps at farmers’ markets, and subsidizing community supported agriculture shares.
Linda is a founding member of the Mendocino Partnership for the Precautionary Principle, which conducted a yearlong advocacy campaign culminating in the adoption of a Precautionary Principle Administrative Policy for the County of Mendocino in 2006. The Precautionary Principle holds that when an activity is a potential threat to the environment or human health, full scientific certainty is not necessary to initiate precautionary action. Linda and her colleagues are now implementing the Precautionary Principle Policy in pilot county departments.
After earning a BA in Peace & Global Studies from Earlham College, Linda worked for a community development organization in Cuba, protested the biotechnology industry in San Francisco, opposed World Trade Organization rules in Cancun and battled free trade agreements in Miami. After unsuccessfully suing Walgreen’s and the City of Ukiah to prevent the cutting of a redwood grove to put in a parking lot, she decided to study land use. In 2007 she completed her Certificate in Land Use & Environmental Planning at UC Davis Extension, focusing on climate change. She now works to highlight the health and environmental effects of land use planning.
Linda obtained her permaculture design certificate at Earth Activist Training in Cazadero, California, and was elected to the board of directors of the Mendocino Environmental Center. As an appointee to the Mendocino County Board of Education, she works to pass environmental policies including green building, conservation and alternative energy requirements, and promotes Safe Routes to Schools to increase the proportion of children that walk and bike to school.
Christina is currently pursuing her doctoral degree in Environmental Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. Her areas of concentration are pesticides exposure, epidemiology and environmental justice. Christina’s career began as an environmental engineer; however, she was drawn to environmental advocacy work due to the significant environmental burdens suffered by persons of color in poor neighborhoods.
Christina has worked in social and environmental justice advocacy in New York City where she assessed inequities in the distribution of burdens such as air pollution, transportation hazards, and power plants. It was at that time when Christina began to note the relationship between the environment, both natural and man-made, and human health. Christina returned for graduate study to gain in-depth knowledge of analytical methods and community-based research useful to enact change and create sound environmental policy.
Her graduate level studies have included both domestic and international research projects. In West Africa she measured exposure to air pollution in the urban capital of Accra, Ghana. Locally, Christina’s doctoral research centers on the determination of pesticide exposure levels and associated health effects to residents of Roxbury, MA and Gadsden County, FL; both predominately African-American communities.
Originally from the Chicago area, Christina received a B.S. degree in Environmental Engineering from Northwestern University in 2000 and a M.S. degree in Environmental Health in 2007 from the Harvard School of Public Health.
Elizabeth Hoover is working on a PhD in Anthropology at Brown University, focusing on environmental justice in Native American communities. She is currently conducting her fieldwork in the Mohawk community of Akwesasne, looking at how industries and Superfund sites along the St Lawrence River that bisects the reservation, and subsequent health studies around these sites, have affected people\'s perceptions of their bodies and the environment. She is also working with subsistence revival organizations such as Kanenhi:io Ionkwaienthon:Hakie (We Are Planting Good Seeds) who are trying to reconnect the community with farming and a healthier lifestyle. In addition, she is a research assistant on the Brown University Superfund Basic Research Project, working with community groups around Rhode Island who are dealing with issues of contamination, and working with the EPA and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (RIDEM) on incorporating community input into environmental cleanups. In addition Elizabeth is a member of the Outreach Committee of the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island, a coalition formed to education Rhode Islanders about issues of environmental justice. She is also a grad student advisor for NAB (Native Americans at Brown) a student support group for Native students at Brown University, as well as a founding member of NAWIP (Native American Women in Providence), an intertribal group of women who work with urban Indian youth in Providence. Upon finishing her degree, Elizabeth plans on pursuing an academic career that will also allow her to continue to work with Native communities on environmental and food sustainability issues.
Diana is pursuing a Master’s Degree in biology at Sonoma State University with an emphasis in conservation genetics. She is especially interested in the impact of oil spills on seabird populations, an interest which has stemmed from her work as a biologist at PRBO Conservation Science. Since 1997, Diana has helped lead efforts for PRBO and the state of California to collect oiling data, conduct species identification, and collect evidence from birds during California spills. She has also responded to international spills. Diana is interested in understanding which populations are impacted by spills, in helping determine the extent of the impacts by compiling data during a spill, and in expanding such documentation protocols to regions where this is not prioritized. Her master’s degree is focused on Western Grebes, one of the species most impacted by spills on the California coast. Diana's professional interests also include songbird ecology and conservation; with PRBO she has studied songbirds in a number of habitats and is currently involved with projects in the northern Sierras and Marin County, California. Originally from Virginia, Diana has lived in Chile, Brazil, Zaire, and Thailand, returning to get a bachelor’s degree at the University of Virginia with majors in environmental science and psychology.
Brian Johnson is an environmental education specialist with more than a decade of experience in the field. He has previously served as Education Officer for Botanic Gardens Conservation International, where he directed the organization’s plant conservation education programs in the United States. Brian has also directed environmental education programs at the nation’s first urban Audubon center in New York City, and served for five years as Senior Faculty with the Audubon Expedition Institute at Lesley University. He is currently overseeing the design of a new M.S. degree program in urban environmental leadership at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA, while also pursuing a doctorate in environmental studies at Antioch University New England. Brian holds a B.S. in journalism from Northwestern University, and an M.S. in environmental education from the Audubon Expedition Institute at Lesley University.
Brian’s doctoral research focuses on the relationship between environmental education and improvements in environmental quality. In other words, can environmental education be an effective response to poor environmental quality? His dissertation research includes two phases. The first phase is part of a two-year project (currently in its second year) funded by the EPA’s Office of Environmental Education, entitled “Quantifying a Relationship Between Place-based Learning and Environmental Quality.” The project is gathering outcome data from air quality education programs throughout the United States and analyzing those data as a dependent variable of place-based education implementation. The second phase includes case study research to detail examples of place-based education programs and practices that have been most effective in generating environmental quality improvement outcomes.
All of this means that Brian spends lots of time in front of his computer. However, he is constantly striving to spend as much time as possible walking the sheep pastures and hills around his current home in Lancaster, England.
Jamillah is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in urban planning, with an emphasis on community development and the built environment. For her master’s thesis, Jamillah is researching the emerging green economy in Los Angeles and developing recommendations to fight both poverty and pollution by creating opportunities for low-income communities to benefit from green industries. She plans to use her degree as preparation for a career in environmental justice advocacy at the local and state levels.
Prior to attending UCLA, Jamillah served as a community organizer working on New York City environmental justice issues such as the disproportionate siting of toxic facilities in communities of color. She has also authored numerous articles and reports on the environmental health risks associated with poor quality housing, mold and pesticides in urban communities. At the international level, Jamillah has researched the effects of globalization and free trade on indigenous youth in Chiapas, Mexico and coordinated several teach-ins to link the political struggles of indigenous Mexicans to low-income communities of color in the U.S.
More recently, Jamillah designed and conducted the Grocery Gap Project, a pilot research study that assessed the availability and cost of healthy foods in two Seattle neighborhoods of distinctly different socio-economic backgrounds. Jamillah strongly believes that the roots of spatial, environmental and economic inequalities are deeply intertwined, requiring interdisciplinary solutions that transcend professional boundaries. Jamillah holds a B.A. in Psychology and Community Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Chris Larson is completing a Master’s Degree in Business Administration at the Yale School of Management (SOM). At SOM, and through coursework at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, he is developing approaches to engage private investors in conserving the forests and watersheds of “Salmon Nation” (coastal northern California and the Pacific Northwest). Privately-owned forestlands face unprecedented development threats as the region undergoes a transformation from a resource-based to an amenity-based economy. He seeks to enhance access to forestlands for local communities, whose support is ultimately essential for successful conservation.
Prior to Yale, Chris was the Executive Director of the Mattole Restoration Council (MRC), a community-led salmon and watershed restoration organization based in the remote Mattole River valley of northwestern California. At the MRC, Chris established the Wild and Working Forests program to improve fire safety, riparian habitat conditions, and to assist small forestland owners to pursue sustainable forestry. He expanded the local constituency involved with restoration work—today, over 7% of the watershed’s residents are now seasonally employed in restoration. His Mattole mentors have demonstrated that engaging local residents in restoration leads to powerful changes in human-land relationships.
Chris completed a B.S. in Natural Resources from Cornell University, where he worked in the Forest Ecology lab for three years researching the effects of nitrogen deposition on boreal forests. During Chris’ first-year at Yale, he was a Forrest Berkely Conservation Scholar, producing research on the current status of timberland investment in Maine and New Hampshire on behalf of a coalition of regional land trusts. While not working or studying, Chris is finishing a house he has built out of locally-milled lumber, and enjoys river rafting, gardening, and hunting.
Christine M. Lee is a PhD student in Civil and Environmental Engineering at UCLA. She received a BS in Chemical Engineering and minored in English as an undergraduate, also at UCLA. Lee is currently developing a biosensor that can rapidly measure bacterial water quality. This sensor can not only become a tool for continuous water quality monitoring but can also be an instrument for adaptive sampling, helping identify hotspots of bacterial contamination.
Christine has been interested in technology accessibility issues since joining Engineers without Borders at UCLA in 2004. BOOTUP, which she founded in 2005, is based on refurbishing donated equipment in computer-building workshops for underresourced high school students, who were able to keep these computers. Thinklab! was a vision of a fellow EWB officer; she helped design and implement this project, which consisted of refurbishing and donating laptops to a children’s center, El Buen Samaritano, in Jocotenango, Guatemala. Since Guatemala, Christine has supported and assisted in other projects abroad, traveling to Bangladesh to help investigate arsenic contamination of groundwater. As a student at the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing, a multidisciplinary research center, she is also extremely interested in bridging connections between different fields of science and engineering. Most recently, she encouraged the Center to apply sensor research in assisting the sustainable building and practices movement at the UCLA campus. She also has many other interests outside of her work - including reading (novels and graphic novels), writing, biking, and yoga.
Nathan McClintock is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Geography at UC Berkeley. His dissertation work focuses on overcoming obstacles to urban agriculture in the low-income "flatlands" of Oakland, California. Integrating theoretical frameworks from urban geography and agroecology, he is researching how flows of capital in and out of
the city have created an uneven landscape of food access, urban gardens, and soil contamination. Central to this research, he is working with community-based food justice organizations to inventory vacant land in Oakland and assess it for its potential to contribute to a more resilient local food system. The project will map concentrations of heavy metals in these parcels, as well as evaluate low-tech bioremediation techniques. Nathan's research draws on a decade of experience in sustainable agriculture as a researcher, organic farmer, trainer, journalist, and consultant. He has worked on agricultural development projects with the Rodale Institute in Senegal and Partners in Health in Haiti, as well as done short-term consultancies in
Bangladesh, Nepal, Mali, and Mexico. He served as a Peace Corps
agricultural extension volunteer in Mali, and has farmed in British
Columbia and North Carolina. He holds a B.A. from the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a M.S. in crop science/sustainable
agriculture from North Carolina State University. In addition to his research, he is currently working with a fellow doctoral student and faculty to develop an interdisciplinary undergraduate minor in food systems and sustainability.
Beckie Menten is pursuing a Masters Degree from Humboldt State University in Energy, Environment, and Society. Her studies focus on the role local governments can play in adapting communities to a climate change defined world. Before entering the Masters program, Beckie co-directed the Campus Center for Appropriate Technololgy, a live-in student demonstration home on campus that focuses on spreading the message of environmental awareness and conscious living. She is now the Energy Program Specialist for the City of Arcata, working to complete the ambitious greenhouse gas reduction goals set in the City Greenhouse Gas Action Plan. For her thesis, Beckie intends to adapt the City of Berkeley rooftop solar funding mechanism to the City of Arcata, also exploring the applicability of this finance model to residential retrofits.
Beckie has a great interest in interdisciplinary approaches to Climate Change, and works to develop a many faceted approach to reducing carbon dependence. She spent time abroad while pursuing her undergraduate degrees in French and Political Science, and was greatly influenced by actions the European Governments were taking to meet Kyoto Protocol targets. She hopes someday to continue her work at the state, national, and international levels, exploring comparative approaches to effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions and eventually serving to influence climate change legislation. While not fighting to change the world, Beckie enjoys biking, backpacking, gardening, fishing, and just generally being outdoors.
Brian is pursuing his Masters in Forestry at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies in New Haven, Connecticut. He is focusing on how forest harvest practices are changing in the Russian Federation in the context of privatization, industry consolidation and forest certification. His primary interests are in whether habitat management and the protection of rare ecotypes can be incorporated into industrial forestry, and whether the impetus for these changes will come from within or without of the industry. In the summer of 2008 he will work for the Segezha Pulp and Paper Co. in Karelia, Russia, assisting company foresters in the identification and protection of “high conservation value forests” within harvest zones. When he is not at Yale he works as a consulting forester in Midcoast Maine, working for small woodlot owners.
Urvi is currently completing her Master’s Degree at the Haas School of Business at the University of California – Berkeley where she is focused on understanding how market fundamentals and principles can be applied to the growing clean energy sector. Prior to business school, Urvi supported the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy as a contractor. In her role, she focused on communicating the importance of clean energy technologies – including solar, fuel cells and building efficiency technologies – to the Department’s stakeholders. During that time, she had the opportunity to work on projects ranging from helping to launch a federal initiative focused on research investments into solar technology to developing partnerships with New Orleans to rebuild the city better post-Katrina. Urvi is passionate about getting information about clean energy into the hands of decisionmakers as she fundamentally believes that when given all the facts, we will choose to make better decisions about what we consume and how we generate our energy. Urvi is working over the summer for MMA Renewable Ventures, which finances renewable energy projects. Urvi holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.
Jackie studies law and environmental health sciences in a joint degree program between the School of Law and the School of Public Health at UCLA. She is no stranger to interdisciplinary endeavors: as an undergraduate she studied biology and political science at the University of Oregon, where she worked in an ecology laboratory and wrote her thesis on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Jackie’s goal is to use science and the law to protect human health and promote environmental sustainability, especially in Southern California. Her particular interests are air quality, water quality, toxics, and environmental justice. She believes that environmental rights, like any other rights, are a matter of social justice. In 2003, she lived in Monteverde, Costa Rica, studying tropical ecology and conservation. Since then she has worked or volunteered at a number of environmental non-profit organizations, including Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide, Lawyers for Clean Water, and the Natural Resources Defense Council. At UCLA, Jackie is a member of the Program in Public Interest Law and Policy and an editor for the Journal of Environmental Law and Policy. She also volunteers legal services to the homeless population of Los Angeles through a variety of programs. In her spare time, Jackie enjoys hiking in the Santa Monica, San Gabriel, and Sierra Nevada mountains.
Thu Quach is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of California, Berkeley's School of Public Health, conducting research on environmental links to cancer. Her dissertation focuses on occupational exposures and cancer incidence among cosmetologists and nail salon workers in California, with special attention paid to Vietnamese immigrant workers. Thu originally became interested in this issue because, like many other Vietnamese refugees, her own family members work in this business. Currently, Thu is working at the Northern California Cancer Center as an epidemiologist, coordinating a community-research study to examine breast cancer incidence in California's licensed nail salon workers and to explore the use of personal air monitors for quantifying occupational exposure levels to select organic solvents. Thu is also part of the California Healthy Nail Salons Collaborative, a statewide multidisciplinary collaborative that seeks to address environmental health concerns facing the cosmetology workforce through an integrated approach employing policy advocacy, research, outreach, and education strategies. In addition to her research experience, she has been active in advocacy efforts that tackle environmental and reproductive justice issues among Asian American populations. She has served on the Board of Directors for the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum (NAPAWF) as well as Banteay Srei, a women's empowerment program for Southeast Asian sexually exploited minors. Thu received her B.A. at UC Berkeley in Integrative Biology and an M.P.H. at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Kim is pursuing her final year of a joint degree in law and public policy (JD/MPP) with a focus on international environmental law. After graduating from Carnegie Mellon University with a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Policy and Technical Writing, Kim spent two years working as an environmental education volunteer with Peace Corps Senegal. In an isolated village, Kim crystallized her vision of her career as an environmentalist: to amplify the voices of those who cannot be heard in the international arena and, yet, are often the most vulnerable to environmental degradation. During her program of study, Kim has volunteered her time to represent the interests of groups of peoples affected by gas and oil pipelines, mines, and nuclear testing.
She most recently spent a semester of study in Geneva, to learn more about the interactions between international environmental law and other legal disciplines. Her ultimate goal is to work toward the strengthening of an international legal framework that addresses trans-boundary environmental harms and creates accountability that extends beyond national borders. This summer she is living her dream by working with the Maldives Mission to develop a report on the link between climate change and human rights for submission to the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights.
Jessica Strauss is a second-year MBA student at the Yale School of Management, focusing on renewable energy and the building industry. She is co-president of the SOM Real Estate Club and the representative to the Net Impact Green Building initiative. She is an active member of the Energy Club, the SOM Ski Team and Women in Management. This summer Jessica is an intern at GE in the Renewable Energy Leadership Program and is focusing on wind and operation components. Jessica’s training is in architecture from Cornell University and Real Estate Development from New York University, the Real Estate Institute. Since graduating from Cornell, she has earned her Architecture Registration in New York and New Jersey and is a LEED accredited professional. Jessica has worked as an architect at KPF in London and at the Pei Partnership Architects in New York, as an Asset Manager for Lexington Properties Trust and as a Senior Sustainability Consulting for Arup, an engineering form in New York. She is a member of the American Institute of Architects and is currently serving as co-chair for the Committee on the Environment (COTE). Jessica is a member of the U.S. Green Building Council, the Urban Land Institute (Young Leader) and is an Environmental Leadership Program senior fellow, class of 2004. She has taught courses in Environmental Systems at City College of New York, Columbia University and at New York University. Jessica currently has her own practice, Steel Leaf, which offers sustainability consulting support to the building industry.
Brad Timm is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Natural Resources Conservation at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His research interests are focused on gaining an improved understanding of species-environment relationships and movement ecology of wildlife species in order to devise more effective conservation and management strategies for these organisms. For his doctoral research, Brad is investigating the ecology and conservation of the Eastern spadefoot toad (Scaphiopus h. holbrookii), a species listed as “Threatened” in Massachusetts, at Cape Cod National Seashore. Specifically, he is assessing breeding habitat preferences of the Eastern spadefoot toad using results from extensive larval trapping surveys and is assessing the post-breeding movement ecology of adults (including distances emigrated from breeding wetlands, upland habitat preferences, and nocturnal activity patterns) using radio-telemetry techniques. Results from this research will provide the U.S. National Park Service at Cape Cod National Seashore with the information necessary to effectively manage for the long-term persistence of populations of this regionally rare species at the Park. Prior to his doctoral work, Brad earned his master’s degree in Wildlife and Fisheries Conservation at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst examining the emigration timing and orientation of juvenile pond-breeding amphibians in western Massachusetts, and as an undergraduate at the University of Rhode Island worked on a number of research projects, the majority of which focused on the ecology of pond-breeding amphibians.
Elena is a doctoral candidate in the Natural Resources and Earth Systems
Science program at the University of New Hampshire. Her research focuses
on improving science-based approaches to river restoration by
investigating limits to stream recovery following disturbances, and by
directly monitoring the effects of stream restoration. She is particularly
interested in the influence of disturbance and restoration on the ways
streams interact with global carbon cycling and the relationship between
carbon cycling and biodiversity in streams. She is currently collaborating
with multiple stakeholders on the planning efforts surrounding several
proposed stream restoration projects. Elena is also an Assistant Professor
of Environmental Science and the Coordinator of the Environmental Studies
Program at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. Through frequent
incorporation of service-learning into her courses and by expanding public
access to seminar courses through public presentations and internet
broadcasting, she is creatively reimagining the role of academic
institutions as environmental stewards and promoters of environmental
awareness beyond the student body. A native of Los Angeles, California,
Elena holds a BA from Williams College and a Master of Environmental
Science from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
To address climate change caused by fossil fuel based electrification in developing countries, Dipti Vaghela is focusing her academic and career efforts to establish decentralized renewable energy programs for rural communities in India, using a participatory approach that facilitates beneficiaries to become aware of and take ownership of their region’s development. Dipti’s interests in using sustainable technology to alleviate poverty and drudgery in developing communities was triggered by her undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley, her perspectives as a product design engineer in SiliconValley, and her family’s roots in rural India.
In pursuing a MS degree in Environmental Studies at San Jose State University, Dipti is doing applied research on micro hydro electrification in Orissa, India. In parallel with managing the renewable energy program at Gram Vikas (GV), a large grassroots NGO working in rural Orissa, Dipti is case studying community participation in GV’s micro hydro program. Dipti’s dual role as a researcher and practitioner has helped her to understand aspects of renewable energy applications, in order to trial a strategy that transforms isolated micro hydro projects into regional programs. The strategy involves facilitating NGOs to become community-driven, implementing projects in clusters of communities, and influencing rural electrification trends such that renewable energy is given priority over grid electricity produced from fossil fuels.
Mele is pursuing a doctorate in Education at UC Santa Cruz, where she concentrates specifically on environmental science education. She has extensive experience as a scientist and as an educator and has an intimate, working knowledge of the needs of the environmental education field. After completing her undergraduate studies in Environmental Studies and in Biology, Mele taught environmental education in Alaska, Arizona and California at a variety of informal science institutions, including Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, Tucson Botanical Gardens, and The Oakland Museum of California. While in Arizona, she also spent six months observing nesting bald eagles in the Sonoran desert for the Department of Game & Fish. Her master's research with the Monterey Bay Aquarium investigated middle-school girls' ideas about science at a bilingual marine science camp. Her current research examines high school students' experiences of conservation science as they participate in an environmental science program that partners the Monterey Bay Aquarium, their school, and scientists working in the local community. While volunteering for the program before starting her research, Mele enjoyed guiding a student in producing a 10 minute documentary film about her conservation project on sea otters. Mele is particularly interested in education in under-served communities and in how to how to better bridge the gap between scientific research and environmental education.
Joshua Wickerham drives transitions to sustainable development through participatory frameworks, especially in Chinese and international contexts. As the Coordinator of Chinese Affairs for the international think tank AccountAbility, Wickerham works with some of the world’s largest corporations on social responsibility and low carbon opportunities. He also advises governments on responsible competitiveness strategies, and the Chinese State Council on sustainable trade strategy. Wickerham earned his bachelors degree at the University of Michigan and is a masters student at the University of California San Diego’s School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, focusing on non-profit management and international development. While at UC San Diego, he founded and leads the Jane Goodall Institute Roots & Shoots doing hands-on education projects. He also sits on the North American Roots & Shoots College Leadership Council.
Over the next five years, Wickerham aims to transform consumerism through his work to bring together metrics, stakeholders, and investors for a social venture that provides consumers with “true cost” social, health, and environmental labeling. Wickerham’s writing has appeared in Fortune China, China Dialogue, the Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide, the Journal of International Policy Solutions, and several newspapers and encyclopedias.
Wickerham is also a Chinese zither enthusiast and studies the modern gay rights movement, HIV prevention, sexual history, and pre-liberation Shanghainese music. His works can be found at www.joshuawickerham.com.
