Speakers
Sergio Aguilar Escalante
Manager of technical development, AxisIMA
Sergio has over 10 years of experience in the environmental area and more than 100 environmental impact studies of real estate projects, coastal and port works and renewable energy. He has collaborated in environmental supervision of projects financed by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and in studies of Climate Change with the National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change (INECC).
Mónica A. Altamirano
Financial and Institutional Expert, Deltares
Mónica Altamirano is a systems engineer and policy analyst with a strong background in economics. She has 15 years of experience in four continents and three sectors; education, transport and water.
Irene Alvarado-Quesada
Director of Environmental Statistics Unit at the Central Bank of Costa Rica
Irene Alvarado-Quesada is head of the Environmental Statistics Unit of the Central Bank of Costa Rica, and coordinates the Climate Change Strategic Analysis Group of the Central Bank. Irene holds a MSc. in International Development and an PhD in Environmental Economics , both from Wageningen University in The Netherlands.
Christopher Anderson
PhD Candidate at the Natural Capital Project, Stanford University; Co-founder & CTO, Salo Sciences
Christopher Anderson researches and develops ecologically-based biodiversity mapping systems to identify conservation opportunities, monitor ecosystem health & predict environmental change.
Carter Brandon
Senior Fellow, Global Commission On Adaptation at World Resources Institute
Carter Brandon joined World Resources Institute in February 2019 to lead work on the economics and finance of climate change adaptation in support of the Global Commission on Adaptation. Prior to that, he had a 24-year career at the World Bank, culminating as Global Lead Economist for Environment, Natural Resources and Climate Change.
Kate Brauman
Lead Scientist for Global Water Assessment at the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment
Kate Brauman is the Lead Scientist for Global Water Assessment at the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment, where she studies the coupled interaction of land-use change and water resources.
Leah Bremer
Assistant Specialist at University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization and Water Resources Research Center
Leah Bremer research focuses on interdisciplinary, applied, and problem-driven research related to water and watershed policy and management.
Dan Brown
Professor & Director, Environmental and Forest Sciences at College of the Environment, University of Washington
Dan Brown is the director of the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, where he plays a vital role in guiding the School’s academic growth and developing new initiatives, providing leadership and management of its programs, centers, and research grants, allocating its revenues in a manner that supports its mission, and enhancing its sizable and growing endowment.
Becky Chaplin-Kramer
Lead Scientist at the Natural Capital Project, Stanford University
Becky Chaplin-Kramer is lead scientist for the Natural Capital Project, overseeing model development and application for the Freshwater and Terrestrial team. She also leads NatCap’s work with the private sector, informing sustainable sourcing decisions for commodity supply chains by assessing impacts to biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Richard Damania
Global Lead Economist at World Bank's Water Practice
Richard Damania is the Global Lead Economist in the World Bank’s Water Practice. He leads the Practice’s work on analytical, advisory, and the operational engagements related to the role of water and the economy. Prior to this he was the Lead Economist of the Africa Sustainable Development Department with responsibility for infrastructure, environment and social issues.
Jennie Dean
Program Director, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, UCLA
Jennie Dean joined the IoES in August 2016 to run the Corporate Partners Program. In this role, she recruits and maintains partnerships with businesses interested in corporate sustainability. She connects these external partners with UCLA faculty, staff, and students to answer the most pressing questions in the field of sustainability.
Noah Diffenbaugh
Kara J. Foundation Professor and Kimmelman Family Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University
Dr. Noah Diffenbaugh is the Kara J Foundation Professor and Kimmelman Family Senior Fellow at Stanford University. He studies the climate system, including the processes by which climate change could impact agriculture, water resources, and human health. Dr.
Kristina Dutton
Artist
Kristina Dutton is a composer, musician, and media artist who specializes in interdisciplinary work. Her compositional focus is in film, dance, and multimedia events.
Thomas Elmqvist
Natural Resource Management Professor at Stockholm Resilience Centre
Thomas Elmqvist is a professor in Natural Resource Management at Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University. His research is focused on ecosystem services, land use change, urbanization, natural disturbances and components of resilience including the role of social institutions.
Alicia Escott
Artist and co-founder of The Bureau of Linguistical Reality
Alicia Escott is an interdisciplinary artist based in San Francisco. Her work is informed by scientific study and the examination and undoing of cultural narratives. She practices in solidarity with thinkers across fields undoing the construct of “nature” as a thing separated from us and our world.
Sasha Gennet
Director, North America Sustainable Grazing Lands at The Nature Conservancy
Sasha Gennet, Ph.D., leads The Nature Conservancy's Sustainable Grazing Lands strategy in North America, a role that relies heavily on her 20+ years of experience in natural resource management, research, planning and policy. Sasha leads an interdisciplinary team of science, conservation, policy and communications experts to achieve widespread adoption of conservation management practices on U.S. grazing lands, as well as protection and conservation of working lands.
Rachelle Gould
Assistant Professor of Sustainability and Global Equity at Rubenstein School of Environment & Natural Resources & Environmental Program, University of Vermont
Dr. Rachelle Gould’s collaborative interdisciplinary research investigates the relationships between ecosystems and well-being, focusing on the intersection of environmental values, learning, and human behavior. Issues of equity and inclusion are central to all of her work.
Sandy Handan-Nader
PhD Candidate at Stanford University
Sandy Handan-Nader is a Ph.D. student in political science at Stanford and a graduate student fellow at the Regulation, Evaluation, and Governance Lab. Her work focuses on quantitative methodology for the study of American politics. She holds a B.A. from Stanford University and an M.A. from Columbia University.
Peter Hawthorne
Senior Scientist, Natural Capital Project, Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota
Peter Hawthorne’s work for the Natural Capital Project involves developing capabilities for optimization and trade-off analysis in InVEST, new population-based models for biodiversity, and collaborations with the Nature Conservancy, WWF, and other groups to apply these tools.
Thomas Hertel
Distinguished Professor of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University
Thomas Hertel is Distinguished Professor of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University, where his research and teaching focus on international trade, food and environmental security. Dr. Hertel is a Fellow, and a Past-President, of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA).
Daniel E. Ho
Professor of Law & Political Science, and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, Stanford University
Daniel E. Ho is the William Benjamin Scott and Luna M. Scott Professor of Law, Professor of Political Science, and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University.
Jonny Hughes
Chief Executive Officer at UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre
Jonathan ‘Jonny’ Hughes has overall leadership responsibility for World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC) whilst fostering seamless collaboration between the charity and the UN Environment Programme as UNEP-WCMC (known collectively as the Centre).
Justin Johnson
Economist at the Natural Capital Project, Stanford University
Justin Andrew Johnson is a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Minnesota with The Natural Capital Project at The Institute on the Environment. Justin graduated with a Ph.D. in Applied Economics from the University of Minnesota in 2014. Justin’s research explores how ecosystem services affect economic systems, and vice versa.
Dick Jones
CEO of Ocean Outcomes
Dick is a recognized leader in global seafood sustainability. He is a third generation fishmonger, starting full-time in the seafood industry in 1986, including 13 years overseeing seafood operations at HEB Grocery Co. and Whole Foods Market.
Jean-Baptiste Jouffray
PhD at Sustainability Science at Stockholm Resilience Centre
Jean-Baptiste Jouffray is interested in the interlinked social, economic and ecological challenges that shape the new global ocean context and its resilience. Much of his work consists in a curiosity-driven endeavour aimed at describing and analysing what the Anthropocene means for the ocean, what it entails for how we study marine social-ecological systems and, essentially, what can be done to improve sustainability.
Peter Kareiva
Institute Director and Pritzker Distinguished Professor in Environment & Sustainability Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, UCLA
Peter Kareiva is the director of the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA, Pritzker Distinguished Professor in Environment & Sustainability and Chair, Doctorate of Environmental Science and Engineering program.
Before coming to UCLA, Kareiva was the Chief Scientist and Vice President of The Nature Conservancy, where he was responsible for maintaining the quality of over 600 staff engaged in conservation science in 36 countries around the world.
Bonnie Keeler
Assistant professor in the Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy area at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota
Bonnie Keeler is an assistant professor in the Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy (STEP) area at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and the former Program Director for the Natural Capital Project team at the University of Minnesota.
Eric Lambin
George and Setsuko Ishiyama Provostial Professor and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University
Eric Lambin, a geographer and environmental scientist, divides his time between the Université catholique de Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium) and Stanford University, were he occupies the Ishiyama Provostial Professorship at the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences and the Woods Institute for the Environment.
Frans Lanting
Photographer
Frans Lanting has been hailed as one of the great photographers of our time. His influential work appears in books, magazines, and exhibitions around the world. For more than two decades he has documented wildlife from the Amazon to Antarctica to promote understanding about the Earth and its natural history through images that convey a passion for nature and a sense of wonder about our living planet.
Tonette Lim
Tonette Lim is the global supply chain sustainability manager for Costco Wholesale Corporation, a membership warehouse club, dedicated to bringing its members the best possible prices on quality, brand-name merchandise. Lim is responsible for managing the sustainability of various value chains of the products that Costco sells to its members.
Justine Lucas
Director of Rihanna’s Clara Lionel Foundation
Justine Lucas is the Executive Director of Rihanna's Clara Lionel Foundation which supports and funds groundbreaking and effective education and emergency response programs around the world. Previously, she was the Global Director of Programs for Global Citizen where she oversaw the Global Citizen Festival, events, programs and strategic partnerships.
Andy MacDonald
Assistant Researcher, Disease ecology at UC Santa Barbara
Andy MacDonald is broadly trained in disease ecologoy and environmental science. Andy studied the ecology of vector-borne and zoonotic diseases, and his focuses on both environmental and human drivers of tick-borne diseases in North America, as well as mosquito-transmitted diseases from West Nile virus in the United States to malaria, dengue and zika virus in South America. Dr.
Alex Mandel
Geospatial engineer at Development Seed
Alex Mandel is a geospatial engineer at Development Seed. He has extensive experience with geospatial data including collection, management, analysis, and visualization. His focus is on open source, open data, and open science, primarily in agricultural, and natural resource contexts. He believes in empowering appropriate applications of technology in striving for sustainability.
Lisa Mandle
Lead Scientist at the Natural Capital Project, Stanford University
Lisa Mandle is developing and improving models of terrestrial ecosystem services for InVEST and for applications in Latin America. She works with the Natural Capital Project team and its partners to assess and develop plans to mitigate the effects of development projects such as mining and transportation infrastructure on ecosystem services.
Berta Martin-Lopez
Junior professorship, Sustainability Science Institute of Ethics and Transdisciplinary Sustainability Research at Leuphana University Luneburg
Berta Martin-Lopez holds a PhD in Ecology and Environmental Sciences, with many years of undertaking applied research on ecosystem services, nature valuation and social-ecological systems. Dr. Martin-Lopez is now focusing on understanding the role of values, knowledge and institutions in supporting transition pathways towards sustainability.
John Matthews
Executive Director and co-founder, Alliance for Global Water Adaptation
John H. Matthews is the Coordinator and co-founder of the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation (AGWA), which is hosted by the World Bank and the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI). His work blends technical and policy knowledge for climate adaptation and water management for practical implementation.
Douglas McCauley
Associate Professor at University of California, Santa Barbara
Douglas McCauley is an Associate Professor at UC Santa Barbara and Director at Benioff Ocean Initiative. His lab at UCSB Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, focuses on understanding the ecology of communities and ecosystems in a rapidly changing world.
Kathryn Mengerink
Executive Director, Waitt Institute
Kathryn Mengerink leads a team of ocean experts in developing and implementing marine spatial planning. She brings both her PhD in marine biology and law degree to bear in undertaking this effort. When not at the La Jolla office, you can typically find Kathryn at one of the Waitt Institute project sites around the world, either in a meeting or in the water. Working globally, the
Fiorenza Micheli
David and Lucile Packard Professor of Marine Science and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University
Fiorenza Micheli is co-director of Stanford’s Center for Ocean Solutions, and a marine ecologist at the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University, where she is the David and Lucile Packard Professor of Marine Science. Micheli’s research focuses on the processes shaping marine communities and coastal social-ecological systems, and incorporating this understanding in marine management and conservation.
Rafael Monge
Director at the Ministry of Environment and Energy, Costa Rica
Rafael Monge is an economist with broad experience in different fields related to environmental information, including the current development of the National Land Use, Land Cover and Ecosystems Monitoring System (SIMOCUTE).
Kari Nadeau
Professor of Pediatric Food Allergy, Immunology and Asthma at Stanford University
Dr. Kari Nadeau is one of the nation’s foremost experts in adult and pediatric allergy and asthma. She is the Director of the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy and Asthma Research at Stanford University, Section Chief of Allergy and Asthma at the Stanford School of Medicine, and an endowed professor under the Naddisy Family Foundation.
Rachel Neugarten
PhD student at Cornell University
Rachel Neugarten is a PhD student at Cornell University, where she studies the impacts of conservation interventions on biodiversity and human well-being. Rachel has a B.A. in Environmental Biology from Columbia University and an M.S. in Natural Resources from Cornell. Rachel also has over a decade of experience in the conservation nonprofit sector.
Rose Niu
Chief Conservation Officer at the Paulson Institute
Rose Niu is Chief Conservation Officer at the Paulson Institute, where she manages the planning and execution of initiatives to protect globally significant biodiversity and ecosystems and to promote sustainable management of natural resources, particularly in China.
Julia Osterman
MBA-MS Environment and Resources Candidate, Stanford University
Julia Osterman is an MBA-MS in environment and resources candidate at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business (GSB). Julia is passionate about financing and operationalizing innovative solutions to climate change.
Rylie Pelton
Rylie Pelton is a post-doctoral associate with NiSE at the Institute on the Environment. Rylie’s research interests focus on identifying production, consumption and infrastructure transition strategies that improve global sustainability through applications of life cycle assessment and developing decision support tools for organizations and institutions to integrate sustainability metrics into decision/policy-making processes.
Garry Peterson
Professor and Head of Subject in Sustainability Science at Stockholm Resilience Centre
Garry Peterson is professor in environmental sciences with emphasis on resilience and social-ecological systems at the Stockholm Resilience Centre. His research combines three themes: abrupt systemic change, how ecological changes impacts people, and using futures thinking to improve navigating surprising social-ecological change.
Steve Polasky
Professor of Ecological/Environmental Economics at University of Minnesota & Founder of the Natural Capital Project
Steve Polasky is one of the leaders of the Natural Capital Project’s environmental service mapping and valuation effort. At the University of Minnesota, Steve Polasky holds the Fesler-Lampert Chair in Ecological/Environmental Economics.
Hugh Possingham
Chief Scientist at The Nature Conservancy
Hugh Possingham is the Chief Scientist of The Nature Conservancy having recently moved from the University of Queensland. His group of 29 PhD students and 15 postdocs (embedded in three centres) work all over the world using decision science tools from economics and applied mathematics to formulate and solve conservation problems in the real world.
Ranaivo Rasolofoson
Postdoctoral Associate, Department of Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences at Cornell University
Ranaivo Rasolofoson is interested in investigating the impacts of environmental programs and environmental changes on different human wellbeing and environmental outcomes. He has looked at the impacts of community forest management and protected areas on deforestation, economic, and subjective human well-being in Madagascar.
Borja G. Reguero
Coastal Engineering Research Fellow, Natural Capital Project
B.G. Reguero is a researcher at the University of California-Santa Cruz and with The Nature Conservancy. He is a civil engineer with a PhD in sciences and technologies of water and the environment from the University of Cantabria’s Environmental Institute of Hydraulics and a Master’s in Applied Economics. His research focuses on climate risks, coastal science and policy, the impacts of climate change, ecosystem-based adaptation and risk reduction.
John Rickard
Founder of Wild Waters Fly Fishing
John Rickard founded Wild Waters in 2002. He has been guiding the State of Jefferson ever since. The Lower Sac beckons him in the Spring, The McCloud in the Summer, The Klamath in the Fall and The Coast in the Winter. With a BFA in Photography he finds himself at home with rod or camera on these Wild Waters.
Taylor Ricketts
Gund Professor and Director of the Gund Institute for Environment at the University of Vermont
Taylor Ricketts is Gund Professor and Director of the Gund Institute for Environment at the University of Vermont. Taylor’s research centers on the overarching question: How do we meet the needs of people and nature in an increasingly crowded, changing world? His recent work has focused on the economic and health benefits provided to people by forests, wetlands, reefs, and other natural areas.
Giovanni Ruta
Senior Environmental Economist. Working at the World Bank Group and co-founder of Social Business World
Giovanni designs and accompanies the implementation of green growth and sustainability policy making in countries supported by the World Bank’s Environment and Natural Resources Global Practice. Currently he is focusing in the Latin American and the Caribbean and has experience in Sub-Saharan Africa. he has also worked extensively on natural capital accounting.
Ahmed Saeed
Vice-President at Asian Development Bank
Ahmed M. Saeed is the Vice-President (Operations 2) of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). He was appointed by ADB on 26 February 2019.
Mr. Saeed is responsible for operations in the East Asia Department, the Southeast Asia Department, and the Pacific Department.
James Salzman
Professor of Environmental Law at UCLA School of Law and UC Santa Barbara
James Salzman is the Donald Bren Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law with joint appointments at the UCLA School of Law and at the Bren School of the Environment at UC Santa Barbara. He formerly held joint appointments at Duke University as the Samuel F. Mordecai Professor of Law and Nicholas Institute Professor of Environmental Policy.
Chethan Sarabu
Director of Clinical Informatics at doc.ai & Pediatrician at Stanford Medicine
Chethan Sarabu lives and works at the anastomosis of pediatrics, landscape architecture, and clinical informatics. The driving force connecting these interests is the pursuit of improving children’s lives. After training in landscape architecture at Cornell University he went through medical training with the principles of Olmsted in mind: long-term, ecological, systems-based design.
Lynn Scarlett
Chief External Affairs Officer at The Nature Conservancy
Former Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer of the U.S. Department of the Interior, Lynn Scarlett serves on the CEO management leadership team as Chief External Affairs Officer at The Nature Conservancy (TNC). In that role, she oversees TNC’s global public policy influence and corporate engagement, as well as serving as the Conservancy’s Global Climate Strategy Lead.
Guido Schmidt-Traub
Executive Director at UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network
Dr. Guido Schmidt-Traub is Executive Director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, which operates under the auspices of the UN Secretary-General to support the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement.
Jennifer Schmitt
Program Director & Lead Scientist at the Institute for the Environment, University of Minnesota
Jennifer Schmitt is the program director and lead scientist for the NorthStar Initiative for Sustainable Enterprise. She leads the day-to-day operations of the initiative as well as the strategic direction of its future work. Her focus is on sustainable enterprise development and transitions, and she is committed to engaged scholarship.
Elizabeth Selig
Deputy Director at Center for Ocean Solutions, Stanford University
Elizabeth Selig’s work focuses on analyzing how changes in ecosystem health will affect ecosystem services and human well-being, evaluating the success of management tools to effectively manage ocean resources, and developing integrated socio-ecological assessments of ocean health. She has more than 10 years experience working with international organizations including Conservation International, where s
Rebecca Shaw
Chief Scientist at World Wildlife Fund
Rebecca Shaw- In her role as Chief Scientist and Senior Vice President, Shaw works with our many staff and partners around the world to identify the most important scientific questions that challenge our mission and advance solutions to those challenges.
Austin Smith
Lecturer, Creative Writing at Stanford University
Austin Smith grew up on a family dairy farm in northwestern Illinois. He received a BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an MA from the University of California-Davis, and an MFA from the University of Virginia. He has published three poetry chapbooks: In the Silence of the Migrated Birds; Wheat and Distance; and Instructions for How to Put an Old Horse Down.
Eugenia South
Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and the Presbyterian Medical Center of Philadelphia
Eugenia South, MD MS is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. South’s research focuses on how neighborhood context impacts health and safety in urban environments.
Jenny Suckale
Assistant Professor of Geophysics and Center Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University
Jenny Suckale- before joining Stanford in January 2014, I held a position as Lecturer in Applied Mathematics and as a Ziff Environmental Fellow at Harvard. I hold a PhD in Geophysics from MIT and a Master in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School.
John Virdin
Director, Ocean and Coastal Policy Program at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University
John Virdin is director of the Ocean and Coastal Policy Program at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.
Xueman Wang
Senior Carbon Finance Specialist, Sustainable Development Network at The World Bank
Xueman Wang is the team leader for the World Bank’s Partnership for Market Readiness (PMR) – a global program that brings together major economies and key market players to design and pilot market-based approaches, carbon taxes, and other cost-effective instruments to achieve climate change mitigation objectives.
Ben Weinheimer
Chair, US Roundtable for Sustainable Beef
Ben Weinheimer is the Vice President of the Texas Cattle Feeders Association, whose mission is to serve and advance the economic, political and social interests of the cattle feeding industry in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico.
Qingfeng Zhang
Director, Environment, Natural Resources, and Agriculture Division, East Asia Regional Department at Asian Development Bank
Qingfeng Zhang is responsible for ADB’s operations on environment, natural resources, and agricultural development in East Asia. He is concurrently serving as the Chair for the ADB’s Water Sector Group Committee. Since he joined ADB in 2005, Mr.
