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SEJ's 28th Annual Conference Speakers

 

 

 

All about our
conference speakers

 

Agenda Coverage Lodging/ Travel Sponsors / Exhibitors Environmental News About Flint

 

Below are biographies (or links thereto) of speakers for SEJ's 28th Annual Conference, October 3-7, 2018, in Flint, Michigan, as well as the sessions they're participating in. Flint conference home.

Alphabetical Speaker List

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L
M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock

 

A

David Abel

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, ENERGY: Natural Gas and Climate Change: What's the Real Story? 11:00 a.m.
  • David Abel is an award-winning reporter for The Boston Globe and a documentary filmmaker. Abel covers the environment for the Globe and has directed several environmental films, including "Sacred Cod," which was broadcast by the Discovery Channel in 2017. Abel and his colleagues at the Globe won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News for their coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings. His work has also won an Edward R. Murrow Award, the Ernie Pyle Award from the Scripps Howard Foundation and the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Feature Reporting. Abel's films have been broadcast around the world and won awards at film festivals. His latest film, "Lobster War: The Fight Over the World's Richest Fishing Grounds," premieres this fall in New England.

 

Oscar Abello

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, NATION: From the Skyline to the Streets: Covering the Urban Environment Beat, 11:00 a.m.
  • Oscar Abello was a contributing writer and Equitable Cities Fellow for Next City, prior to becoming the organization's editor in 2018. Since 2011, Oscar has covered community development finance, community banking, impact investing, equitable and inclusive economies, affordable housing, fair housing and more for media outlets such as Shelterforce, B Magazine, Impact Alpha and Fast Company. Over the course of two and a half years of reporting for Next City, 372 out of 521 sources he interviewed were women and/or people of color. Oscar holds a B.A. in Economics from Villanova University. Follow him on Twitter or Instagram.

 

Mike Ableson

  • Event: Wednesday, Evening Plenary, Future of Cars, 8:30 p.m.
  • Mike Ableson is General Motors vice president of Global Strategy. He was appointed to his current position in September 2015 and is responsible for leading the newly formed Strategy Organization team, whose role is to look for opportunities to leverage General Motors' technology advantage in the changing automotive industry and integrate across the business. Connected Vehicle, Urban Mobility, Autonomous Vehicles and Fuel Cells are considered critical future business opportunities. Prior to this role, Mike was vice president of Global Planning and Program Management, responsible for leading the company's worldwide product plans. He first started with General Motors in 1984, when he began as an analysis engineer. Since then, he has held numerous roles, including oversight of a new global development platform for mid-size vehicles; chief engineer for small trucks and mid-size trucks; and head of Global Advanced Vehicle Development. He has also spent time in Germany, where he focused on compact cars and led all European global engineering. Mike earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan in 1982 and a Master of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1984.

 

Sam Abuelsamid

 

Louis Aguilar

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 8, Recovering the City: Detroit's Waterways and Land Re-Use, 9:30 a.m.
  • Louis Aguilar, at age 16, was officially declared "incorrigible" by the nuns at St. Hedwig High. Mr. Aguilar has eagerly tried to live up to the title. He is an award-winning newspaper reporter, which includes staff writing gigs at the Washington Post, Denver Post and Denver Westword. He briefly ran an independent film festival in Washington, D.C. and served as a consultant to the Smithsonian Institution on its Latino programming. Since 2004, he has helped chronicle the epic nature of his hometown Detroit as a staff writer for The Detroit News. In 2009, he wrote "Long Live the Dead: The Accidental Mummies of Guanajuato," a book about a Mexican city's complex relationship with 112 of its mummified citizens. In 2010, he was awarded a Kresge Fellowship for the Literary Arts. He is currently writing a non-fiction book about the time spent by the artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera in Depression-era Detroit.

 

Rhonda Anderson

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 6, Gasoline, Garbage and Greenery in Detroit, 8:30 a.m.
  • Rhonda Anderson, Detroit-based environmental justice organizer for the Sierra Club, has long been engaged in fighting for the rights of poor and minority communities overburdened with pollution. A commitment to pursuing environmental justice has been at the core of her work for nearly two decades with the Sierra Club. Detroit's 48217 zip code, where the Marathon Petroleum Corp. refinery and other heavily polluting industrial sites are located, has been a focus of her efforts.

 

Emilia Askari

  • Event: Wednesday, Opening Dinner Event, Welcome to Flint, 5:00 p.m.
  • Emilia Askari, journalist, educator and former SEJ President, is co-chair of our 2018 conference. She teaches environmental and public health journalism at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and is getting a PhD in educational technology from Michigan State University. Her research focuses on uses of social media in civic education teaching digital storytelling skills to youth in Flint and Dearborn, Michigan. Askari worked for decades as a reporter for traditional news organizations, including the Detroit Free Press, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and the Miami Herald. Her work has been recognized by more than a dozen journalism prizes and fellowships, including the Knight Wallace Journalism Fellowship at the University of Michigan. Askari was part of a Detroit Free Press team that won the Oakes Award in Environmental Journalism for a series on lead poisoning. She has served on many nonprofit boards, supporting the Asian American Journalists Association, the Accrediting Council for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, the Journalism Fellowships at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, the Arab American National Museum and the Oakes Awards in Environmental Journalism, among other organizations. Askari has a bachelor’s degree in economics and creative writing from Brown University, a master’s in journalism from Columbia University and a master’s in information science from the University of Michigan.

 

Jay Austin

  • Event: Friday, Lunch Plenary, Tracking Trump: Environmental Rollbacks and Legal Challenges, 12:15 p.m.
  • Jay Austin is a Senior Attorney at the Environmental Law Institute and Editor-in-Chief of the Environmental Law Reporter. He directs the Institute's Program on the Constitution, Courts and Legislation, which focuses on the intersection of U.S. constitutional and environmental law and trends in the federal courts. In that role, he produces scholarly research and commentary on environmental litigation; key areas of constitutional law, including the Commerce Clause, Fifth Amendment takings and Article III standing; and on proposals to amend major federal laws like the National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act. He also directed a National Science Foundation-funded initiative on understanding the role of scientific uncertainty in law, science and journalism. Jay is based in Portland, Oregon, and received his B.A. at Michigan State University and J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law.

 

Nancy Averett

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, THE CRAFT 2: How to Freelance and Not Go Broke, 2:00 p.m.
  • Nancy Averett is a freelance writer based in Cincinnati, Ohio. She has a passion for telling great stories about complex topics. Nancy's work has appeared in a variety of national publications such as Audubon, Pacific Standard, Runner's World, Bicycling, E! The Environmental Magazine and Discover.com. She also writes for institutions: Boston University, Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, University of Colorado and the National Institutes of Health.

 

Paula Ayer

  • Event: Sunday, Book Slam, 11:00 a.m.
  • Paula Ayer, an editor at Greystone Books, is an accomplished translator and an award-winning author of four books for both teens and children. She grew up in Calgary, Alberta, and studied at the University of Calgary and Simon Fraser University.

 

B

Tony Barboza

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, CLIMATE: States, Cities and Corporations Take the Lead on Climate Change, 10:45 a.m.
  • Tony Barboza is a Los Angeles Times reporter who covers air quality and the environment. He has been on staff at the Times since 2006 and has reported on climate change, environmental health, coastal resources, government and breaking news throughout California. Tony is a graduate of Pomona College and completed a Ted Scripps Fellowship in Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado.

 

Tony Bartelme

 

Kevin Beaty

  • Event: Wednesday, SEJ Workshop, Video Production for Journalists, 10:00 a.m.
  • Event: Friday, Beat Dinner 8, SEJ Open Screen, 7:00 p.m.
  • Kevin Beaty is a multimedia reporter for Denverite, the Denver news site, and a conference organizer for the Society of Environmental Journalists. He's big on cameras, creative storytelling and social justice issues.

 

Janice Beecher

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, WATER: Water Infrastructure: Pipes, Plants and Problems, 10:45 a.m.
  • Dr. Janice Beecher has served as Director of the Institute of Public Utilities at Michigan State University since 2002, bringing more than 30 years of applied research experience to the position. Her areas of interest include regulatory principles, institutions, governance and pricing, and she specializes in the water sector. She is a frequent author, lecturer and participant in professional forums and Editor of the journal Utilities Policy (Elsevier). She co-authored the book "Risk Principles for Public Utility Regulators" (MSU Press). Dr. Beecher is presently serving on the U.S. EPA’s Environmental Finance Advisory Board and has served as an appointed advisor to the State of Michigan on infrastructure and water policy. She previously held positions at The Ohio State and Indiana Universities and the Illinois Commerce Commission. She is a faculty member in MSU’s Department of Political Science and holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Northwestern University.

 

Brooks Berndt

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, NATION: Faith and the Environment: How Religious Leaders Are Changing Hearts in Support of Eco-justice, 10:45 a.m.
  • Rev. Brooks Berndt has been Environmental Justice Minister for the United Church of Christ (UCC) since 2015. Previously he served for eight years as the pastor of First Congregational UCC in Vancouver, Washington. During his time as pastor, Berndt published his first book, "Sounding the Trumpet: How Churches Can Answer God's Call to Justice," co-authored with the Rev. Dr. J. Alfred Smith, Sr., of Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland, California. The book reflects on the beginning of what became an innovative social justice ministry at Berndt's church. From 2011 onward, the church conducted year-long social action campaigns that brought together members for a common purpose and a climactic public witness. Berndt is now working on his second book, tentatively entitled "Dear Parents, Grandparents, and Anyone Who Has a Heart for Children: It's Time for Climate Action." The inspiration for the book arose from Berndt's observations of what fundamentally motivates people to address the climate. Berndt noticed that the people with whom he works on climate issues are consistently compelled to act by what he calls the Three Great Loves: love of neighbor, love of children and love of creation.

 

Elin Betanzo

  • Event: Saturday, Mini-Tour 4, Testing for Lead in Drinking Water Tutorial and Lab Visit, 2:15 p.m.
  • Elin Betanzo leads Safe Water Engineering, a small firm working to improve access to safe drinking water through engineering and policy consulting. Elin's current focus is reducing exposure to lead in drinking water. Ongoing projects include working with DWSD to establish their lead service line replacement program, improving public education about lead in drinking water, and helping water utilities comply with the federal and state lead and copper rules. Elin has over 15 years of experience in the drinking water industry, including writing and implementing Safe Drinking Water Act regulations for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, hydraulic modeling and water planning for the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission in Maryland, and creating the Safe Drinking Water Research and Policy Program at the Northeast-Midwest Institute.

 

Brian Bienkowski

  • Event: Wednesday, Opening Dinner Event, Welcome to Flint, 5:00 p.m.
  • Brian Bienkowski, our 2018 conference co-chair, is the senior editor at Environmental Health News and The Daily Climate. He holds a master's degree in environmental journalism and a bachelor's degree in marketing from Michigan State University. He lives with his wife Dani and their five four-legged friends in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

 

Sandy Bihn

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 2, Cruisin' Ground Zero: The Western Lake Erie Shoreline, 6:30 a.m.
  • Sandy Bihn is the Executive Director/Lake Erie Waterkeeper for the Lake Erie Foundation. She is also President of the Toledo Lighthouse Society and a member of Oregon City Council. She has been appointed to the International Joint Commission Great Lakes Water Quality Advisory Board. Sandy has been the Lake Erie Waterkeeper since 2004, which is a licensed program of the International Waterkeeper Alliance. Sandy has a Masters degree in Business Administration, major in finance, from the University of Toledo and also attended the University of Delaware and Ohio University. She was the Finance Director of the City of Oregon, has been/is on Oregon City Council and served on regional and national boards and committees. She has been a shoreline property owner since 1987.

 

Robert Bilott

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, WATER: PFAS Contamination: This Decade's DDT, 2:00 p.m.
  • Robert A. Bilott is a partner with the law firm of Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP, working from the firm's Cincinnati, Ohio and Northern Kentucky offices. For more than 27 years, Rob has represented a diverse array of clients on a wide variety of environmental matters and related litigation, including in the context of the nation's first individual cases, class actions and Multi-District Litigation proceedings involving clients exposed to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances ("PFAS") in their drinking water, including in Ohio, West Virginia, Minnesota and New Jersey. To date, Rob has successfully led efforts that have secured more than $1 Billion in benefits for injured parties exposed to PFAS materials, including a recent settlement valued at more than $670 Million for persons in Ohio and West Virginia exposed to PFOA. In 2017, Rob received the "Right Livelihood Award" (commonly known as the "Alternative Nobel Prize") for his work on PFAS issues, and is now a Fellow in the international Right Livelihood College and Honorary Professor at the National University of Cordoba in Argentina. Rob was a recipient of the "Trial Lawyer of the Year Award" from the Trial Lawyers for Public Justice Foundation in 2005 for his work on PFOA issues.

 

Michelle Bloom

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, THE CRAFT 2: Social Media: New Ideas for the Age of the Presidential Tweet, 9:00 a.m.
  • Michelle Jolan Bloom is a 2018-19 Knight-Wallace fellow at the University of Michigan and the senior designer at Politico. Before joining Politico she was a production editor at National Journal Daily, designer at the Washington Examiner, and paginator and copy editor at The Herald-Palladium (Southwest Michigan). She has been working to recreate Politico's visual storytelling and social media strategy, using social tools including Instagram stories to expand its audience. She supports the Ohio University Semester in Washington program, hosting students in the newsroom and helping them adjust to life in D.C., and serves as the social media editor for the Mount Vernon Amateur Radio Club in Alexandria, Virginia. A graduate of Ohio University's Magazine Journalism program, Bloom received two Awards for Excellence from the Society for News Design in the magazine category in 2017.

 

Jessica Boehland

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, CLIMATE: States, Cities and Corporations Take the Lead on Climate Change, 10:45 a.m.
  • Jessica Boehland works as a Senior Program Officer at The Kresge Foundation, which is committed to expanding opportunities in America's cities. Kresge's Environment Program seeks to help cities build their resilience in the face of climate change, with work focused on climate change mitigation, preparedness for the effects of climate change and social equity. Jessica leads the team's grantmaking and other activities related to energy. Prior to joining Kresge in 2008, Jessica served as Managing Editor of Environmental Building News and Editor of GreenSource magazine. Her writing has appeared in these and numerous other publications. In 2017, Jessica was named among Midwest Energy News' 40 Under 40, recognizing young leaders advancing America's transition to clean energy. She serves on the boards of the Environmental Grantmakers Association and the Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities. Jessica holds a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College and a master's degree from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

 

Susan Borrego

 

Theresa Braine

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: Indigenous Rights: The State of Environmental Sovereignty, 11:00 a.m.
  • Event: Saturday, Mini-Tour 3, For-Mar Nature Preserve & Arboretum, 2:15 p.m.
  • Theresa Braine has written for publications as varied as People magazine, The New York Daily News, Women's eNews and the Bulletin of the World Health Organization. From 2011 through 2017, she was Environment and Canada Editor at Indian Country Media Network. She has sought out stories that highlight the intersection between traditional indigenous knowledge and modern science; the ways in which industrial development often comes at the price of indigenous and other people of colors' well-being; and the insidious ways in which the medieval papal Doctrine of Discovery filters through to contemporary treatment of Indigenous Peoples. As Environment Editor she edited and wrote stories on climate change, mining and pipeline spills, and other impacts of environmental issues on Indigenous Peoples. She anchored the bulk of the Standing Rock coverage for ICMN, guiding reporters on the ground from her base in New York City. As a journalist Braine has always focused on stories that were not on the national radar. As an editor at ICMN, she has helped several writers fashion award-winning stories, including several that won 2017 NAJA awards.

 

Jane Braxton Little

  • Event: Friday, Breakfast Program, Meet the Candidates, 7:30 a.m.
  • Jane Braxton Little has written about California condors, wildland fire, deep sea exploration and other natural resource issues for over 40 national publications that include Audubon, Popular Mechanics, Wilderness, Nature Conservancy and Yes! She is also co-coordinator of SEJ's Mentor Program. Jane lives on 35 acres of forestland in the Feather River country of California's northern Sierra Nevada.

 

Arielle Breen

 

James Brophy

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 3, Canada's Chemical Valley: From Toxic to Green? 7:00 a.m.
  • Dr. Jim Brophy made his career studying how the workplace can make people sick. Brophy, the founder and former director of Sarnia's Occupational Health Clinic for Ontario Workers, spent many years in the Chemical Valley documenting several contaminants in the workplace and environment, including one of the largest asbestos disease epidemics in Canada. He was an active participant with the Aamjiwnaang Environment Committee. In 2008, he and his wife, Dr. Margaret Keith, jointly received the Gold Environmental Health Award from Canadian Geographic for helping to document the health issues facing the Aamjiwnaang Community. Workplace cancer is an area of expertise and he is a lead author, with Dr. Keith, of a paper on breast-cancer research — "Breast cancer risk in relation to occupations with exposure to carcinogens and endocrine disruptors: a Canadian case-control study," published in Environmental Health (November 2012). Their most recent research is on violence against health workers and was released in November 2017, titled "Assaulted and Unheard: Violence Against Healthcare Staff."

 

George Bullerjahn

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 2, Cruisin' Ground Zero: The Western Lake Erie Shoreline, 6:30 a.m.
  • George S. Bullerjahn is a Professor of Biological Sciences at Bowling Green State University. A.B. Dartmouth College, 1977; Ph.D. University of Virginia, 1984. Dr. Bullerjahn is a molecular biologist and biochemist whose work is focused on the physiological performance of aquatic microbial communities. Specifically, for over 30 years he has studied the physiology and stress responses of cyanobacteria in fresh water and marine environments. More recently, he has examined microbes responsible for cycling of key macronutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) responsible for driving biological productivity in the Great Lakes. Together, these studies have been applied to understanding the role of both bloom-forming toxic cyanobacteria and ecologically beneficial cyanobacteria in lakes. Regarding Ohio watersheds, Dr. Bullerjahn has studied both Grand Lake St. Marys and western Lake Erie. These ecosystems have been plagued with seasonal toxic cyanobacterial blooms that have severely degraded water quality and yielded significant negative economic impact to the lakeshore regions. Dr. Bullerjahn’s laboratory has published recent studies demonstrating the likely origin of toxic cyanobacterial species, as well as the nutrient requirements of bloom formation. Whereas it is well known that phosphorus loadings from agriculture have contributed greatly to the expansion of cyanobacterial blooms, more recently the role of nitrogen in triggering bloom events has become increasingly clear.

 

Jeff Burnside

  • Event: Wednesday, SEJ/Climate Matters Collaborative Journalism Workshop, Telling Climate Change Stories that Matter: From Impacts to Solutions, 8:30 a.m.
  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, NATION: The War Against Plastics: Who's Winning? 9:00 a.m.
  • Event: Saturday, Environmental Journalism Awards Luncheon, Noon
  • Jeff Burnside, an SEJ board member, is an independent journalist working on his debut documentary film "First Contact, Lost Treasures." He was a 2017-18 Scripps Journalism Fellow at the Center for Environmental Journalism, University of Colorado in Boulder. He has been in the news business for more than 20 years working as an investigative reporter, general assignment reporter, executive producer and segment producer in cities such as Boston (WCVB Chronicle), Miami (WTVJ Special Projects Unit) and most recently, Seattle, as senior investigative reporter for KOMO 4 News. He's won more than 20 journalism awards — for television news, newspaper reporting and photography — including 10 regional Emmys. Jeff is also a frequent invited speaker and panelist on environmental journalism, journalism ethics and media training. He's earned working media fellowships at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (Tromso, Norway), Heinrich Boell Institute for green energy (Berlin), Steinbrenner Institute for climate science (Carnegie Mellon University), Reynolds Center for Business Journalism on the green economy (Cronkite School at Arizona State University), Metcalf Institute for Environmental Reporting (University of Rhode Island) and the Western Knight Center for Specialized Reporting in political coverage (University of Southern California Annenberg School).

 

Victoria Byrd Olivier

 

C

Justine Calma

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, CLIMATE: Blaming Climate Change for Disasters and Suffering, 9:00 a.m.
  • Justine Calma is a staff writer for Grist, where she reports on environmental justice and health. She was born in the Philippines, raised in California and is learning to love NYC. Justine is an alumna of Columbia's Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism and the Ida B. Wells Fellowship with The Investigative Fund.

 

Roger Cargill

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, NATION: The War Against Plastics: Who's Winning? 9:00 a.m.
  • Roger Cargill has been employed in the Waste and Recycling industry for 28 years, beginning at Michigan State University. After leaving MSU in 2008, Roger worked for Schupan Recycling, first as a public space recycling professional, partnering with organizations such as NASCAR, Coca-Cola and DTE. The business partnerships grew to include MGM Grand Detroit Casino, where we reduced annual waste costs by 50 percent through recycling and organics. Roger also created a collection system for water bottles during the Flint water crisis. Currently, Roger is the Sustainable Projects Manager at Schupan and Sons, Beverage Recycling Division. In this role he focuses on business partnerships, full product destruction, commodity marketing and waste minimization. Roger is a 2008 graduate of the Michigan State University Great Lakes Leadership Academy, and is proud to have received Michigan State University's Dorothy Millbrook award for working with people with disabilities.

 

Sharon Carty

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 7, The Future of Mobility: Visit the Test Tracks for Self-Driving Cars, 9:00 a.m.
  • Sharon Silke Carty is editor of Shift magazine, Automotive News' look at emerging technology in transportation and the transforming automotive industry. She researched and oversaw Project XX, an award-winning series on sexism in the auto industry. She has covered the auto industry since 2002, and previously, she was editor-in-chief of Yahoo Autos, AOL Autos and was the Detroit bureau chief for USA TODAY. She has written for The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. She lives in Dexter, Mich., with her husband and three children.

 

Itzá Castañeda Camey

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, GLOBE: Gender Equality and the Environment: From the Field to the Newsroom, 9:00 a.m.
  • Itzá Castañeda Camey is a Gender and Sustainable Development Special Adviser with the Global Gender Office of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Itzá has almost 20 years of experience in projects and initiatives involving public policy development, building local institutions and the incorporation of gender issues into development. She has worked in various capacities for a number of international and national organizations in Mexico and Latin America as a researcher and consultant adviser, while also teaching and training on gender equality and development. From 2001 to 2004, she was the Director of Gender Equity at Mexico's Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources. From 2004 to 2011, she held the position of Senior Gender Adviser for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Mexico. Since 2012, she has been advising on environmental and gender policy for IUCN as the gender focal point for Mexico, and recently with particular involvement in the National Strategy of Biodiversity and the National REDD+ process in Mexico. She has been a co-author of more than 10 books and coordinated and published numerous reports, guides and articles on gender and human development, gender and competitiveness, disaster risk reduction, water, climate change, and gender-based violence and environment. She has also been a keynote speaker at national and international conferences and congresses.

 

Matt Chapman

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 4, The Shape of Water... and Milk and Beer! 7:30 a.m.
  • Matt Chapman serves as the Project Manager for Grand Rapids Whitewater. Matt came to Grand Rapids Whitewater in September of 2015 after serving as the Executive Director of Alternatives in Motion for four years. Matt has over 12 years of experience in the nonprofit sector and is knowledgeable in marketing, special events management, grant writing & management, the donor development process and organizational development. Matt holds a Bachelor's of Science in Advertising and Public Relations and a Graduate Certificate in Nonprofit Administration from Grand Valley State University.

 

Colby Chilcote

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 1, The Last Good Country: Lush Forests and "Holy Waters", 5:00 a.m.
  • Colby Chilcote, Marketing Director, comes to Huron Pines after a decade at Google where she worked in marketing and advertising helping small businesses and nonprofits build an online presence. Colby holds a bachelor of arts from Adrian College, and a master of fine arts from the University of Notre Dame. Colby lives in Grayling where she enjoys exploring the woods and fresh water with her husband and two sons.

 

Anna Clark

 

Joel Clement

 

Tom Clynes

  • Event: Sunday, Breakfast, Books and Art, 8:00 a.m.
  • Tom Clynes is an author and photojournalist who covers the adventurous side of science and the environment for publications that include National Geographic Magazine, Nature, The New York Times and Audubon. Tom is the author of three books, including, most recently, "The Boy Who Played With Fusion," which tells the story of the 14-year-old who became the youngest person to build a working nuclear fusion reactor. The book was shortlisted for the 2016 PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award, which celebrates writing that exemplifies literary excellence on the subject of physical and biological sciences. Tom is a Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellow and International Reporting Project Fellow.

 

Mary Ann Colihan

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 3, Canada's Chemical Valley: From Toxic to Green? 7:00 a.m.
  • Mary Ann Colihan is a writer and radio producer from London, Ontario — in the Southwestern region of the province where Lake Huron meets Lake Erie. She has done stories on a wide range of topics including the cumulative effect of pollution in Sarnia's Chemical Valley, green building practices, eco-tourism and renewable energy. She writes a regular nature column for Postmedia News about the Patient of the Week from the Salthaven Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Centre. She teaches in the creative writing program at Western Continuing Studies and has developed a non-fiction course called Green Ink: Nature Writing in the Forest City. She got her M.A. in Journalism from Western University in 2003.

 

Deborah Conrad

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, NATION: Faith and the Environment: How Religious Leaders Are Changing Hearts in Support of Eco-justice, 10:45 a.m.
  • Deborah DeMars Conrad, EdD, is Senior Minister of Woodside Church, an interracial, politically engaged congregation in Flint. She believes faith is deeply political and preachers should be truth-tellers. Deb holds degrees in journalism, visual arts and leadership. She earned her Master of Divinity in the Washington Theological Consortium, and has served in a variety of ministry settings in six states, including parish, university, hospital and denominational leadership; she has directed an urban community center, and taught power and ethics to undergrads and graduate students. She founded UrbanSpirit, a poverty education center in Louisville, KY, where she continues to teach about the multi-tentacled injustice that is the American way. Since 2007, she has coordinated a summer intern program, deploying young adults to sites across the country where disasters of weather or politics have devastated communities. Deb lives a vegan life as a justice thing. She has written, taught and preached about environmental, economic and racial justice for Baptist and UCC publications and events; her sermons and essays can be found online. She is also a photographer, with work in galleries in Indiana and Kentucky. Her wife, Hannah, is an attorney with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

 

Evlondo Cooper

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: Elevating and Improving Our Reporting on Environmental Justice Issues, 10:45 a.m.
  • Evlondo Cooper, a native New Orleanian, is a senior writer for Media Matters for America's Climate and Energy Program, where he tracks a wide array of conservative and mainstream media coverage of climate and energy issues and identifies false and misleading media narratives that could undermine progress on climate and energy issues. Previously, Evlondo worked at Checks and Balances Project, a watchdog organization, where he researched and wrote about the effects of the fossil fuel lobby's influence peddling and regulatory capture on government officials, corporate managers and lobbyists.

 

Richard Craig

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, THE CRAFT 2: Unheard Voices: Would They Have Mattered When the Flint Story Broke? 10:45 a.m.
  • Dr. Richard T. Craig is an Associate Professor of Communication at George Mason University. He has been a part of the university and the Department of Communication since the fall of 2009. Dr. Craig received his BA in Journalism from Olivet College, his MA in Telecommunications Management from Michigan State University, and his PhD in Mass Communication/Media Studies from Howard University. His research centers on mass media political economy — addressing the production, distribution and consumption of media content. He takes particular interest in exploring the social structure/struggle embedded in media production and interpreted in media consumption. His goal is to use research to influence the development of policy to enhance opportunities for media production and distribution by marginalized cultures.

 

Kelli Crump

  • Event: Wednesday, Opening Dinner Event, Welcome to Flint, 5:00 p.m.
  • Kelli Crump holds a Master's of Fine Arts in Acting from the National Theatre Conservatory and a Bachelor's degree in Interpersonal and Public Communication from Central Michigan University. For more than a decade, Kelli has worked as a teaching artist, bringing the gift of acting to a wide range of students. From inner city youth to adult male inmates, she prides herself on exposing others to the depth, richness and excitement of live theatre. Kelli is a winner of The National Partners of the American Theatre's Classical Acting Award and the Voice and Speech Trainers Association's Vocal Excellence Award presented by the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. Kelli also has many years of experience on the administrative and artistic side of professional theatre for some of our nation's most critically acclaimed and award-winning regional performance venues. She is extremely excited to be back in her home state of Michigan and working with such a talented community of artists. Stage credits include: Hair, Doubt, Hairspray, The Laramie Project, Little Shop of Horrors, Hamlet, Chicago and Tartuffe. Film/TV credits include: HBO's LOOKING, ABC's When We Rise, Being Flynn with Robert DeNiro, The Normals, and The Storyteller. Kelli is a proud member of AEA and SAG-AFTRA.

 

D

Steve Davis

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 2, Cruisin' Ground Zero: The Western Lake Erie Shoreline, 6:30 a.m.
  • Steve Davis is a 1973 honors graduate of The Ohio State University College of Agriculture with a major in agronomy. Steve has had a 45-year career with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service. He held various field, area and state level positions before retiring from full time work in 2008. He continues to work part time with NRCS as a Watershed Specialist on Lake Erie Algal Issues. Though a scientist, Steve's speaking and writing skills have also involved him in public information. Steve made numerous national and international presentations for USDA, including Congressional briefings to members of the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1994, Steve was a Telly Award Bronze Finalist in Non-Broadcast Video and Film, co-recipient of a three-person team award for an award=winning conservation video. Steve has authored scientific publications, public information materials, training materials, and he recently penned "Myles Traveled, Stories of My American Journey," a book that brings to life more than 75 years of black history, sports history and OSU football memories.

 

Timothy Davis

 

Heather Dawson

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, WATER: Great Lakes: Perspective on a Toxic Past and Binational Protection, 9:00 a.m.
  • Heather Dawson is an Associate Professor of Fisheries and Wildlife Biology at the University of Michigan-Flint. Prior to joining the faculty at UM-Flint she worked as a fishery biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She and her students focus on determining ways to improve the management of invasive Great Lakes sea lamprey by researching aspects of sea lamprey ecology and using structured decision-making tools to determine best management strategies.

 

John DeCicco

  • Event: Wednesday, Evening Plenary, Future of Cars, 8:30 p.m.
  • John M. DeCicco is a research professor at the University of Michigan Energy Institute (UMEI) where his work intersects physical science, engineering, social science and public policy. His current research focuses on the transportation sector, including vehicle efficiency and fuel-related CO2 emissions, as well as the role of CO2 removal strategies. His past studies of vehicle efficiency were influential in the development of automotive fuel economy and GHG emissions standards, and over the years he has worked on energy efficiency in buildings, electric sector environmental impacts, consumer behavior and national climate policy. He leads the Energy Institute's Transportation Energy and Climate Analysis project, directs the University of Michigan Energy Survey and serves on the management committee for the university's Mcity research center on automated vehicles. Previously, Prof. DeCicco was a senior fellow at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF, 2001-2009) and transportation director at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE, 1990-2000). He has three books and over 150 published papers, reports and formal public comments to his credit; has testified multiple times before the U.S. Congress and participated in many other policy forums. He holds a doctorate in mechanical engineering from Princeton University.

 

Jim Detjen

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, NATION: Faith and the Environment: How Religious Leaders Are Changing Hearts in Support of Eco-justice, 10:45 a.m.
  • Jim Detjen is the founding president of SEJ and an ex officio member of SEJ's board of directors. He has worked for more than 45 years as an environmental journalist at the Philadelphia Inquirer, Louisville Courier-Journal and Poughkeepsie (N.Y.) Journal. He was the first Knight Chair in Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University and is now the Knight Chair in Environmental Journalism Emeritus. He was the founding director of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at MSU and also a founder and past president of the International Federation of Environmental Journalists. He has won more than 50 state, national and international awards for environmental journalism and environmental education. Among these are the George Polk Award, National Headliner Award, Edward J. Meeman Award and Thomas Stokes Award. He has been a Fulbright Scholar in China twice. He is a co-author or contributor to seven books and has written for a variety of magazines and newspapers.

 

Gloria Dickie

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, THE CRAFT 1: Freelance Pitch Slam, 11:00 a.m.
  • Event: Saturday, Environmental Journalism Awards Luncheon, Noon
  • Gloria Dickie, an SEJ board member, is a freelance multimedia journalist, covering science and the environment, with a focus on biodiversity conservation. Her work has appeared in National Geographic News, Outside, Discover, High Country News, Motherboard, Hakai Magazine, Audubon, OnEarth, bioGraphic, The Denver Post, Arctic Deeply and Adventure Journal. She also serves as a writer and researcher on an upcoming feature-length climate change documentary with environmental photographer James Balog (Chasing Ice). Gloria has a master's degree in journalism from the University of Colorado Boulder, where she worked at the Center for Environmental Journalism for two years, and a graduate certificate in environmental policy. In 2016, she was awarded an Arctic journalism fellowship at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

 

Dennis Dimick

  • Event: Wednesday, SEJ/Climate Matters Collaborative Journalism Workshop, Telling Climate Change Stories that Matter: From Impacts to Solutions, 8:30 a.m.
  • Dennis Dimick, an SEJ board member, served as executive environment editor at National Geographic magazine and was a picture editor at the National Geographic Society for more than 35 years until his retirement from the Society at the end of 2015. He guided a variety of major magazine projects, including a special issue on global freshwater in April 2010, a 2011 series on global population and a 2014 series on global food security. In September 2004, he orchestrated a 74-page, three-story project on climate change called “Global Warning: Bulletins from a Warmer World.” In 2014, he created and edited projects on the future of coal as an energy source and on the vanishing snowpack of the American West. From 2008-2012, Dimick co-organized the Aspen Environment Forum, and he regularly presents slide-show lectures on global environmental issues. For 19 years he has been a faculty member of the Missouri Photo Workshop, and in 2013 received the Sprague Memorial Award from the National Press Photographers Association for outstanding service to photojournalism. His work has also received awards from the Society of Environmental Journalists and Pictures of the Year International. Dimick, who grew up on an Oregon farm, holds degrees in agriculture and agricultural journalism from Oregon State University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists, the National Press Photographers Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

 

Dennis Donahue

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, ENERGY: Cargo Shipping's Clean Energy Challenge, 9:00 a.m.
  • Dennis Donahue is marine engineer responsible for the fleet of NOAA research vessels on the Great Lakes. Since 1999 he has led the Green Ship Initiative which is a collaborative effort to explore sustainable alternative fuels and environmentally responsible practices for marine transportation. The focus has been the "work boat" industry which includes dredging, patrol, ferry and research vessels. That market sector has a significant impact on environmentally sensitive coastal areas. Group efforts have addressed the technical and logistical challenges of bio fuels, successfully operating on B100 bio diesel for the past 18 years. Significant environmental and operational advantages have been documented. He believes lessons learned are scalable and transferable to other marine market sectors.

 

E

Jonathan Ellis

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, THE CRAFT 1: Solutions Journalism: Integrating Impact and Covering Progress, 2:00 p.m.
  • Jonathan Ellis has been deputy editor of The New York Times climate desk since 2017, when the team was created. He leads coverage of the politics, science, economics and impacts of climate change, using a variety of storytelling formats including solutions, service and explanatory journalism. He also edits a weekly climate newsletter. Jonathan was managing editor of Mashable from 2014 to 2016, leading a 24/7 worldwide newsroom with a staff of more than 100. He then returned to The Times for a second run, launching the company’s Snapchat Discover channel, advising the newsroom's R&D team and editing Trump presidential transition coverage in Washington. In his first stint at The Times, he was a top digital editor on the news desk, managed the NYTimes.com home page, led the newsroom's mobile team, launched an Election 2012 app, produced digital coverage of the 2008 campaign and worked closely with developers, designers and business side colleagues. He is a graduate of Brown University, where he studied computer science and public policy and edited The Brown Daily Herald.

 

Steve Ellis

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, CLIMATE: Here Comes the Flood, 11:00 a.m.
  • Steve Ellis joined Taxpayers for Common Sense in 1999 and serves as Vice President, overseeing programs and serving as a leading media and legislative spokesperson. A persistent critic of the mounting budget deficit and federal fiscal policy, Steve has testified before numerous Congressional Committees and regularly appears in a variety of broadcast and print news. His expertise ranges from earmarks to flood insurance and a lot of spending issues in between. Steve formerly served as an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard for six years, including tours of duty as a department head and deck watch officer aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Sorrel, managing the Coast Guard's inland waterway fleet, and managing a small boat-acquisition contract. Steve received a B.S. in Government from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. He has earned both the Coast Guard Commendation Medal and the Coast Guard Achievement Medal.

 

B

Judith Enck

 

Philip Erlenbeck

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, THE CRAFT 1: Keeping Your Data Safe and Secure, 10:45 a.m.
  • Philip Erlenbeck is a Unix Administrator at the University of Michigan - Flint. Philip has over 18 years IT experience working in Higher Ed including over 10 years as a certified Information Security Professional. His current roles and interests include automation and infrastructure as code, but he is also still active in the IT security community.

 

F

Judy Fahys

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, THE CRAFT 2: Social Media: New Ideas for the Age of the Presidential Tweet, 9:00 a.m.
  • Judy Fahys, an SEJ board member, covers environmental issues in Utah, where climate change, the Bears Ears National Monument, the nation's radioactive legacy and other types of pollution provide endless fodder for news. She works at KUER 90.1, the NPR affiliate in Salt Lake City. She's a longtime member of the Society of Environmental Journalists and Investigative Reporters and Editors. She was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In her spare time, she enjoys being out in the environment, especially hiking and gardening.

 

Mike Ferner

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 2, Cruisin' Ground Zero: The Western Lake Erie Shoreline, 6:30 a.m.
  • Mike Ferner is coordinator of Advocates for a Clean Lake Erie, a grassroots citizens' group that holds public officials accountable for the health of that Great Lake. He chairs ACLE's communications committee, writes news releases and does public speaking. From 1989 to 1993, Mike was an independent member of Toledo City Council where he sponsored the largest investment in energy efficiency for municipal buildings in Ohio, expanded curbside recycling, championed the effort for a public electric system. He has been a candidate for mayor; an organizer for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME); Communications Director for the Farm Labor Organizing Committee and the Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy; and served as national president of Veterans For Peace. He lives with Sue Carter, his wife of 35 years, two cats and a yard of native wildflowers on the western shore of Lake Erie, in Toledo, Ohio.

 

Dianne Finch

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, THE CRAFT 1: Environmental Data Visualization, 9:00 a.m.
  • Dianne Finch is a freelance journalist, consultant and book author. She's covered science, health and finance for organizations including Bloomberg News, NPR and others. Finch has created and taught courses in business and financial journalism, data visualization and audio production for Elon and Kent State universities, and also taught data visualization for Boston University's "Storytelling With Data" workshops. Her book, "Big Data in Small Slices," which teaches students and instructors how to get to know data before designing visuals, is slated for publication in January. Finch created a multimedia training program for MIT's Knight Science Journalism (KSJ) program after a nine-month fellowship there. She wrote computer programs in her earlier career, and ran an IT department in Tokyo. She holds an M.S. in journalism from Columbia University, and studied economics and computer science as an undergraduate.

 

John Flesher

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 1, The Last Good Country: Lush Forests and "Holy Waters", 5:00 a.m.
  • Event: Sunday, October 7- Wednesday, October 10, Post-Conference Tour, North America's Great Lakes
  • John Flesher is an Associated Press correspondent based in Traverse City, Michigan. As a member of the AP's Global Environment Beat Team, he covers breaking news and develops long-term enterprise on a variety of environmental issues, focusing on the Great Lakes and Upper Midwest. He has developed investigative projects on topics ranging from the deteriorating condition of the nation's flood-control levees to wastewater spills from oil and gas operations and the explosion of toxic algae in U.S. waters. Flesher has worked for the AP since 1981, beginning in Raleigh, N.C., where he covered state government and general news. He transferred to the Washington, D.C., bureau in 1989 as Michigan regional reporter, and moved to Traverse City in 1992. Before joining the AP, he was a reporter with the Goldsboro, N.C., News-Argus. Flesher was raised in Goldsboro and earned a bachelor's degree in English from North Carolina State University, where he was editor of the student newspaper.

 

Alex Flint

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, CLIMATE: Election 2018: Climate Change Reversal? 2:00 p.m.
  • Alex Flint has been the executive director of Alliance for Market Solutions since May 2017. He previously served as staff director of the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Senior Vice President of Governmental Affairs at the Nuclear Energy Institute, and as a member of President Trump’s transition team.

 

Ron Fonger

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, THE CRAFT 2: Unheard Voices: Would They Have Mattered When the Flint Story Broke? 10:45 a.m.
  • Ron Fonger has been a reporter for MLive and The Flint Journal for 23 years, and worked previously at daily newspapers in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. Since the City of Flint's water source was changed to the Flint River in April 2014, he has reported primarily on the resulting contamination of the city's water supply, the attempts to remedy it, and the legal and political fallout from the switch. As a result of this work, Fonger was named Journalist of the Year for the Detroit Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, received multiple awards from the Associated Press and Michigan Press Association, and received Northern Michigan University's award for alumni achievement.

 

Kelly Frey

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 2, Cruisin' Ground Zero: The Western Lake Erie Shoreline, 6:30 a.m.
  • J. Kelly Frey, P.E., P.S. is a graduate of the Russ College of Engineering and Technology at Ohio University and is the Sanitary Engineer for Ottawa County. He is a registered Professional Engineer and Surveyor in the State of Ohio. Mr. Frey is responsible for the overall administration of the Ottawa County, Ohio Sanitary Engineering Department including the water and wastewater systems owned by the county. During his tenure, he has been responsible for the construction of over $180M of environmental infrastructure including the Regional Water Treatment Plant and Transmission System, the Portage-Catawba Island and Danbury Township Wastewater Treatment Systems. The county's regional water system serves the City of Port Clinton, Village of Oak Harbor along with seven neighboring townships and provides nearly 200,000 users drinking water during the peak summer season. Mr. Frey has been deeply involved within the drinking water industry assisting researchers, regulators, legislators and community groups to understand the threat that Harmful Algal Blooms pose to our health, safety and welfare. He has been involved at nearly every level of all aspects of concern regarding the dangers of HAB's.

 

William Funk

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, LEGAL: Freelancers Legal Issues Workshop #1, 9:00 - 10:15 a.m.
  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, LEGAL: Freelancers Legal Issues Workshop #2, 10:45 a.m. - Noon
  • William Funk holds both a Juris Doctor and a Master's Degree in Environmental Policy from Vermont Law School, the country's top environmental law facility. He has developed a reputation for explicating complex legal, policy and scientific matters in illuminating and compelling prose. Bill's areas of journalistic expertise include endangered species and habitat preservation, wildlife crime, marine issues, history, public lands management, climate change, animal cruelty issues, wetlands mitigation, land use, environmental law, sustainability, wilderness subjects, traditional cultures, rural living and Appalachian culture. Bill is particularly interested in journalistic projects that involve some of the weightiest topics of our time: rewilding, the African poaching crisis, the Anthropocene and the Sixth Extinction. He has worked with numerous environmental NGOs and both federal and state environmental agencies, and is a skilled and eager naturalist.

 

Debra Furr-Holden

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 9, Flint: Environmental Injustice in Context, 10:00 a.m.
  • Dr. Debra Furr-Holden is an epidemiologist with expertise in addiction epidemiology, prevention science, psychosocial measurement and behavioral health equity research, interventions and policy. In the past decade, her research has focused on developing environmental strategies, structural and policy interventions to promote behavioral health and health equity. Dr. Furr-Holden has worked extensively with a wide range of partners including community-based organizations, local municipal officials and policy makers. Her research has supported legislative efforts to impact zoning as well as state-level legislation to promote behavioral health equity. Dr. Furr-Holden’s research has been well received by community stakeholders in Flint, MI who are eager to explore policy interventions to help address some of Flint’s and the nation’s greatest public health challenges, with a special emphasis on health equity and policy-level interventions. Her research is grounded in the rubrics of epidemiology and consistent with principles and practices for understanding social determinants of health and health equity. Dr. Furr-Holden is a C.S. Mott Endowed Professor of Public Health and the Interim Director at the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine Division of Public Health. She is also the Director of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities-funded Flint Center for Health Equity Solutions.

 

G

Nancy Gaarder

  • Event: Wednesday, SEJ/Climate Matters Collaborative Journalism Workshop, Telling Climate Change Stories that Matter: From Impacts to Solutions, 8:30 a.m.
  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, CLIMATE 2: Climate and You: Change Hits Home, 11:00 a.m.
  • Nancy Gaarder is a journalist at the Omaha World-Herald, where she has worked since 1995. Back when newspapers had environmental reporters, she covered that beat for The World-Herald. And for a time, she was one of the few full-time weather reporters at a daily paper. Down-sizing eliminated that position, too. Now she is night city editor and a general assignment reporter at The World-Herald. She is the author of "Nebraska Weather," a photo book that examines Nebraska's extreme weather and climate. She is a recipient of the National Weather Association Walter J. Bennett Public Service Award. She was co-chair of the SEJ conference in Oklahoma. Previous work history: Reporter/Editor, St. Joseph, Mo., News-Press, 1983-1995; Peace Corps Volunteer (community development), Cameroon, Africa, 1982. Graduate, University of Missouri School of Journalism, 1981.

 

Maria Gallucci

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, ENERGY: Cargo Shipping's Clean Energy Challenge, 9:00 a.m.
  • Maria Gallucci is a freelance science journalist and the 2017-18 Energy Journalism Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin. She currently covers clean energy development and environmental issues in the world of maritime cargo shipping. Maria was previously a reporter for Mashable, InsideClimate News, International Business Times and Mexico City press, and an editor at Makeshift magazine. More.

 

Carl Ganter

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, WATER: Water Wars or Water Peace? 11:00 a.m.
  • J. Carl Ganter is co-founder of Circle of Blue, the independent news organization that reports on global resource issues, particularly the competition between water, food, energy and the environment in a changing climate. Its multi-disciplinary reportage across the Great Lakes, U.S., China, Australia, Mexico, India and the Middle East earned the Rockefeller Foundation Centennial Innovation Award. Ganter is an award-winning photojournalist, reporter and broadcaster published in National Geographic, Rolling Stone, Time, NBC5-Chicago and others. He holds an MSJ in Investigative Reporting from Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism.

 

Lisa Gardiner

  • Event: Sunday, Breakfast, Books and Art, 8:00 a.m.
  • Dr. Lisa S. Gardiner is the author of "Tales from an Uncertain World: What Other Assorted Disasters Can Teach Us About Climate Change" (Iowa Press, 2018). She creates educational experiences about weather and climate for blogs, websites, museum exhibits and classrooms at the UCAR Center for Science Education, which is affiliated with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. She is a fan of interdisciplinary projects that utilize art and story in order to communicate science. Gardiner is the author of two and the illustrator of nine books about science for children. Before her education career, science research led Gardiner to Bahamian islands where she studied how clams and snails on the sea floor formed communities amidst wild changes in climate and sea level about 120,000 years ago. She holds a PhD in geology from the University of Georgia, BA in geology and marine science from Smith College and an MFA in creative nonfiction writing from Goucher College. L.S. Gardiner currently resides in Boulder, Colorado.

 

Scott Gast

 

Mary Ellen Geist

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, FILM: Environmental Film Screening: Pipelines, 11:00 a.m.
  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, FILM: Environmental Film Screening: Water Diversion, 2:00 p.m.
  • Mary Ellen Geist, Bureau Chief at Detroit Public Television's Great Lakes Bureau greatlakesnow.org, is an award-winning broadcast journalist and author who was born and raised in the Detroit area. She has been a broadcast journalist at ABC and CBS radio stations on the West and East coasts as well as in Chicago and in Michigan. She spent several years writing for Traverse Magazine and MyNorth.com in Northern Michigan, as well as working for CMU Public Radio and Interlochen Public Radio. She has won national and regional Edward R. Murrow Awards for best newscast and investigative reporting, and 
Associated Press Awards for best newscast, live coverage, investigative reporting and Reporter of the Year.
 She is also winner of the Michigan Notable Book Award for a book she wrote about Alzheimer's and music.

 

Justin Gerdes

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, ENERGY: U.S. Offshore Wind Power Catches a Tailwind, 2:00 p.m.
  • Justin Gerdes is an independent journalist specializing in energy issues based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is a contributing writer for Greentech Media and U.S. Correspondent for Primafila. His work has appeared at the Guardian, Forbes.com, Yale Environment 360, MotherJones.com, and City Lab, among others. More.

 

Michael Gilbertson

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 3, Canada's Chemical Valley: From Toxic to Green? 7:00 a.m.
  • Dr. Michael Gilbertson earned a PhD in Occupational and Environmental Health from the University of Stirling in Scotland. In 2012, he joined with Jim Brophy and Margaret Keith to research and publish the cause of workplace cancer in Windsor, Ontario. Their unique study examined worker exposures to mammary carcinogens and endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and their association with the incidence of breast cancer in several industries. Gilbertson was a key advisor in the 2005 article about the Aamjiwnaang community — "Declining Sex Ratio in a First Nation Community" — published in Environmental Health Perspectives, that received national and international attention. He specializes in ecotoxicology and his interests include the discovery of diseases and conditions in fish, wildlife and human populations that have been caused by exposures to toxic chemicals (and regulatory control thereof). One area of expertise is mercury in the Great Lakes. Gilbertson was one of the first scientists to document how industrial pollution in the Great Lakes resulted in deformities in fish-eating birds. He has served with the International Joint Commission, with responsibilities with the Great Lakes Science Advisory Board and the Great Lakes Water Quality Board. Though retired, Gilbertson continues to research and publish in academic journals. He is the co-founder of Getting To Know Cancer.

 

Carey Gillam

 

Marilyn Gladu

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 3, Canada's Chemical Valley: From Toxic to Green? 7:00 a.m.
  • Marilyn Gladu is a Canadian Member of Parliament (Sarnia-Lambton) and Shadow Minister for Health — Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. Marilyn Gladu has been part of the Sarnia-Lambton community for 33 years. She is a professional engineer who has worked in a variety of roles locally and globally. As a consultant, she has managed construction and commissioning teams, a team of over 100 engineers supporting the Shell refinery, and served as North American Business Director for petrochemicals and refining. During her career, Marilyn was the chair for the Canadian Society of Chemical Engineers locally and the National Director of Science and Industrial Policy for the same organization. Marilyn has been an active member and director of the Conservative associations both provincially and federally since 2006. Elected as the Member of Parliament for Sarnia-Lambton in 2015, Marilyn received the MacLean's award as "Most Collegial Parliamentarian" as voted by the other members of Parliament shortly after. She served as the Official Opposition Science Critic, as well as the Chair for the Status of Women. Marilyn takes great honor in representing Sarnia-Lambton and using her experience to ensure that Sarnia's interests are always taken forward as strongly as possible to the nation's capital (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada).

 

Gloria Gonzalez

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, CLIMATE: Here Comes the Flood, 11:00 a.m.
  • Gloria Gonzalez, an SEJ board member, is Deputy Editor of Business Insurance magazine where she covers environmental and workplace safety issues. She was previously Senior Editor at Crain Communications and News Editor at Ecosystem Marketplace where she reported and wrote stories for Ecosystem Marketplace's website and contributed to the "State of the Voluntary Carbon Markets" and "State of the Forest Carbon Markets" reports. Prior to joining the Ecosystem Marketplace team, Gloria was the Americas Editor of Environmental Finance and Carbon Finance magazines. Gloria graduated from Syracuse University with a dual degree in magazine journalism and political science.

 

Vanessa Gray

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 3, Canada's Chemical Valley: From Toxic to Green? 7:00 a.m.
  • Vanessa Gray is a Anishinaabe kwe from the Aamjiwnaang First Nation, located in Canada's Chemical Valley. As a grassroots organizer, land defender and educator, Vanessa works to decolonize environmental justice research by linking scholarly findings to traditional teachings. Vanessa is a co-founder of Aamjiwnaang & Sarnia Against Pipelines (ASAP), host of the annual Toxic Tour of Canada's Chemical Valley. She continues to take part in a diversity of tactics such as direct action, classroom lectures, co-hosting Toxic Tours and Water Gatherings. Growing up in Aamjiwnaang surrounded by petrochemical refineries has always made her question her relationship to the environment. Being Indigenous in Canada continues to be a struggle to uphold her responsibility to the Anishinaabek Territory. Vanessa knows education and understanding our interconnected struggles are essential to our ever-growing movement, yet risks must be taken to create a sustainable and just future.

 

Charles Griffith

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 7, The Future of Mobility: Visit the Test Tracks for Self-Driving Cars, 9:00 a.m.
  • Charles Griffith is the Director of the Ecology Center's Climate and Energy Program. He has more than 30 years of experience in research and advocacy on clean energy solutions, including work in both the transportation and energy sectors. Most recently, Charles has been working with Michigan utilities, state agencies and other stakeholders to develop plans for robust EV infrastructure programs within the state. Charles also coordinates Charge Up Midwest, a collaboration with other environmental and clean transportation organizations to promote EV adoption and use across key states in the region. Charles received his bachelor's degree from the University of Colorado and completed a Master of Science program at the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources and Environment.

 

Francesca Grifo

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, THE CRAFT 2: Investigating Scientific Integrity, 11:00 a.m.
  • Dr. Francesca Grifo is the Scientific Integrity Official at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She is responsible for fully implementing the Agency's Scientific Integrity Policy. Previously she was the founding director of the Scientific Integrity Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. She also served as the Director of the Science Teachers Environmental Education Program and Graduate Policy Workshop at Columbia University, and as the Director of the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History. Her government experience includes work as a Program Manager of the International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups (ICBG) for the National Institutes of Health as well as service as an American Association for the Advancement of Science, Science and Diplomacy Fellow (AAAS) for USAID's Office of Research. Dr. Grifo has held adjunct and other professorial appointments at American University, Bard College, Columbia University, and Georgetown University. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and was awarded the Distinguished Service in Science Policy Award from the Washington Academy of Sciences. Dr. Grifo received her A.B. in Biology from Smith College and her Ph.D. in Botany from Cornell University.

 

Liza Gross

 

Paul Gross

  • Event: Wednesday, SEJ/Climate Matters Collaborative Journalism Workshop, Telling Climate Change Stories that Matter: From Impacts to Solutions, 8:30 a.m.
  • Paul H. Gross is a Certified Consulting Meteorologist at WDIV Local 4 Detroit. He studied meteorology at the University of Michigan Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Science. Paul has been awarded nine Emmys by the Michigan Chapter of the National Association of Television Arts and Sciences, and his 2014 live, 45-minute climate change webcast that aired on ClickOnDetroit.com earned a first-place award from the Michigan Association of Broadcasters. A court-qualified expert in meteorology, Paul also consults with the legal community in litigation involving meteorology and has testified in nearly four dozen trials since 1986. Paul also follows the science of global warming very carefully, and frequently gives lectures to share the scientific truth about Earth's changing climate.

 

Anna Groves

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, THE CRAFT 1: Freelance Pitch Slam, 11:00 a.m.
  • Anna Marjorie Groves earned her Ph.D. in Plant Biology/Ecology, Evolutionary Biology and Behavior from Michigan State in spring 2018. After defending, she did an AAAS Mass Media Fellowship, sponsored by the American Society for Plant Biologists, at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. From there, Anna moved to a permanent position with Discover Magazine as Assistant Editor. She writes for discovermagazine.com, the print magazine and edits the print column "Notes from Earth."

 

Curt Guyette

 

H

Mona Hanna-Attisha

  • Event: Wednesday, Opening Dinner Event, Welcome to Flint, 5:00 p.m.
  • Mona Hanna-Attisha, MD, MPH, FAAP is founder and director of the Michigan State University and Hurley Children's Hospital Pediatric Public Health Initiative, an innovative and model public health program in Flint, Michigan. A pediatrician, scientist and activist, Dr. Hanna-Attisha has testified twice before the United States Congress, awarded the Freedom of Expression Courage Award by PEN America, and named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World for her role in uncovering the Flint Water Crisis and leading recovery efforts. She has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, BBC and countless other media outlets championing the cause of children in Flint and beyond. She is founding donor of the Flint Child Health and Development Fund. Dr. Hanna-Attisha received her bachelor's and Master of Public Health degrees from the University of Michigan and her medical degree from Michigan State University College of Human Medicine (MSU CHM). She completed her residency at Children's Hospital of Michigan in Detroit, where she was chief resident. She is an associate professor of pediatrics and human development at MSU CHM and author of "What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City."

 

Susan Hassol

  • Event: Wednesday, SEJ/Climate Matters Collaborative Journalism Workshop, Telling Climate Change Stories that Matter: From Impacts to Solutions, 8:30 a.m.
  • Susan Hassol is a climate change communicator, analyst and author known for her ability to translate science into English, making complex issues accessible to a wide variety of audiences for three decades. She helps scientists communicate more effectively and provides clear information on climate change to journalists and others. Susan has written and edited numerous high-level reports, including the first three U.S. National Climate Assessments. She has testified before the U.S. Senate, written an HBO documentary, provides advice internationally, addresses influential audiences and writes popular articles. Susan was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2012 for her "exceptional contributions to the communication of climate change science to policymakers and the public." See climatecommunication.org.

 

Jennifer Haverkamp

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, CLIMATE: Election 2018: Climate Change Reversal? 2:00 p.m.
  • Jennifer Haverkamp is the newly-appointed Graham Family Director of the University of Michigan's Graham Sustainability Institute. She previously served as the Obama State Department's Ambassador and Special Representative for Environment and Water Resources, directed Environmental Defense Fund's International Climate Program and was the Clinton and Bush Administration's Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Environment and Natural Resources. She has taught at Cornell Law School, George Washington Law School and Johns Hopkins graduate school. Ms. Haverkamp earned a B.A. in biology from the College of Wooster, a B.A. and an M.A. in politics and philosophy from Oxford University and a J.D. from Yale Law School.

 

Lynn Henning

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 2, Cruisin' Ground Zero: The Western Lake Erie Shoreline, 6:30 a.m.
  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, The Global Rise of HABs: Climate Change, Poor Land Use and Other Common Denominators Spurring Deadly Algal Growth Across the World, 10:45 a.m.
  • Lynn Henning is the Regional Representative for the SRAP (Socially Responsible Agricultural Project). Lynn has emerged as a leading voice calling on state and federal authorities to hold livestock factory farms accountable to water and air quality laws. With her husband, she farms 300 acres of corn and soybeans in Lenawee County, Michigan within 10 miles of 12 Concentrated Animal Feed Operations. As a result of her work to stop pollution from factory farms and to hold state and federal agencies accountable to enforcing laws, Lynn won the 2010 Goldman Environmental Prize — the environmental equivalent of the Nobel Prize. When Lynn isn't testing water downstream of factory farms, she enjoys spending quality time with her grandchildren.

 

Barry Hill

  • Event: Friday, Lunch Plenary, Tracking Trump: Environmental Rollbacks and Legal Challenges, 12:15 p.m.
  • Barry E. Hill is a Visiting Scholar at the Environmental Law Institute, and an Adjunct Professor of Law at Vermont Law School, where he has taught an environmental justice course for more than 20 years. Professor Hill is the author of the four editions of his textbook/handbook, "Environmental Justice: Legal Theory and Practice," that is used at law schools and graduate schools throughout the U.S. He has authored more than 25 articles in professional and scholarly journals. He was the Director of the Office of Environmental Justice at the U.S. EPA from 1998-2007. Professor Hill has lectured in the Middle East, Africa, South and Central America, and the Caribbean islands on a variety of environmental law and policy topics. He is the recipient of distinguished achievement awards in environmental law and policy, and a distinguished alumni award for his teaching, research and leadership related to environmental justice and sustainable development in the U.S. and abroad. He received a BA in Political Science from Brooklyn College; a MA in political science at Howard University; and a JD from the Cornell University Law School.

 

Mary Hoff

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, THE CRAFT 2: How to Freelance and Not Go Broke, 2:00 p.m.
  • Mary Hoff is editor in chief of Ensia, an independent, nonprofit magazine presenting new perspectives on environmental challenges and solutions to a global audience. She has more than two decades' experience helping to improve understanding, appreciation and stewardship of our environment through print and online media. She holds a bachelor's degree in zoology from the University of Wisconsin and a master's degree in mass communication with a science communication emphasis from the University of Minnesota.

 

Donovan Hohn

 

Emily Holden

  • Event: Friday, Lunch Plenary, Tracking Trump: Environmental Rollbacks and Legal Challenges, 12:15 p.m.
  • Emily Holden covers climate change, energy and the environment from Washington, D.C., for the Guardian. Prior to that, she covered climate change, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the White House for Politico and E&E News. Emily is originally from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

 

Jeffrey Holmstead

  • Event: Friday, Lunch Plenary, Tracking Trump: Environmental Rollbacks and Legal Challenges, 12:15 p.m.
  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, NATION: Science in the Trump Administration, 2:00 p.m.
  • Jeff Holmstead, former assistant administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Air and Radiation, is one of the nation's leading climate change lawyers as recognized by Chambers USA (2008-2018) and heads the environmental strategies group (ESG) at Bracewell. The ESG is a multi-disciplinary group that includes environmental and energy attorneys, public policy advocates and strategic communications experts — most of whom have had high-level government experience. Under Jeff's leadership, they work together on a daily basis to advise and defend companies and business groups confronting major environmental and energy-development challenges, both domestically and globally.

 

Matt Hongoltz-Hetling

 

Leana Hosea

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: Flint to the World: Water is a Human Right, 9:00 a.m.
  • Leana Hosea has worked as a multimedia journalist at the BBC for 12 years in global news. She has produced and reported stories all over the world, spending three years in the Middle East. As a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, Leana followed her long running interest in the environment. She's now completing a documentary film on water rights in the USA, with a focus on Flint and the Navajo Nation. Leana is currently the inaugural Media Fellow at the School for Environment and Sustainability, at the University of Michigan, where she is creating multimedia teaching materials and researching environment issues. @leanahosea

 

Lisa Hymas

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, GLOBE: Gender Equality and the Environment: From the Field to the Newsroom, 9:00 a.m.
  • Lisa Hymas is director of the climate and energy program at Media Matters for America. Previously, she was senior editor at the environmental news site Grist, which she co-founded. She has also worked at Greenwire, an environmental news service; Island Press, an environmental book publisher; and Tomorrow, a sustainable business magazine based in Stockholm. She's been awarded a Vermont Law School Environmental Media Fellowship and a Population Institute Global Media Award. She has appeared on MSNBC and public radio programs and at SXSW Eco and the Aspen Environment Forum. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, Slate, Salon and Mother Jones, among other venues.

 

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Dune Ives

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, NATION: The War Against Plastics: Who's Winning? 9:00 a.m.
  • Dune Ives is the Executive Director of award-winning Lonely Whale, an incubator for courageous ideas that drive impactful market-based change on behalf of our ocean. Ives designs and leads change-making initiatives that address key drivers of environmental degradation and species decline. Under Ives' leadership, efforts by Lonely Whale to reduce ocean-bound plastic have earned recognition as one of Fast Company's World Changing Ideas, Huffington Post's Top Ten Movers and Shakers in Environmental Sustainability in 2017, and highest honors from the Effy, Shorty and ADDY Awards in 2018. Ives' expertise in sustainability and environmental business issues across industries, coupled with a Ph.D. in Psychology, allow for her innovative yet practical approach to resolving challenges for our environment. Notably, she designed and oversaw Paul G. Allen's Vulcan Philanthropy, co-founded The Green Sports Alliance and was chosen as one of four "Environmental Champions of 2017" by InsideHook. Ives' contributions also include global speaking engagements at conferences including 61MDC, GLOBE 2018, Plastics Recycling Conference, Washington Post LIVE, Milken Institute of Philanthropy Expert Covening and Dell Technologies World. She has been featured in Fast Company, NPR, CNN, Grist, The Guardian, Al Jazeera and Washington Post, to name a few.

 

Derrick Jackson

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, THE CRAFT 2: Unheard Voices: Would They Have Mattered When the Flint Story Broke? 10:45 a.m.
  • Derrick Z. Jackson is a climate and energy writing fellow at the Union of Concerned Scientists and essayist for publications such as the Boston Globe, American Prospect magazine and ESPN's The Undefeated. He is co-author and photographer of "Project Puffin: The Improbable Quest to Bring a Beloved Seabird Back to Egg Rock" (Yale University Press, 2015). Jackson was a Globe columnist from 1988 to 2015, also serving on the editorial board. As a 2016 Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, he published a paper on the national media’s failed coverage of the Flint Water Crisis. Prior to the Globe, Jackson was at Newsday for nearly 10 years. He has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, a 10-time winner from the National Association of Black Journalists and winner of many other national and regional awards. Jackson’s campaign photography of Barack Obama was exhibited at Harvard and Boston's Museum of African American History. He is a two-time finalist in Outdoor Photographer magazine's The American Landscape Contest and his bird images have been re-printed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Audubon Society. Jackson is a 1976 graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, a 1984 Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard University and holds three honorary degrees.

 

John Jackson

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 5, Sail the Saginaw River and Saginaw Bay, 8:00 a.m.
  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, WATER: Great Lakes: Perspective on a Toxic Past and Binational Protection, 9:00 a.m.
  • John Jackson has worked with citizens' groups for the past 35 years, with a focus on Great Lakes issues, waste management issues, water quality and quantity issues, cleanup of toxics hot spots in the Great Lakes, and public participation and consultation. Since 2014, John has been a member of the Great Lakes Water Quality Board, a chief advisory body to the International Joint Commission (IJC). In this role he has been the leader in the board's investigation of PBDEs in the Great Lakes basin with a focus on policies to address issues with the chemicals. John worked with Great Lakes United (GLU), a coalition of citizens' groups in Canada and the U.S., for 30 years. He was responsible for GLU's programs on nuclear issues, including radioactive waste, water quality and water quantity; and binational issues, including the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA) and the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Basin Sustainable Waters Agreement. He lives in Kitchener, Ontario.

 

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Bill Kaiser

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 4, The Shape of Water... and Milk and Beer! 7:30 a.m.
  • William Kaiser is Superintendent of the City of Grand Rapids Water Resource Recovery Facility. Bill obtained his Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Michigan Technological University and has over 30 years of experience in the construction and operation of wastewater facilities throughout Michigan and New York State. Bill has served as a Board member of the Michigan Water Environmental Association (MWEA), Chair of the MWEA Health and Safety Committee and is a Water Environment Federation Hatfield Awardee.

 

Ani Kame'enui

 

Marcy Kaptur

 

Kimberly Kaufman

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 2, Cruisin' Ground Zero: The Western Lake Erie Shoreline, 6:30 a.m.
  • Kimberly Kaufman is a northwest Ohio native whose lifelong love of the outdoors grew into a passion for birds in the 1990s. She monitored nesting Bald Eagles for the Ohio Division of Wildlife and ran bluebird trails before she began banding migrant songbirds for the Black Swamp Bird Observatory (BSBO). She became the Observatory's education director in 2005 and then executive director in 2009, a position she still holds. Kimberly played a key role in starting the Observatory's highly successful Ohio Young Birders Club, a group for teenagers that has served as a model for youth programs in 16 other states, as well as The Biggest Week In American Birding, a spring event that rapidly has become one of the largest birding festivals on the continent. She is a contributing editor to Birds & Blooms magazine and coauthor of the "Kaufman Field Guide to Nature of New England" and "Kaufman Field Guide to Nature of the Midwest." Kimberly serves as Chair of the Ohio Bird Conservation Initiative, and is a member of the American Bird Conservancy board of directors.

 

Mike Keeler

  • Event: Saturday, Mini-Tour 2, Photographing Rust Belt Remains, 2:15 p.m.
  • Mike Keeler is a Flint resident who is deeply involved in the local community. He has been elected to the College Cultural Neighborhood Association, representing about 1300 east Flint households, for about 20 years. The CCNA works to educate residents about environmental, social and political issues. Since 2008 Keeler has served on the Genesee County Parks and Recreation Commission. Keeler retired from General Motors after 31 years of service. For 14 years he was elected to the UAW Local 599 board, and was the newspaper Editor-in-Chief. Keeler served on the Michigan Chapter of the Sierra Club board for 14 years, working on environmental issues in the state and the nation. He was elected at large in the state for 12 years, and served two as Chair. Keeler holds a Bachelor of Science in Fisheries and Wildlife from Michigan State University. He has maintained trails in the Holly Recreation Area for nearly three decades and helped create its trail map system. He has raised funds and organized a crew to plant more than 300 trees in Flint in the past decade.

 

Mike Kelly

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 5, Sail the Saginaw River and Saginaw Bay, 8:00 a.m.
  • Michael (Mike) Kelly is the Director of The Conservation Fund’s Great Lakes Office in Bay City, Michigan and has served in that capacity since 2000. Mike is responsible for programs such as the Saginaw Bay Watershed Initiative Network as well as land acquisition and conservation financing around the Great Lakes region through The Conservation Fund's Great Lakes Revolving Loan Fund program. Prior to working for The Conservation Fund, Mike served as City Manager for the City of Auburn and Executive Director for the Saginaw Bay Watershed Council. Mike serves on a variety of boards, including the Environmental Protection Agency's Community Advisory Group for the Saginaw/Tittabawassee River Dioxin Contamination Remediation project, the Delta College Foundation (past-chair) and the Children's Zoo at Celebration Square (chair). Mike is a former board member at the Bay Area Community Foundation. Mike has a Masters of Business Administration from Saginaw Valley State University and a B.S. in Resource Development from Michigan State University.

 

Joe Kelpinski

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 4, The Shape of Water... and Milk and Beer! 7:30 a.m.
  • Joe Kelpinski is the program manager for the Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program (MAEAP) of the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD). Joe’s responsibilities within this program include managing the day-to-day operations of the program, overseeing grants with local conservation districts, working with the MAEAP partners to continue to improve, promote and evaluate the program, and working with communication and technical committees within the program to address issues and review MAEAP standards within the MAEAP systems. Additional responsibilities include working with partners to identify opportunities and challenges for the MAEAP program. Joe is a graduate of Michigan State University. He began his career as an agriculture agent with Michigan State University Extension in Genesee County for five years. From there he spent five years as a regional swine agent in the six counties of the thumb region, focusing on environmental management and manure utilization on swine farms. Joe left that position to become one of the two initial verifiers in the MAEAP program in 2001, and worked in that capacity before becoming the MAEAP program manager in November of 2014.

 

Tony Kingsbury

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, GLOBE: Cutting the Crap: Is Reducing Waste the Key to Tackling Climate Change? 11:00 a.m.
  • Tony Kingsbury is Founder and President of TKingsbury LLC where he leads a consulting practice assisting companies and organizations understand and improve the sustainability of their packaging, plastics and chemicals. Kingsbury honed his sustainability expertise during a nearly three-decade-long career at Dow Chemical in a variety of roles including Global Plastics Sustainability Leader. He is a recognized expert in circular economy, marine plastics, green chemistry, value chain sustainability, public policy, life cycle thinking, corporate and product sustainability. He has worked with Fortune 500 companies around the globe in supply chains ranging from consumer electronics to packaging, apparel to toys. He is known for using his wide-ranging knowledge of the whole supply chain to find workable solutions to complex challenges and for distilling complex messages into understandable language. Kingsbury spent the period between 2007 and 2012 as an Executive in Residence at UC Berkeley. In this role, Kingsbury led the multidisciplinary sustainability center and taught a variety of graduate level courses on sustainability.

 

Nick Kingsley

  • Event: Saturday, Mini-Tour 5, Kayaking the Flint River, 2:15 p.m.
  • Dr. Nick Kingsley is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Michigan-Flint. He obtained his Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from the University of Toledo. His research interests are in the area of Group 13 chemistry, specifically the use of aluminum catalysts as earth abundant replacements to precious metal catalysts. He has mentored over 15 students in his research lab who went on to graduate or professional school. He has interests in Green Chemistry education across the curriculum and increasing awareness of Green Chemistry to the broader community. This fall he is teaching Green Chemistry lecture, a part of the department's new Green Chemistry Bachelor's degree program, the nation's first stand-alone Green Chemistry Bachelor's degree.

 

Dana Kirk

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 4, The Shape of Water... and Milk and Beer! 7:30 a.m.
  • Dana Kirk is an assistant professor in Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering at Michigan State University. In addition to his teaching and outreach responsibilities, he is the manager of the Anaerobic Digester Research and Education Center (ADREC). The ADREC is a collaborative effort between the University and a private foundation to provide a continuum of research, professional development and outreach support for waste-to-energy systems. ADREC research includes bench top, pilot scale and commercial anaerobic digestion systems used to evaluate feedstocks, optimize performance and integrate technologies. He has overseen design, construction and operation of three commercial scale digesters and numerous demonstration and pilot scale systems. The Michigan State University South Campus Digester was recognized by the American Biogas Council as the 2014 Institutional Project of the Year. Throughout his career, Dana has also worked on issues involving livestock nutrient management, nutrient separation and recovery, sand bedding recovery and dairy facility design.

 

Detlef Knappe

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, WATER: PFAS Contamination: This Decade's DDT, 2:00 p.m.
  • Detlef Knappe is the S. James Ellen Distinguished Professor of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering at NC State University. In 1985, he moved from a small Black Forest town in Germany to a small prairie town in Illinois, where he began his undergraduate studies at Highland Community College. In 1996, he received his PhD degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and joined the Civil and Environmental Engineering faculty at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Current efforts in the Knappe research group focus on (1) developing and evaluating physical-chemical (and sometimes biological) treatment processes for the control of contaminants in drinking water, and (2) overcoming gaps between the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act by developing information about the effects of reactive and unregulated wastewater contaminants on drinking water quality and treatment. Detlef was recently selected to serve on the Science Advisory Board of the NC Departments of Environmental Quality and Health and Human Services. He also serves as Trustee for the Water Science and Research Division of the American Water Works Association.

 

Francis Koster

 

Michelle Krebs

 

Debra Krol

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: Elevating and Improving Our Reporting on Environmental Justice Issues, 10:45 a.m.
  • Indigenous storyteller Debra Utacia Krol is an award-winning journalist with an emphasis on Native issues, environmental and science issues, and travel who's fond of averring that "My beat is Indians." She is an enrolled member of the Xolon (also known as Jolon) Salinan Tribe from the Central California coastal ranges. Krol's forceful and deeply reported stories about peoples, places and issues have won nearly a dozen awards. With nearly 20 years’ professional experience, Krol has covered topics ranging from how the Tohono O’odham Nation addressed border incursions and Arizona tribal communities’ efforts to deal with Alzheimer’s disease, to how a diverse group of artists, gallery owners and activists worked to create a live/work arts overlay district in downtown Phoenix. Krol has written for Indian Country Media Network, High Country News, Winds of Change Magazine (the journal of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society), Huffington Post, The Revelator, VICE News and many other publications. She has also contributed articles and photos to two books, "First Families: A Photographic History of California Indians" (Heyday Books, 2007) and "Seaweed, Salmon, and Manzanita Cider: A California Indian Feast" (Heyday Books, 2008).

 

Chuck Kutscher

  • Event: Wednesday, SEJ/Climate Matters Collaborative Journalism Workshop, Telling Climate Change Stories that Matter: From Impacts to Solutions, 8:30 a.m.
  • Charles F. (Chuck) Kutscher is a Fellow of the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute, a joint institute between the University of Colorado Boulder and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). He served as the Director of the Buildings and Thermal Sciences Center at NREL from 2013 until his retirement in 2018. He has worked in the field of renewable energy for over four decades, during which time he has led research in solar heating and cooling, building energy efficiency, solar industrial process heat, geothermal power and concentrating solar power. He is a Fellow of the American Solar Energy Society (ASES) and served as the Society's chair in 2000 and 2001. He led the ASES study, "Tackling Climate Change in the U.S.", a 200-page report detailing how energy efficiency and six renewable energy technologies can greatly reduce U.S. carbon emissions by 2030. He is the lead author of the third edition of the college textbook, "Principles of Sustainable Energy Systems." He obtained a B.S. in physics from the State University of New York at Albany, an M.S. in nuclear engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Colorado Boulder.

 

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Theresa Landrum

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 6, Gasoline, Garbage and Greenery in Detroit, 8:30 a.m.
  • Theresa Landrum, community organizer and activist, has been fighting against environmental injustices for over fifteen years. She is co-founder of the 48217 Community and Environmental Health Organization, a resident-based advocacy group that fights heavy polluting industries' encroachment on residential neighborhoods. Landrum is a member of the Sierra Club (a national organization fighting to restore the Great Lakes and protect the environment). She is acting Community Communications Liaison for the Original United Citizens of Southwest Detroit and a member of the Community Advisory Panel (CAP) at the Marathon Petroleum Corporation. Landrum is one of Southwest Detroit 48217's (an area the U.S. EPA deems as the most polluted zip code in Michigan) most outspoken community activists, where she promotes "Green Jobs, Less Emissions" for a cleaner environment.

 

Bruce Lanphear

  • Event: Wednesday, Opening Dinner Event, Welcome to Flint, 5:00 p.m.
  • Bruce Lanphear, MD, MPH, is a Clinician Scientist at the BC Children's Research Institute and a Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia. Over the past decade, Dr. Lanphear has become increasingly vexed by our inability to control the "pandemic of consumption" — the largely preventable, pandemic of chronic disease and disability due to widespread exposure to toxic chemicals, industrial pollutants and excess consumption. He is leading an effort to produce videos to enhance public understanding of how our health is inextricably linked with the environment and to elevate efforts to prevent disease.

 

Rebecca Leber

  • Event: Friday, Beat Dinner 5, Coping with the War on the Press, 7:00 p.m.
  • Rebecca Leber is a reporter in Mother Jones' DC bureau, where she covers environmental politics and policy. She's covered climate and energy for The New Republic, Grist and ThinkProgress, and her writing has been published by more than a dozen outlets.

 

Dolores Leonard

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 6, Gasoline, Garbage and Greenery in Detroit, 8:30 a.m.
  • Dolores V. Leonard has been a resident of Detroit's 48217 zip code community since 1955, with an environmental justice avocation since 1998. She is a retired educator and community activist.

 

Nick Leonard

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 6, Gasoline, Garbage and Greenery in Detroit, 8:30 a.m.
  • Nick Leonard worked with the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center as an Equal Justice Works fellow from 2014 to 2016. His fellowship project focused on providing transactional legal services to individuals, nonprofit corporations and for-profit businesses engaged in urban agriculture in Detroit. During the course of his project, he frequently worked on real estate transactions, lending transactions, land use and zoning, and entity formation for Detroit's burgeoning urban agriculture community. After transitioning to his role as staff attorney at the conclusion of his fellowship, Nick has worked on environmental justice issues in Detroit, with a specific focus on Clean Air Act permitting, hazardous and solid waste management, and local environmental policy. Nick received his bachelor of arts from Kalamazoo College and his juris doctor from the University of Michigan Law School. More.

 

Monica Lewis-Patrick

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, WATER: Water Wars or Water Peace? 11:00 a.m.
  • Monica Lewis-Patrick (aka The Water Warrior) is a mother, educator, entrepreneur and human rights activist/advocate. She is co-founder of We The People of Detroit and became President and CEO of the organization in 2014. Through her work with We the People, Lewis-Patrick has set up emergency water stations, opened hotlines, delivered water, provided education and conducted community research to raise awareness about water shutoffs and water affordability in Flint and Detroit. Lewis-Patrick is a Ron McNair Scholar and graduate of East Tennessee State University where she earned a BS degree in Social Work and Sociology, and Masters degree in Liberal Arts with a concentration in Criminal Justice/Sociology and Public Management.

 

Cynthia Lindsey

 

Eric Lipton

  • Event: Friday, Lunch Plenary, Tracking Trump: Environmental Rollbacks and Legal Challenges, 12:15 p.m.
  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, NATION: Science in the Trump Administration, 2:00 p.m.
  • Event: Friday, The EPA Is in Your Backyard, 5:30 p.m.
  • Event: Friday, Beat Dinner 1, A Toxic Dinner, 7:00 p.m.
  • Eric Lipton is an investigative reporter in the Washington Bureau of The New York Times, where he writes about federal regulatory policy during the Trump administration particularly as it relates to energy and the environment. He is a three-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, most recently in 2017 for foreign reporting when he was part of a team of reporters from The New York Times that wrote about Russian hacking of the 2016 election. He also won a Pulitzer in 2015 for investigative journalism, based on a series of stories about the boom in lobbying of state attorneys general. Before moving to Washington, he was based in the City Hall bureau of The Times, covering the final term of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani as well as the 2001 attacks. He is co-author of “City in the Sky, the Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center,” a book about the conception, design, construction, destruction and cleanup of the towers. Before joining The Times, Lipton spent five years each at The Washington Post and The Hartford Courant. While at The Courant, he and a colleague won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism for their stories about the flaw in the main mirror of the Hubble Space Telescope. Lipton started his daily newspaper career in 1987 at a small New Hampshire paper, The Valley News. He received a B.A. in philosophy and history from the University of Vermont.

 

Ada Lockridge

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 3, Canada's Chemical Valley: From Toxic to Green? 7:00 a.m.
  • Ada Lockridge is a member of Aamjiwnaang First Nation, an activist and a long-time client of Ecojustice, which represents Ada in the challenge against the Ontario government's failure to review how it regulates air pollution in a timely manner. Ada is contesting the Ontario government's ongoing approval of air pollution without considering cumulative effects in Sarnia’s Chemical Valley, home to 40 percent of Canada's petrochemical industry. Chemical Valley exposes Ada's community to a range of harmful air pollutants, including cancer-causing benzene and chemicals known to cause respiratory and cardiovascular problems. In 2005, Ada was co-author on a team of scientists who conducted research on the skewed birth ratio of the Aamjiwnaang community that led to a publication in Environmental Health News.

 

Abrahm Lustgarten

 

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Elaine MacDonald

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 3, Canada's Chemical Valley: From Toxic to Green? 7:00 a.m.
  • Elaine MacDonald joined Ecojustice in 1999. She has a Ph.D. in environmental engineering and applies her expertise to work related to the Great Lakes, air and water quality, toxic chemicals, pesticides and industrial pollution. Elaine leads Ecojustice’s Healthy Communities team, challenging all levels of government to protect human health and the environment, especially vulnerable individuals and marginalized communities, from harmful chemicals and pollution. Over ten years ago Elaine co-authored the report “Exposing Chemical Valley” on the impacts of cumulative air pollution emissions; she is presently working on an updated version. She has worked with members of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation to force the Ontario government to investigate spills from oil refineries. Elaine and the Ecojustice team sued the Ontario government twice on behalf of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation for failing to regulate the cumulative effects of air pollution emissions in Chemical Valley. Elaine’s investigations into Chemical Valley were covered by national media. She obtained government records that revealed over 500 industrial incidents in Chemical Valley in a two-year period with very few charges, including spills of the carcinogenic substance benzene. She exposed that 14 of the 15 refineries in Canada emit 50-60 times more air pollution than comparable refineries in the U.S. emit – and some of the worst refineries are in Chemical Valley.

 

Bobby Magill

  • Event: Saturday, Environmental Journalism Awards Luncheon, Noon
  • Bobby Magill, SEJ board president, is a reporter covering renewables, nuclear power and other energy issues for Bloomberg Environment in Washington, D.C. He was previously the senior science writer covering energy and climate change at Climate Central in New York. Bobby has also covered Western energy and environmental issues as reporter for the Fort Collins Coloradoan; the Daily Sentinel in Grand Junction, Colo.; the Post-Independent in Glenwood Springs, Colo.; the Taos News in Taos, N.M., and the Mountain Mail and Defensor Chieftain newspapers in Socorro, N.M. His freelance work has appeared in Climate Liability News, Popular Mechanics, Scientific American, The Guardian, Grist, Salon, USA Today and other publications. Find him on Twitter @bobbymagill or online at bobbymagill.com.

 

Edward Maibach

  • Event: Wednesday, SEJ/Climate Matters Collaborative Journalism Workshop, Telling Climate Change Stories that Matter: From Impacts to Solutions, 8:30 a.m.
  • Edward Maibach, PhD is a Distinguished University Professor at George Mason University, and Director of Mason's Center for Climate Change Communication. Ed's research — funded by NSF, NASA and private foundations — focuses on public engagement in climate change. He was a member of the federal committee that conducted the 3rd National Climate Assessment (released in 2014), and he co-chaired the committee's Engagement & Communication Working Group. A Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Ed earned his PhD in communication science at Stanford University, his MPH at San Diego State University, and his BA at University of California, San Diego. Previously, he has served as Associate Director of the National Cancer Institute, Worldwide Director of Social Marketing at Porter Novelli, and Board Chairman for Kidsave International.

 

Nicholas Mandros

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 2, Cruisin' Ground Zero: The Western Lake Erie Shoreline, 6:30 a.m.
  • Nick Mandros, a Toledo native, is the Ohio Environmental Council's Regional Director for northwest Ohio. His work crosses each of the OEC's policy issues but has recently been focused on nutrient-laden runoff contributing to toxic harmful algal blooms in western Lake Erie. Prior to working at the OEC, Nick was an executive staffer for the Lucas County Commissioners in Toledo when a toxin in the drinking water caused half a million people to be without access to clean water for three days in 2014. Nick takes a local approach to solving environmental issues and works with business and community leaders to strengthen state and local policies that impact water quality, renewable energy and protections for public lands.

 

Michael Mann

  • Event: Wednesday, SEJ/Climate Matters Collaborative Journalism Workshop, Telling Climate Change Stories that Matter: From Impacts to Solutions, 8:30 a.m.
  • Michael E. Mann, PhD is Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science at Penn State, with joint appointments in the Department of Geosciences and the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (EESI). He is also director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center (ESSC). Dr. Mann received his undergraduate degrees in Physics and Applied Math from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.S. degree in Physics from Yale University, and a Ph.D. in Geology & Geophysics from Yale University. His research involves the use of theoretical models and observational data to better understand Earth's climate system. Dr. Mann is author of more than 200 peer-reviewed and edited publications, numerous op-eds and commentaries, and four books including "Dire Predictions: Understanding Climate Change," "The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines," "The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial is Threatening our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy" and "The Tantrum that Saved the World."

 

Nathan Manning

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 2, Cruisin' Ground Zero: The Western Lake Erie Shoreline, 6:30 a.m.
  • Nathan Manning's primary interests are in how anthropogenic activities in a watershed can alter downstream aquatic systems. He recently started as a research scientist at the National Center for Water Quality Research at Heidelberg University. Previous research has focused on predictive modeling of harmful algal blooms in Lake Erie, the overlap in ecosystem stressors and services in the Lake Erie basin, and the development of Individual Based Models that predicted yellow perch growth and survival based on changes in sediment and algal turbidity regimes in the Western Basin. Nate received his undergraduate degree from Wittenberg University (Biology, 2001), MS from the University of Akron (Wetlands Ecology, 2005), and Ph.D. from the University of Toledo (Aquatic Ecology, 2013). He was a postdoc at the University of Michigan in the Allan (School of Natural Resources and Environment) and Scavia (Graham Sustainability Institute) labs from 2014 to 2018.

 

Sandy Marshall

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 3, Canada's Chemical Valley: From Toxic to Green? 7:00 a.m.
  • A.J. (Sandy) Marshall is a chemical engineer who started his professional career in 1984 with Polysar Inc., a Canadian rubber manufacturer and has spent over 30 years in the chemical and polymers industry. He retired as President for Lanxess Canada and is now Executive Director of Bioindustrial Innovation Canada (BIC) and CEO of the Sustainable Chemistry Alliance. At BIC, he has actively recruited new companies in green chemistry, and partnered with industry and government in key alliances to advance the bio-based chemical industry for Canada.

 

Stephanie McClellan

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, ENERGY: U.S. Offshore Wind Power Catches a Tailwind, 2:00 p.m.
  • Stephanie McClellan is the Director of the Special Initiative on Offshore Wind (SIOW), a globally recognized, US offshore wind energy policy and communications program. The SIOW is non-commercial and philanthropy-funded, and is administratively housed in the University of Delaware's College of Earth, Ocean and Environment. McClellan's work has extended from Massachusetts to North Carolina, the nearest-term offshore wind energy markets in the United States, providing cutting-edge policy and cost analysis, building a knowledge bridge between state governments, the federal government and the global offshore wind industry. Through her established leadership and convening ability, McClellan also advances collaboration within the US offshore wind sector. Prior to launching the Special Initiative in Offshore Wind in 2013, McClellan was the Director of Strategic Initiatives and Outreach for the Google-backed Atlantic Wind Connection. McClellan joined the offshore wind sector after her work on offshore wind began as Policy Director for former Delaware Governor Jack Markell. She holds a Ph.D. and Master's degree in public policy from the University of Delaware.

 

Andrew McClure

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 2, Cruisin' Ground Zero: The Western Lake Erie Shoreline, 6:30 a.m.
  • Andrew P. McClure is currently the Administrator of the City of Toledo Collins Park Water Treatment Plant. He has 25 years experience in the field and began as a treatment plant operator in Blissfield, Michigan in 1991. He left the Village of Blissfield in 1997 as their Water Treatment Plant Superintendent. He has worked as a consultant with a focus on drinking water projects from 1997 until 2010, when he returned to the City of Toledo as a professional engineer at the Collins Park Water Treatment Plant. Mr. McClure has since been promoted to Plant Administrator. Mr. McClure is a registered professional engineer in the State of Ohio, holds a Class 3 Ohio Water Supply operator's license, and is a graduate of The University of Toledo with a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering.

 

Michael McKay

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, The Global Rise of HABs: Climate Change, Poor Land Use and Other Common Denominators Spurring Deadly Algal Growth Across the World, 10:45 a.m.
  • As a regional expert working on harmful algal blooms (HABs), Robert Michael McKay was pressed into action and helped lead the scientific response to the 2014 Toledo Water Crisis following contamination of Toledo's water supply by cyanobacterial toxins. With the crisis still unfolding, McKay coordinated sampling efforts with NOAA and worked with the DOE-Joint Genome Institute and the University of Tennessee to coordinate environmental genomic analysis of the HAB. Coinciding with the scientific response, McKay was active communicating issues related to the crisis to a concerned public through television, print press and social media, and serving on regional panels. He co-organized the symposium Global Solutions to Regional Problems: Collecting Global Expertise to Address the Problem of Harmful Algal Blooms held at BGSU in April 2015. This international symposium provided a forum to share ideas and learn from approaches used around the globe related to HABs and their mitigation. McKay has also worked closely with federal legislators to address issues of water quality in Lake Erie, including the office of Congressman Bob Latta (OH 5th District) to pass H.R. 212, The Drinking Water Protection Act, legislation aimed at addressing the persistent blooms of cyanobacteria that negatively affect Ohio’s most important natural resource.

 

Julia McQuaid

 

Greg Miller

  • Event: Saturday, Mini-Tour 2, Photographing Rust Belt Remains, 2:15 p.m.
  • Gregory Michael Miller, PhD has been Director of Special Collections and University Archives at Kettering University since October 2016. A native of the Flint area, Miller (like most residents of Genesee County) had numerous relatives employed by General Motors back in the day. This led to an interest in labor history, and eventually a Ph.D. in American history from the University of Toledo in 2008.

 

Terry Miller

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 5, Sail the Saginaw River and Saginaw Bay, 8:00 a.m.
  • Terry Miller, a native of Bay County, has a BS and MA from Central Michigan University and an MAT from Saginaw Valley State University. He taught in Saginaw City Public Schools for 30 years, and has taught Western Civilization and Recent American History at Delta College for the past 19 years. In 1978, he and four other residents of Bay City founded the Lone Tree Council, a non-profit environmental group that was formed to oppose the Midland Nuclear Power plant. With the power plant’s cancellation, the group continued to promote cleanup of watershed contamination; defend both coastal and inland wetlands; and, most recently, educate on global climate change. Lone Tree Council’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) first publicized the extent of dioxin contamination in the Tittabawassee River and floodplain, and today he serves on the leadership team of the Community Advisory Group (CAG) that oversees the Dow/U.S. EPA/DEQ cleanup. He is also on the Board of Directors of BaySail, Inc., a Bay City-based non-profit that conducts environmental education on its two schooners, and the Michigan Environmental Council, a state-based coalition of over 70 organizations.

 

William Mitsch

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, The Global Rise of HABs: Climate Change, Poor Land Use and Other Common Denominators Spurring Deadly Algal Growth Across the World, 10:45 a.m.
  • Prof. Bill Mitsch has been Eminent Scholar and Director, Everglades Wetland Research Park, and Juliet C. Sproul Chair for Southwest Florida Habitat Restoration at Florida Gulf Coast University in Naples Florida since 2012. He received a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Notre Dame, and an M.E. in environmental engineering and a Ph.D. in systems ecology at the University of Florida. Before returning to Florida, he served the last 26 years as Distinguished Professor of Environmental Science and Founding Director of the Olentangy River Wetland Research Park at The Ohio State University. He currently holds courtesy or emeritus faculty appointments at University of South Florida, University of Florida and The Ohio State University. His research and teaching have focused on wetland ecology and biogeochemistry, ecological modelling and ecological engineering of wetlands, rivers and landscapes. His over 700 publications include the textbook/reference book “Wetlands” and two ecological engineering books. He founded in 1992 and served for 25 years as editor-in-chief of the international journal Ecological Engineering. He is Past President of the Society of Wetland Scientists and American Ecological Engineering Society. He has given almost 400 invited presentations around the world on wetlands, ecological engineering and restoration, and related topics.

 

Rowan Moore Gerety

 

Susan Moran

 

Charles Morris

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, NATION: Faith and the Environment: How Religious Leaders Are Changing Hearts in Support of Eco-justice, 10:45 a.m.
  • Father Charles Morris, an ordained Catholic priest, is the administrator of St. Mary of Redford Parish in Detroit. He is the founder of Michigan Interfaith Power & Light, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to inspire and equip people of faith to be good stewards of the environment. He also is an assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies and Theology at Madonna University. His efforts to install solar panels and to advocate for environmental sustainability in houses of worship in Michigan have been featured in the New York Times, CBS Sunday Morning News, Sierra Magazine and other news media. He has received the Michigan Green Leader award from the Detroit Free Press and is one of the co-winners of the Green Burial Council's National Leaders Award. From 1994 to 2001 he served as a chaplain for Native American ministry for the Archdiocese of Detroit. He has a M.A. in sociology from the University of Michigan, a master of divinity degree from St. John Provincial Seminary and a masters in urban planning from Wayne State University.

 

Jim Motavalli

 

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Josiah Neeley

 

Rachel Nuwer

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, THE CRAFT 2: How to Freelance and Not Go Broke, 2:00 p.m.
  • Event: Sunday, Breakfast, Books and Art, 8:00 a.m.
  • Rachel Nuwer is an award-winning freelance journalist who regularly contributes to the New York Times, National Geographic, BBC Future and more. Her first book, "Poached: Inside the Dark World of Wildlife Trafficking" (September 2018, Da Capo), takes readers on a narrative journey around the world to explore the sources of demand for animals and their parts, the impacts of poaching and illegal trade on species and people, and the solutions for curbing the crisis. Rachel is also a recipient of the 2018 SEJ environmental reporting awards, winning first place for beat reporting for a large market. @rachelnuwer

 

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San Juana Olivares

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 9, Flint: Environmental Injustice in Context, 10:00 a.m.
  • San Juana "Juani" Olivares, a Flint resident, is the President and CEO of the Genesee County Hispanic and Latino Collaborative (GCHLC). When the Flint Water Crisis began, Juani asked Spanish-speaking families in Flint, Michigan what they knew about the crisis. She found most of the undocumented community didn't understand or have any knowledge of the situation. The resources that were initially made available required a valid ID or license, and documentation, which was impossible for the undocumented to obtain. Realizing there was a need that no one had addressed, Juani left her position as the Executive Director of the Flint Hispanic Technology Center to assist these people. She led volunteer efforts to find clean water for them; accepted bottled water donations; researched information on lead; spoke with local, state and federal government officials and national organizations. She was invited to New York to speak with the United Nations Board and to Washington DC to speak with government officials about the impact of the Flint water crisis on people, and the lack of information in Spanish or other languages. She set up Health Clinics for the people of Flint to receive free blood testing and signed up those that qualified for insurance.

 

Isaiah Oliver

  • Event: Wednesday, Opening Dinner Event, Welcome to Flint, 5:00 p.m.
  • Isaiah M. Oliver is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Community Foundation of Greater Flint, a charitable organization focused on engaging people in philanthropy to build a stronger community. He leads the Foundation's strategic priorities around improving literacy rates, increasing access to healthy food, strengthening resident-led neighborhood improvements and providing critical resources to the children affected by the Flint Water Crisis. Isaiah advocates for an inclusive approach to philanthropy that listens to and works with the people of the community in order to develop a true partnership. This approach allows both the people of a community and engaged philanthropists to be fully vested in and empowered to develop solutions. He will lead CFGF during a significant period of growth. The foundation ended 2016 with over $200 million in assets and set a new record for grantmaking — $9.9 million. At the same time, CFGF became the home for gifts from over 18,000 donors who gave $18 million to the Flint Child Health & Development Fund and over $9 million to establish a new early education center.

 

Erik Olson

 

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Lisa Palmer

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, GLOBE: Reporting Beyond Our Borders: Funding and Navigating International Trips, 2:00 p.m.
  • Over two decades in national and international media gives author and journalist Lisa Palmer a global perspective and experience across multiple storytelling platforms. Her award-winning coverage of science, nature and sustainability has been published by The Guardian, Scientific American, The New Republic, Yale E360, Slate, the Nature journals, Climate Connections and The New York Times, among many others. She is the author of "HOT, HUNGRY PLANET: The Fight to Stop a Global Food Crisis in the Face of Climate Change" (St. Martin's Press; 2017). She is a senior fellow at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, where she researches and writes about complex environmental stories through long-form storytelling and documentary film production. She is a two-time grantee of the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, a fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation and was a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center 2014-2015. She is a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists, the National Association of Science Writers and the D.C. Science Writers Association.

 

Faye Park

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, NATION: The War Against Plastics: Who's Winning? 9:00 a.m.
  • Faye Park is the President of the United States Public Interest Research Group (USPIRG) and the Executive Vice President of The Public Interest Network (TPIN). One of her earliest campaigns was a campaign to reduce packaging waste in Massachusetts, and she currently serves as the chairperson of TPIN's Zero Waste program team. Groups in The Public Interest Network have been central to many successful campaigns to address plastic litter and other waste problems. Environment California was a driving force behind the "straw bill" passed in August which mandates that full-service restaurants only serve plastic straws upon request — two years after a successful campaign to institute a statewide ban on single-use plastic bags. Environment Connecticut was a leading advocate of successful legislation in 2014 that doubled Connecticut's recycling goal and reduced the state's reliance on waste incineration. And since MASSPIRG led a lengthy campaign to pass the Bottle Bill in Massachusetts in 1981, PIRGs in Oregon, Michigan, Connecticut and other states have been instrumental in adopting and defending similar Bottle Bills.

 

Terry Parris Jr.

 

Tawana Petty

  • Event: Friday, Opening Plenary, The Future of News, 9:00 a.m.
  • Tawana "Honeycomb" Petty is a mother, social justice organizer, youth advocate, poet and author. She is the founder and director of Petty Propolis, where she gets to grow through organizing transformative art and education initiatives. Honeycomb is a four-time author and founding member of Riverwise Magazine, the Data Justice Coordinator for the Detroit Community Technology Project, a member of the Detroit Digital Justice Coalition, a Detroit Equity Action Lab fellow and a board member of the James and Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership. Honeycomb has been widely recognized for her social justice contributions. She is a past recipient of the Spirit of Detroit Award, the Woman of Substance Award, the Women Creating Caring Communities Award, the Detroit Awesome Award, the University of Michigan Black Law Student Association's Justice Honoree Award, was recognized as one of Who's Who in Black Detroit in 2013 and 2015, and was awarded the Wayne State Center for Peace and Conflict Studies Peacemaker Award in 2018.

 

Will Potter

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, THE CRAFT 1: Keeping Your Data Safe and Secure, 10:45 a.m.
  • Event: Sunday, Breakfast, Books and Art, 8:00 a.m.
  • Will Potter is an investigative journalist who focuses on civil liberties and human rights abuses post-9/11. Pulitzer-Prize winner Glenn Greenwald said he is the "most knowledgeable journalist in the country on these issues," and National Book Award winner Andrew Solomon describes his work as "fiercely courageous." His book "Green Is the New Red" was awarded a Kirkus Star for "remarkable merit," and Will was the first journalist to be selected as a TED Senior Fellow. He is currently a faculty member at the University of Michigan, where he is shaping the future of journalism at the university. twitter: @will_potter

 

Pamela Pugh

 

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Roop Raj

  • Event: Friday, Opening Plenary, The Future of News, 9:00 a.m.
  • Roop Raj anchors the early morning newscast on Fox 2 and then reports LIVE for the 6:00 - 11:00 a.m. newscasts. He spent seven years in New Orleans as morning anchor/reporter at one of the TV stations there. Roop was there for three years before Hurricane Katrina and spent following four years covering the city's recovery. Before that he worked as a reporter, anchor and weatherman at the NBC station in Flint, MI for four years. But it all started in Troy, MI where Roop began his TV career at the age of 14 when he created, produced and hosted a public-affairs talk show on the government access station. One year later, Roop was deemed one of the nation's youngest TV personalities when he appeared on The Phil Donahue Show. While attending Michigan State University, he worked at the Lansing CBS and ABC affiliates. Roop is a big believer in the bright future of the Flint/Detroit areas. After his years in New Orleans, he is confident that great cities can come back from the worst adversities.

 

Sallie Randolph

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, LEGAL: Freelancers Legal Issues Workshop #1, 9:00 - 10:15 a.m.
  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, LEGAL: Freelancers Legal Issues Workshop #2, 10:45 a.m. - Noon
  • Sallie Randolph Esq. is a practicing attorney, freelance writer, and publishing consultant. She concentrates her law practice on the representation of authors, often consulting with or serving as co-counsel to other attorneys on publishing cases. A frequent speaker at programs for lawyers and writers, she has also taught law, writing and journalism in a variety of educational settings, including a course in media law for journalism majors. The author of seven books, Sallie is a former reporter for the Buffalo News, a former editor of the Sierra Atlantic, the official publication of the New York State (Atlantic Chapter) Sierra Club, and a former editorial consultant and reporter at a respected weekly newspaper. Sallie holds a B.A. from the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University and is a cum laude graduate of State University of New York at Buffalo School of Law. She is a member of several bar associations and writers organizations. After more than two decades as a solo practitioner, Sallie has recently joined the practice of a respected colleague, Stephanie "Cole" Adams, in an of counsel capacity.

 

Shantha Ready Alonso

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, NATION: Faith and the Environment: How Religious Leaders Are Changing Hearts in Support of Eco-justice, 10:45 a.m.
  • Shantha Ready Alonso has served as Executive Director of Creation Justice Ministries since 2015. Creation Justice Ministries educates, equips and mobilizes faith communities to protect, restore and rightly share God's creation. Its membership includes 38 Christian traditions, including Orthodox, historically Black, Baptist, Peace and Mainline Protestant church bodies, all together serving about 100,000 congregations in the United States. Based on the priorities of its members, with a particular concern for people who are most vulnerable and marginalized, Creation Justice Ministries provides collaborative opportunities to build ecumenical community, guides people of faith and faith communities towards eco-justice transformations, and raises a collective witness in the public arena echoing Christ's call for just relationships among all of Creation. Learn more about Creation Justice Ministries here and find Creation Justice Ministries on social media at www.facebook.com/CreationJustice and @CreationJustice.

 

Andrew Revkin

 

Levi Rickert

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: Indigenous Rights: The State of Environmental Sovereignty, 11:00 a.m.
  • Levi Rickert is the publisher and editor of Native News Online, one of America's most read daily American Indian publications. In addition, he is editor-in-chief of the Tribal Business Journal, a monthly print magazine that is sent to all American Indian tribes in Indian Country. During the Standing Rock resistance to construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline that threatened to destroy the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's sole source for its drinking water, Native News Online published some 100 articles on the multi-month movement. Rickert traveled to Standing Rock, Lansing and Washington, D.C. to cover the movement. As the result of over 1,600 photographs taken by Rickert, Native News Online and Grand Valley State University produced a traveling exhibition named "Standing Rock: Photographs of an Indigenous Movement." The exhibition contains 23 panels that have 53 photographs with accompanying narratives. Rickert is also the author of several published essays. His most recent, "Indian Pride," appears in "Voice on the Water: Great Lakes Native America Now" (Northern Michigan University Press). Additionally, Rickert co-produced with Audrey Geyer, "Our Fires Still Burn: The Native American Experience," a documentary film in which he appeared depicting stories of Michigan American Indians.

 

Rochelle Riley

 

Ed Rivet

  • Event: Saturday, Mini-Tour 1, Renewable Energy Under Trump, 2:15 p.m.
  • Ed Rivet is the Executive Director of the Michigan Conservative Energy Forum, serving in that role since May 2018. Ed was a founding member of MICEF's Leadership Council in 2014. Prior to joining MICEF, Ed served for over 30 years as the Legislative Director for Michigan's largest grassroots political organization. Previously he worked as a legislative staffer in the Michigan House of Representatives. He holds a bachelor's and master's degree from Michigan State University. A clean energy advocate, Ed's "Personal Renewable Portfolio" at his home includes a geothermal heating/cooling system, an 11 KW solar array and a biomass heating unit (aka "a wood stove"). Also a part-time media member, Ed hosts a 1-hour state and local news radio program, the Capital City Recap on 1320 AM in Lansing. Ed has been married to Michelle for 32 years, with six children.

 

Carrie Rivette

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 4, The Shape of Water... and Milk and Beer! 7:30 a.m.
  • Carrie Rivette is Stormwater Manager for the City of Grand Rapids. Carrie is a Professional Engineer with a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Engineering from Michigan Technological University. She has over 20 years of experience in the environmental and water resources field. Currently, she is Chair of the Lower Grand River Organization of Watersheds.

 

Marvin Roberson

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 1, The Last Good Country: Lush Forests and "Holy Waters", 5:00 a.m.
  • Marvin Roberson is a Forest Ecologist for the Michigan Sierra Club. He was born and raised in Michigan, and has lived there his entire life, with most of the last 30 years in the Upper Peninsula. His areas of focus include forests and wildlife, with an emphasis on restoration and protection of large-scale processes and populations, with the intent of achieving ecosystems which have species and age class distributions within the Natural Range of Variability. He believes that our forests are skewed too heavily towards young, early successional forests. He has been involved in forest and wildlife management at many levels, including participation in the groups which formulated the Michigan Deer Management Plan and the Michigan Wolf Management Plan.

 

Carolyn Robinson

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, THE CRAFT 1: Solutions Journalism: Integrating Impact and Covering Progress, 2:00 p.m.
  • Carolyn Robinson is a video journalist, media development program director and educator. She began her career with CNN's medical news unit in Atlanta before relocating to Asia and the Middle East, first as a senior news producer in Hong Kong, and then in East Timor, where she ran the local TV station for the United Nations. She was the Internews Program Director in post-revolution Libya, overseeing journalism training projects in Tripoli and Benghazi. She has received a Jefferson Fellowship, a Freedom Forum Fellowship and four Knight International Journalism Fellowships, and has trained journalists in almost two dozen countries.

 

Rachel Rohr

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, GLOBE: Reporting Beyond Our Borders: Funding and Navigating International Trips, 2:00 p.m.
  • Rachel Rohr is a 2018-19 Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, studying new approaches to news for teenagers, with an eye toward media literacy and civic engagement. She is on a leave of absence from her role as managing editor of The GroundTruth Project, a nonprofit based at WGBH in Boston that supports the next generation of journalists through fellowship programs and its initiative Report for America. Rachel also produces the podcast GroundTruth, which recently received an Online Journalism Award and a National Edward R. Murrow Award. Previously, Rachel ran the digital and social media side of NPR’s Here & Now show, worked as a producer and news writer at Boston's NPR station WBUR, and was a staff reporter at the Vineyard Gazette on Martha’s Vineyard.

 

Tik Root

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, THE CRAFT 1: Solutions Journalism: Integrating Impact and Covering Progress, 2:00 p.m.
  • Tik Root is a freelance journalist working across mediums. From faith-based climate action in Mississippi, to an oil-drilling ban in Belize, he often explores the front lines of environmental issues, as well as potential paths forward. His work has appeared with National Geographic, The Washington Post and Harper's, among other outlets.

 

Elizabeth Royte

 

John Rumpler

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, The Global Rise of HABs: Climate Change, Poor Land Use and Other Common Denominators Spurring Deadly Algal Growth Across the World, 10:45 a.m.
  • John Rumpler, Senior Director, Clean Water for America Campaign and Senior Attorney. John directs Environment America's work to protect our rivers, lakes, streams and drinking water. He has co-authored several research reports — including Get the Lead Out, Fracking by the Numbers, and Corporate Agribusiness and the Fouling of America's Waterways. John has also testified before Congress on enforcement of clean water laws. His current efforts include defending the Clean Water Act, curbing pollution from factory farms and working to "Get the Lead Out" of drinking water. Prior to his position at Environment America, John represented community organizations in public interest and environmental law. He began his environmental activism at Tufts University in 1985, and then worked in various roles with the PIRGs before earning his law degree at Northeastern University School of Law in 1996. John lives and works in Boston. He enjoys cooking, tennis, chess and building sandcastles.

 

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Edna Sabucco

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 9, Flint: Environmental Injustice in Context, 10:00 a.m.
  • Edna Sabucco leads a neighborhood group on Flint's very distressed east side. She has lived there all her life and remembers the days when it was a friendly, family-oriented community. She and several neighbors started a small group, got some funding, learned along the way how to start a group, work with nonprofits to secure funding. They've done several neighborhood cleanups, but their biggest project is the eight empty lots across the street from her house which they've taken over from the Genesee County Land Bank and are turning into a community park that will have fruit trees and a few garden beds.

 

Rick Sadler

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, NATION: From the Skyline to the Streets: Covering the Urban Environment Beat, 11:00 a.m.
  • Rick Sadler is a medical geographer by training and an Assistant Professor in the Division of Public Health at Michigan State University in Flint. His work is rooted in community partnerships and aimed at strengthening the understanding between the built environment and health behaviors/outcomes, with the goal of informing land use policy to build healthier cities. His work on the Flint Water Crisis has provided him with the opportunity to highlight and build on the evidence showing how deliberate disinvestment in cities and the creation of subsidies for suburbanization have contributed to (and will continue to influence) serious infrastructure and public health problems nationwide.

 

Rob Sargent

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, ENERGY: U.S. Offshore Wind Power Catches a Tailwind, 2:00 p.m.
  • Rob Sargent is the Clean Energy Program Director for Environment America. For three decades, he has played a leading role advocating for strong clean energy and climate policies in the states, including state renewable electricity standards, carbon caps and clean cars programs. Rob has authored and co-authored many reports on climate solutions, including "We Have the Power: 100% Renewable Energy for a Clean, Thriving America," "Wind Power to Spare: The Enormous Energy Potential of Atlantic Offshore Wind," "Renewables on the Rise: A Decade of Progress Toward a Clean Energy Future" and "Making Sense of Energy Storage: How Storage Technologies Can Support a Renewable Future." He helped launch Voices for 100% Renewable Energy. He's currently the president of the board of the Toxics Action Center and has served on the board of numerous civic and environmental organizations. He is a graduate of the University of Vermont.

 

Dianne Saxe

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 3, Canada's Chemical Valley: From Toxic to Green? 7:00 a.m.
  • Dr. Dianne Saxe is the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario (ECO), the province's watchdog over environmental, energy and climate performance. The ECO also acts as the guardian of the Environmental Bill of Rights, 1993 (EBR). Saxe is an environmental lawyer with 40 years of experience litigating Ontario's energy and environmental laws. She established one of Canada's environmental law boutiques and also worked for two major Bay Street law firms.

 

Florian Schaub

 

Zoe Schlanger

 

Nick Schroeck

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 8, Recovering the City: Detroit's Waterways and Land Re-Use, 9:30 a.m.
  • Nick Schroeck is director of clinical programs and associate professor of law at University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, whose work focuses on air and water pollution, environmental justice, transportation and citizen suit enforcement. Prior to joining Detroit Mercy Law, he directed the Transnational Environmental Law Clinic, taught environmental law at Wayne State University Law School and served as executive director of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center. Schroeck has litigated cases for the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and other prominent environmental advocacy organizations. He is a regular interview contact for National Public Radio, WDET-FM, and other national and local media for analysis on current environmental issues.

 

Mike Score

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 6, Gasoline, Garbage and Greenery in Detroit, 8:30 a.m.
  • Mike Score was born in Detroit, Michigan. He developed an interest in agriculture by working on the farm near Saginaw, Michigan during his younger years. Score has a degree in Crop and Soil Sciences, and in Rural Sociology. Work assignments have included serving as an agricultural extension worker for Michigan State University and the University of Kentucky. He also served as a development worker, through the Mennonite church, in Zaire, Africa, and in south eastern Kentucky. This work included practical experience in production of grains, forages, fruits, vegetables, livestock, forestry and mining reclamation. It also included mediation of conflicts at community levels. Score also developed expertise as a small business adviser. He provided business planning and implementation services to food and agricultural businesses in Southeast Michigan. Mike Score has served as president of Hantz Farms since 2009.

 

Dean Scott

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, CLIMATE: Election 2018: Climate Change Reversal? 2:00 p.m.
  • Dean Scott is Bloomberg Environment's Senior Climate Change and Capitol Hill environment reporter, covering U.S. and global climate and energy issues. In 30 years of reporting, he also has covered Supreme Court business cases and the environment for Kiplinger Editors as well as local and state politics for several newspaper groups. Scott reports daily from Capitol Hill, where he tracks the Trump administration's regulatory rollbacks and congressional debates on the economic impacts of environmental rules. He has covered environmental, regulatory reform, budget and other federal policy issues since 1991. Dean also covers the Paris climate agreement, including Trump's plan to withdraw the U.S. from the deal; he has attended and covered all 13 of the last United Nations international climate change summits between more than 190 nations. He has appeared on programs including C-SPAN's Washington Journal, the Diane Rehm Show, Bloomberg Radio's Politics Policy and Power, Bloomberg TV, WTOP radio, Sirius-XM's POTUS radio, and National Public Radio and CBS Radio affiliates. Dean has received multiple awards from the National Press Club and the Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association. Dean earned a B.S. in Journalism from the University of Maryland's College of Journalism and an M.A. in Government from Johns Hopkins University.

 

A.Tianna Scozzaro

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, GLOBE: Gender Equality and the Environment: From the Field to the Newsroom, 9:00 a.m.
  • A.Tianna Scozzaro is the Director of the Sierra Club's Gender, Equity & Environment Program, where she advocates for national and global climate and environment policies to support women and marginalized communities. A.Tianna has more than 10 years' experience at the intersection of gender and climate. Previously, A.Tianna has worked on the UN Sustainable Development Goals and supported national health and environment policy advocacy in East Africa and conducted research about women's environmental stewardship in Congress. She served on the board of the Global Gender and Climate Alliance, as a sustainability associate at PAI, and a program manager at Rachel's Network, a national network of women environmental philanthropists. A.Tianna also served as a public policy fellow for the U.S. House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming in the aftermath of the BP oil spill. She has lived and worked in Bolivia, Chile, Guatemala and Spain. A.Tianna holds an MPA in Environmental Science and Policy from Columbia University and an undergraduate degree from University of California at Davis. In 2016, A.Tianna was elected as an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner (ANC 1C04) in Washington D.C.'s Adams Morgan neighborhood, where she also runs the annual Adams Morgan Day festival.

 

Eric Seals

 

Sabrina Shankman

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, ENERGY: Natural Gas and Climate Change: What's the Real Story? 11:00 a.m.
  • Sabrina Shankman is a reporter for InsideClimate News focusing on the Arctic. She joined ICN in the fall of 2013, after helping produce documentaries and interactives for the PBS show "Frontline" since 2010 with 2over10 Media. She is the author of the ICN book "Meltdown: Terror at the Top of the World," and was named a finalist for the Livingston Awards for Young Journalists for that work. Shankman has a Masters in Journalism from UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism.

 

Jacob Shapiro

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 3, Canada's Chemical Valley: From Toxic to Green? 7:00 a.m.
  • Early in his career, Dr. Jacob Shapiro worked at Canadian Industries Ltd. (C-I-L), where he held senior management positions in technology and business. Since 1991, Dr. Shapiro has advised Aamjiwnaang and Walpole Island First Nations, government and industry on the reduction of toxic emissions. His expertise is in the reduction of Criteria Air Pollutants/Contaminants including SO2, NOx, VOC (benzene and others), Particulate Matter and other toxic substances from Ontario refineries, petrochemical plants and other manufacturing sectors. He also offers advice on the management of Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS) in Canada to protect the Earth's ozone layer from toxic substances that are widely used by industry. He was educated at McGill University and the University of Cambridge, England, is married and has three children and six grandchildren.

 

Elizabeth Shogren

 

Wenona Singel

 

Anna Smith

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, GLOBE: Gender Equality and the Environment: From the Field to the Newsroom, 9:00 a.m.
  • Anna V. Smith is an assistant editor with High Country News magazine, where she writes and edits for the tribal affairs desk. Anna was born and raised in Oregon, where she went to the University of Oregon and received a double major in journalism and environmental studies. She then worked on Washington state's San Juan Islands as a local news reporter before joining HCN in Colorado. Now based in Oregon once again, Anna covers Indigenous issues in the Pacific Northwest and in 2018 was awarded Best Coverage of Native America from the Native American Journalists Association.

 

Lisa Song

 

Dave Spratt

  • Event: Sunday, October 7- Wednesday, October 10, Post-Conference Tour, North America's Great Lakes
  • Dave Spratt is Chief Executive Officer of the Institute for Journalism & Natural Resources. For more than 20 years, Dave was a fixture at daily newspapers in Colorado and Michigan, writing and editing sports, features and news, nurturing young writers and staring longingly out the window where the real action was. Dave left inky fingers behind in 2009, when he took a buyout from the Detroit News to freelance and carry coolers for IJNR until being named CEO in January 2013. Dave is a lifelong lover of the outdoors and frequent end user of clean air, clear water and healthy habitat — human and otherwise. Easily distracted by wildlife, Dave lives just outside Ann Arbor, Michigan, with his wife Sarah, a neurotic terrier named Lily, and a laid-back pit bull named Flo, who all eagerly await the next visit home from their college-going daughters Emma and Natalie.

 

Michael Staal

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 4, The Shape of Water... and Milk and Beer! 7:30 a.m.
  • Michael Staal is a project manager for the City of Grand Rapids, where he focuses on stormwater management, design of green infrastructure and management of Grand River Revitalization project. Michael was born and raised in Grand Rapids, MI, and after graduating from Michigan State University with a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering, he worked for six years at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Detroit District. Michael has a passion for educating and connecting with people and currently serves as the Chair of the Public Engagement Committee for the Lower Grand River Organization of Watersheds.

 

Katrease Stafford

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 8, Recovering the City: Detroit's Waterways and Land Re-Use, 9:30 a.m.
  • Katrease Stafford is an award-winning journalist and Detroit government reporter at the Detroit Free Press. Stafford, a Detroit native, has received several awards for her work, including the Society of Professional Journalists' 2017 Young Journalist of the Year Award, the 2017 Detroit Young Professionals Vanguard award and the 2014 Rookie Writer Award from the Michigan Press Association. She was also named a 2016 Fellow of the Loyola Law School, Los Angeles' prestigious Journalist Law School. She sits on the board of directors for the SPJ Detroit chapter and is a board member of Eastern Michigan University's student newspaper, The Eastern Echo.

 

John Stine

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, WATER: Great Lakes: Perspective on a Toxic Past and Binational Protection, 9:00 a.m.
  • John Linc Stine is the commissioner of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. He joined the MPCA in March 2011 as Deputy Commissioner. Prior to joining the MPCA, John served as Assistant Commissioner at the Minnesota Department of Health where he was responsible for overseeing the department's public health emergency preparedness, environmental health, infectious disease prevention/control and the public health laboratory functions. John also worked for 25 years with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources as a hydrologist and administrator specializing in shoreland, flood plain, wild and scenic river programs, water resource management and regulation. John also served as Assistant Director of the Trails and Waterways division.

 

Kelly Straka

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 1, The Last Good Country: Lush Forests and "Holy Waters", 5:00 a.m.
  • Dr. Kelly Straka is a wildlife veterinarian and the supervisor of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Health Section. She holds a BS in Fisheries and Wildlife Management, a Master's in Public Health and a DVM in Interdisciplinary Medicine from the University of Minnesota. Kelly is the chair of the Midwest Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies Wildlife Health Committee, and is active in several national wildlife health initiatives. When not thinking or talking about emerging wildlife health issues, Dr. Straka can be found actively trying to spend more time on the pathology floor with her staff — much to their chagrin.

 

Neil Strassman

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, WATER: Water Infrastructure: Pipes, Plants and Problems, 10:45 a.m.
  • Neil Strassman wrote for community and alternative newspapers in San Diego and later worked for two public radio stations in Seattle as a host of music and news-interview shows. He worked for 20 years as an environment, science and political reporter at the Long Beach (California) Press-Telegram and Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He was then chief of staff and administrator for the elected chief executive of Tarrant County, Texas, and is now an independent journalist.

 

Rachael Strecher

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, GLOBE: Reporting Beyond Our Borders: Funding and Navigating International Trips, 2:00 p.m.
  • Rachael Strecher is Director of Storytelling Grants at the National Geographic Society (NGS), where she leads grant making to support photographers, writers, film makers, data visualization experts, cartographers and other storytellers. Prior to her time at NGS, she launched and ran the Aspen Institute's New Voices Fellowship, a program designed to bring expert voices from the developing world into the global development discussion. Rachael began her career as a photojournalist in the Middle East, where she covered stories for the Associated Press and other outlets. She has a particular interest in innovative media and expanding the roster of who tells the world's stories.

 

Meera Subramanian

  • Event: Wednesday, SEJ/Climate Matters Collaborative Journalism Workshop, Telling Climate Change Stories that Matter: From Impacts to Solutions, 8:30 a.m.
  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, CLIMATE 2: Climate and You: Change Hits Home, 11:00 a.m.
  • Event: Sunday, Book Slam, 11:00 a.m.
  • Meera Subramanian is a freelance journalist and former MIT Knight Science Journalism Fellow. Her first book, "A River Runs Again: India's Natural World in Crisis, from the Barren Cliffs of Rajasthan to the Farmlands of Karnataka," was short-listed for the 2016 Orion Book Award. Covering environmental stories from biomass cookstoves to vulture extinction, her award-winning features have been published in Nature, The New York Times, The New Yorker.com, Orion and others. She is currently working on Finding Middle Ground, a series exploring perceptions of climate change across America for InsideClimate News. You can find her at www.meerasub.org and @meeratweets.

 

Nikhil Swaminathan

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: Diversity Within Environmental Groups: Has Anything Changed? 2:00 p.m.
  • Nikhil Swaminathan is the executive editor of Grist, the leading environmental news site. Previously, he led the publication's environmental justice coverage. He's held editorial positions at Scientific American, Al Jazeera America, GOOD, Archaeology and others. Prior to joining Grist, he was in the inaugural class of Ida B. Wells fellows at The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute.

 

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Kristi Tanner

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, THE CRAFT 1: Environmental Data Visualization, 9:00 a.m.
  • Kristi Tanner, PhD, is a data analyst/reporter at the Detroit Free Press. Tanner's research interests include urban politics and policy. She is also an adjunct professor at Wayne State University where she teaches graduate level statistics. She has years of experience in data analysis in the private, public and nonprofit sectors. She earned her PhD and Master of Public Policy Administration at the University of Missouri – St Louis.

 

Dorceta Taylor

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: Diversity Within Environmental Groups: Has Anything Changed? 2:00 p.m.
  • Dorceta E. Taylor is a professor at the University of Michigan's School for Environment and Sustainability. In 2018 she received the National Audubon Society's Rachel Carson Women in Conservation award. She recently received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring. Taylor has written extensively about the American conservation movement in her books, "The Rise of the American Conservation Movement" and "The Environment and the People in American Cities." She is also the author of "Toxic Communities." She studies diversity in the environmental movement and is the director of two diversity programs — the Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program and the Environmental Fellows Program.

 

Heather Taylor-Miesle

 

Andrea Thompson

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, THE CRAFT 1: Freelance Pitch Slam, 11:00 a.m.
  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, CLIMATE: Blaming Climate Change for Disasters and Suffering, 9:00 a.m.
  • Andrea Thompson is the associate editor for sustainability at Scientific American, writing and editing stories about climate change, conservation, pollution and other environmental topics for the website and print magazine. She was formerly with Climate Central and Live Science. Andrea has a BS and Master's in earth and atmospheric science, as well as Master of Arts from NYU's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program.

 

Jessica Tischler

  • Event: Saturday, Mini-Tour 4, Testing for Lead in Drinking Water Tutorial and Lab Visit, 2:15 p.m.
  • Dr. Jessica Tischler is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Michigan-Flint. She obtained her Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Michigan State University and conducted research in biocatalysis. She has served as Department chair, was one of the founding Co-Chairs of the UM-Flint Women's Commission, and has served as an advisor for the award-winning UM-Flint Chemistry Club since 2002. Her academic interests are in the areas of Green Chemistry and science communication.

 

Jamie Tomasello

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, THE CRAFT 1: Keeping Your Data Safe and Secure, 10:45 a.m.
  • Jamie Tomasello is the Senior Manager of Security Operations at Duo Security. She has been combating internet abuse and addressing security and compliance issues for over 17 years at ISPs, security companies, law firms and non-profits. Jamie is a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/US and CIPT). A former music major, Jamie is completing her degree in psychology with a focus in trauma psychology and behavior analysis.

 

Mark Trahant

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: Indigenous Rights: The State of Environmental Sovereignty, 11:00 a.m.
  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, THE CRAFT 2: Social Media: New Ideas for the Age of the Presidential Tweet, 9:00 a.m.
  • Mark Trahant is editor of Indian Country Today. He was appointed to lead the digital enterprise on March 1, 2018. Trahant was recently elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Trahant reports and comments on events and trends on Facebook, Twitter (@TrahantReports) and other social media. He does a weekly audio commentary for Native Voice One. He is also chair of the board of directors for Vision Maker Media. Vision Maker Media works with Native producers to develop, produce and distribute educational telecommunications programs for all media including public television and public radio. Trahant hosts the news magazine, Wassaja, on FNX TV (First Nations Experience). He's the former editor of the editorial page for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, where he chaired the daily editorial board, directed a staff of writers, editors and a cartoonist. He has also worked at The Seattle Times, Arizona Republic, The Salt Lake Tribune, Moscow-Pullman Daily News, the Navajo Times, Navajo Nation Today and the Sho-Ban News. Trahant is a member of Idaho's Shoshone-Bannock Tribe and former president of the Native American Journalists Association.

 

Alex Truelove

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, GLOBE: Cutting the Crap: Is Reducing Waste the Key to Tackling Climate Change? 11:00 a.m.
  • Alex Truelove is the Zero Waste Director for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. He directs U.S. PIRG's work to reduce waste and increase diversion throughout the country. Alex actively works with state groups on policies to reduce single-use plastics and with cities to build public support for better recycling and compost systems. Prior to his position at U.S. PIRG, Alex worked as a researcher and writer for the University of Michigan Energy Institute. He also authored a case study published by the University that investigated business and recycling challenges associated with (then) Keurig Green Mountain's K-cup pods. Alex lives and works in Denver, Colorado.

 

Emily Turner

  • Event: Sunday, Book Slam, 11:00 a.m.
  • Emily Turner acquires books at the intersection of human and environmental health. She is especially interested in food and agriculture, the microbiome, disease and the effect of chemicals on our health. Her favorite books deliver an important message through a compelling narrative or voice. Recent publications include the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Toms River" by Dan Fagin, "Water is for Fighting Over" by John Fleck and "Biting the Hands that Feed Us" by Baylen Linnekin. Emily first joined Island Press in 2002 and is now excited to develop their growing list on health. She has also worked at New York University Press and Academy Chicago Publishers. Emily holds an M.A. in writing from Johns Hopkins University and a B.A. in English literature from the University of Virginia.

 

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Ana Unruh Cohen

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, CLIMATE: Election 2018: Climate Change Reversal? 2:00 p.m.
  • Ana Unruh Cohen, managing director of government affairs for NRDC and the NRDC Action Fund, is responsible for developing and guiding federal advocacy direction with the president's administration and Congress. Before joining the organization in 2017, she worked for more than 13 years on Capitol Hill, focusing on energy and environmental policy. Most recently, she served as the director of energy, climate and natural resources for Senator Edward J. Markey. Unruh Cohen's Hill experience also includes working as the deputy staff director of the Natural Resource Committee Democratic staff; the deputy staff director and chief scientist of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming; and a legislative assistant in then-Representative Markey's personal office. In addition to her time in Congress, Unruh Cohen was also the first director of environmental policy at the Center for American Progress. Unruh Cohen holds a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Trinity University and received her PhD in earth sciences from Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar. She is based in NRDC's Washington, D.C., office.

 

John Upton

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, CLIMATE: Blaming Climate Change for Disasters and Suffering, 9:00 a.m.
  • John Upton is a features journalist at Climate Central, which is a non-advocacy group based in New Jersey that researches and reports on the changing climate. Climate Central's journalism program collaborates with the nonprofit's scientists and researchers on joint journalism and research projects, and it partners with media outlets to produce and publish feature stories that are informed and guided by science. Upton studied science and business in Australia and previously worked as a journalist in California and India.

 

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Emily Vogelgesang

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 1, The Last Good Country: Lush Forests and "Holy Waters", 5:00 a.m.
  • Emily Vogelgesang grew up in the panhandle of Florida. She joined the Huron Pines staff as Environmental Education Coordinator in 2017 after serving with the Huron Pines AmeriCorps program. Emily earned her Bachelor of Science in Biosystems Engineering from Auburn University. Prior to moving north, she lived and worked in Atlanta, Georgia as a private consultant for the Department of Transportation. Outside of the office, Emily can be found kayaking, watching Auburn football and learning all of the snow-based recreation activities.

 

Dan Vogler

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 1, The Last Good Country: Lush Forests and "Holy Waters", 5:00 a.m.
  • Dan Vogler received his bachelor's degree from the University of Memphis in 1994 and began his aquaculture career operating Homestead Trout Farm in Grand Haven, MI in 1997, serving as resident General Manager with a primary marketing role. Since 2001, Dan has served as Owner and General Manager of Harrietta Hills Trout Farm and is responsible for production, transportation, product development, marketing, sales, business development, government liaison and industry liaison. Dan currently serves as President of the Michigan Aquaculture Association (MAA). He also served for years on the Board of Directors of the United States Trout Farmers Association. He serves as Chairman of the Michigan Farm Bureau Aquaculture and Commercial Fishing Advisory Committee, and has served a number of terms on the American Farm Bureau Federation Aquaculture Advisory Committee. He also serves on the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Aquaculture Advisory Committee and served on the Michigan Aquatic Invasive Species Advisory Council during its work in 2012-2013. Dan completed certification in Seafood HACCP Compliance from the Association of Food and Drug Officials in 1997, and also completed certification in Design and Operation of Aquaculture Facilities from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 2000. Dan is also an experienced, licensed aquatic pesticide applicator.

 

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Matt Wagner

  • Event: Saturday, Mini-Tour 1, Renewable Energy Under Trump, 2:15 p.m.
  • Matthew J. Wagner is Manager of Renewable Energy Development for DTE Energy. He manages a team that focuses on various aspects of wind and solar development for DTE Energy, including overall project site selection, design, obtaining land easements, collection of wind resource information and conduct of environmental studies including wildlife and wetland assessments. Wagner and his team are also involved in various aspects of communications and community relations related to wind and solar development at DTE. Previously at DTE Energy, Wagner worked in the environmental management department, where he managed environmental personnel responsible for the company's environmental compliance. Prior to joining DTE Energy, he worked as an environmental consultant for Delta Environmental Consultants in Farmington Hills, Michigan and ENCOTEC, Inc., an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based company. Wagner began his career at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Automotive Emissions and Fuel Economy Lab, also in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He earned a bachelor of science degree in environmental engineering from the Pennsylvania State University in 1984, and a master of science degree in environmental engineering from the University of Michigan in 1991. Wagner is also a licensed Professional Engineer in Michigan.

 

Nakiya Wakes

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: Flint to the World: Water is a Human Right, 9:00 a.m.
  • Nakiya Wakes is a proud Flint resident, activist and mother. When she learned in 2015 of the massive lead, bacteria and disinfection by-product contamination in Flint's water, she began to put the pieces together. She attributed an increase in her daughter’s seizures, her son’s ADHD becoming extreme and her miscarriage of twins to the water contamination. As a community organizer for Michigan Faith in Action, Nakiya learned her family was not the only one struggling with these horrors, so she began telling her heartbreaking tale to the world. In 2016, Nakiya began canvassing and aligning with Flint Rising, helping to form a Moms' group for united support and action. Nakiya has spoken about her family's personal struggles in the Flint water crisis nationally and internationally. She has helped other struggling cities understand what to do when you find out your government has betrayed you, and your family is poisoned as a result. Nakiya has since been promoted to Administrative Assistant for Michigan Faith in Action, organizing community outreach events, educational meetings and collaborations with other social justice movements. Nakiya's strength and resilience continue to be recognized as water contamination becomes a worldwide issue. Nakiya leads by example, proving she will not give up until Flint residents get the clean water they deserve.

 

LeeAnne Walters

 

Tammy Webber

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 9, Flint: Environmental Injustice in Context, 10:00 a.m.
  • Tammy Webber is an Associated Press reporter based in Chicago, where she covers regional and national news and is a member of the news cooperative's global environment team. She grew up in Michigan, and began her 30-plus-year journalism career there, first at local semi-weeklies, then at The Flint Journal, where she was an environment writer focusing on industrial pollution and environmental justice issues. She also worked at The Indianapolis Star as an environment and health reporter.

 

Jennifer Weeks

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, NATION: From the Skyline to the Streets: Covering the Urban Environment Beat, 11:00 a.m.
  • Event: Saturday, Pitch Slam and FEJ Proposal Coaching: U.S. Drinking Water, Storm Water, 7:30 a.m.
  • Jennifer Weeks is Environment + Energy Editor at The Conversation, a nonprofit web site that publishes articles written by academics, edited by journalists and aimed at the general public. From 2004 through 2015 she was a full-time freelance journalist specializing in environment, science and health. She has written for more than 60 newspapers, magazines, and web sites, including the Washington Post, Boston Globe Magazine, Popular Mechanics, Audubon, Discover and Slate, and for foundations, universities and nonprofit organizations. In her pre-journalism life, she worked for fifteen years as a Congressional aide, public-interest lobbyist and policy analyst. Weeks graduated from Williams College and holds master’s degrees from the University of North Carolina (political science) and Harvard University (environmental policy).

 

Peter Weiss

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, THE CRAFT 1: Freelance Pitch Slam, 11:00 a.m.
  • Peter Weiss is features and special projects editor of Eos.org and its print magazine, Eos. Published by AGU, a Washington, D.C.-based scientific organization, Eos.org covers Earth and space sciences, particularly related to climate change, natural disasters and natural resources. Peter previously ran AGU's press office, reported on physics/technology for Science News and covered nuclear weapons labs for a California newspaper chain. He is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz, science writing program.

 

Scott Whitcomb

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 1, The Last Good Country: Lush Forests and "Holy Waters", 5:00 a.m.
  • Scott Whitcomb's earliest memories as a child were of the years spent at a DNR research cabin on High Island in Lake Michigan. Later in life his family lived in nearby Wolverine, Michigan, where he spent time recreating in the Pigeon River Country State Forest growing up. After earning a bachelor's degree in Fisheries and Wildlife from Michigan State University and a Master's degree in Wildlife Management from University of Maine, Scott spent five years in the Appalachians of southwest Virginia managing state wildlife areas for the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. He returned to Michigan in 1998, beginning work in the DNR as a biologist in Lansing working on special projects before being promoted to the statewide Public Lands Specialist for Wildlife Division. Scott transferred to the DNR's Forest Resources Division and moved back north to manage the Pigeon River County State Forest beginning in December of 2008. He has professional interests in public land administration, conservation biology and integrating recreation and resource management.

 

Monique Wilhelm

  • Event: Saturday, Mini-Tour 4, Testing for Lead in Drinking Water Tutorial and Lab Visit, 2:15 p.m.
  • Monique Wilhelm is the Laboratory Manager in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry at the University of Michigan-Flint. She has an M.S. in Chemistry, HAZWOPER Specialist certification, and is an NRCC Certified Chemical Hygiene Officer. She currently holds a position on the executive board of the American Chemical Society (ACS) Division of Chemical Health and Safety, is a member of the Safety Committee within the ACS Division of Chemical Education, and is an advocate for science literacy and the improvement of the popular view of chemistry. Her work involves all business and operations within the chemistry labs including maintenance of instrumentation and all functions related to laboratory safety.

 

Steven Wilhelm

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, The Global Rise of HABs: Climate Change, Poor Land Use and Other Common Denominators Spurring Deadly Algal Growth Across the World, 10:45 a.m.
  • Steven Wilhelm is the Kenneth & Blaire Mossman Professor & Associate Head of the Department of Microbiology at The University of Tennessee. In 2016 he became a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology as well as a Sustaining Fellow of ASLO. In 2018 he was also named a James R. Cox Professor at the University of Tennessee. His group studies synergies between microbial communities and biogeochemical cycles in lakes and oceans. Lab members use biomolecular tools — DNA and RNA sequencing, metabolomics and PCR-based quantitative analyses — to study viruses, bacteria, cyanobacteria and eukaryotic algae. Research in the Wilhelm lab into harmful algal blooms stretches back over two decades, with ongoing collaborations in Australia, Canada, China, The Netherlands, Germany and Uruguay. In North America the group has focused on the Laurentian Great Lakes, but also has active projects examining bloom events in Florida. The lab is currently supported by grants from NSF, NOAA and the DOE to develop biomolecular approaches and models to describe environmental drivers of bloom events.

 

Sarah Wilkins

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, CLIMATE: Here Comes the Flood, 11:00 a.m.
  • Sarah Wilkins is a Project Manager for AGU's Thriving Earth Exchange, responsible for developing and managing community science projects that advance impactful solutions for challenges related to natural hazards, natural resources and climate change. Sarah manages a cohort of a dozen community science projects focused on flood mitigation and building flood resilience in neighborhoods across the country. She also spearheads the development of workshops for Thriving Earth Exchange. Prior to joining AGU, Sarah worked as the Coordinator of the Chesapeake Bay Sentinel Site Cooperative for Maryland Sea Grant Extension. There, she directed and led a network of scientists and managers working to integrate science from local observations across the Chesapeake Bay to improve planning and management decisions regarding sea level rise and coastal ecological changes. Sarah brings 10 years of experience in community-based collaboration and stakeholder engagement from the local, regional and national scales. She has a Master of Science in Conservation Biology & Sustainable Development from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Vermont in Environmental Science.

 

Lisa Williams

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 5, Sail the Saginaw River and Saginaw Bay, 8:00 a.m.
  • Dr. Lisa Williams earned a PhD in Fisheries & Wildlife / Environmental Toxicology from Michigan State University. She has worked as a specialist in contaminants and natural resource damage assessment for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service since 1993. In that time, much of her work has centered around the Great Lakes and freshwater river systems contaminated by PCBs, dioxins and other persistent contaminants, but she has also worked on significant oil spills and a variety of contaminant issues related to National Wildlife Refuges, threatened and endangered species, and migratory birds. In the Saginaw Bay area, she has conducted investigations into the health of eagles, terns and gulls; negotiated settlements to clean up contaminated sediments and restore habitats; and continues to work to build on those successes.

 

Rebecca Williams

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, WATER: Great Lakes: Perspective on a Toxic Past and Binational Protection, 9:00 a.m.
  • Rebecca Williams is a senior editor and reporter at NPR affiliate Michigan Radio in Ann Arbor. She's been on the environment beat for 18 years at the station, and she was part of the team that covered the Flint water crisis. Rebecca has a degree in resource ecology and management from the University of Michigan, where she had close encounters with escaped boars and poison sumac. Before getting into radio, Rebecca snapped photos of Mongolian diatoms and published a few papers in obscure scientific journals. More.

 

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Charles Winfrey

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 9, Flint: Environmental Injustice in Context, 10:00 a.m.
  • Charles H. Winfrey has served as executive director and resident playwright of The "New" McCree Theatre for over 23 years. As such, he has produced most of the "New" McCree Theatre's productions, and has written many of them. He has served as editor of several weekly newspapers, including the Flint Spokesman, the CPSA Courier, and as local editor of the Michigan Chronicle. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan-Flint with dual degrees in Political Science and Africana Studies. He currently serves as a member of the Northridge Academy Board of Directors, Neighborhoods without Borders, the Arts and Culture Action Committee of the Neighborhood Advisory Council, board President of the Michigan Basketball Association, past President of the board of directors of the Universal Kidney Foundation, past President of the Ballenger Highway Neighborhood Association and past member of the Beecher Board of Education where he held several offices during his six-year tenure. Mr. Winfrey was co-founder and former executive director of the Coalition for Positive Youth Development. He is a recent recipient of the Genesee District Library's Award of Excellence presented each February to local African Americans for their contributions to the community.

 

Chris Winslow

 

Brian Wolf

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 7, The Future of Mobility: Visit the Test Tracks for Self-Driving Cars, 9:00 a.m.
  • Brian Wolf is the Head of AV Business at Ford Motor Company and is responsible for building Ford's self-driving business. This entails developing the strategy, partnerships and operations needed to put together a complete AV business. Prior to working at Ford, Brian worked at Expedia for a number of years where he held various business and finance positions, including the General Manager role for Cheaptickets.com In his free time, Brian enjoys spending time with his wife Kelly and three children Adam, Matthew and Kaitlyn. Brian is an avid runner and sports enthusiast. Brian has undergraduate degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Economics from Carnegie Mellon University, a Masters in Engineering from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

 

Christina Wolfe

 

Bernadette Woods Placky

  • Event: Wednesday, SEJ/Climate Matters Collaborative Journalism Workshop, Telling Climate Change Stories that Matter: From Impacts to Solutions, 8:30 a.m.
  • Bernadette Woods Placky is an Emmy Award-winning meteorologist and director of Climate Central's Climate Matters program. Before coming to Climate Central, Bernadette spent 11 years as a TV weather forecaster. Her most recent station was WJZ in Baltimore, where she earned an Emmy for "Best Weathercaster." Bernadette has a B.S. in Meteorology and a minor in French from Penn State University, where she is a steering committee member for MAPS (Meteorology Alumni of Penn State) and currently serves on the Graduates of Earth and Mineral Sciences (GEMS) Board. She carries the American Meteorological Society certification and is currently serving on several AMS Committees.

 

Justin Worland

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, GLOBE: Cutting the Crap: Is Reducing Waste the Key to Tackling Climate Change? 11:00 a.m.
  • Justin Worland is the energy and environment correspondent at TIME magazine based in Washington D.C. Justin assumed that role in 2015 and since then has covered everything from wonky Washington energy policy stories to the effects of climate change on the ground around the world. Justin previously covered health and breaking news for TIME in New York and electoral politics for Roll Call.

 

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Daniel Zimmerle

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, ENERGY: Natural Gas and Climate Change: What's the Real Story? 11:00 a.m.
  • Daniel Zimmerle is a Senior Research Associate at the Energy Institute at Colorado State University. He was a principal investigator on three major studies of methane emissions in the natural gas supply chain, and leads METEC, the ARPA-E MONITOR test facility at CSU. He also works on energy access and development in rural communities in the developing world and the integration of distributed generation into power systems. Prior to CSU, he served as the Chief Operating Officer at Spirae, Inc. and worked for 20 years at Hewlett Packard and Agilent Technologies, including experience as both a division general manager and R&D manager. He has led organizations in several business areas, including computer-aided design software, test systems and consumer products. Organizations included personnel in the US, Ireland, Singapore and other countries.

 

Jenny Zou

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, THE CRAFT 2: Investigating Scientific Integrity, 11:00 a.m.
  • Jie Jenny Zou is a reporter on the Center for Public Integrity's environment and labor team. She's a Brooklyn native who previously covered statewide justice issues as a data reporter for The New York World, based out of Columbia School of Journalism, where she also graduated in 2013 with a focus on investigative journalism. Zou has also covered local and regional government in South Carolina and has interned for various national publications.

 

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