The Great Unraveling? August 21-24, 2020
Participant Biographies
The conference organizers have done their best to share the most accurate and up-to-date information about participants, but errors or old information inevitably happen. Please contact Liz Duxbury ([email protected]) if you have any corrections to be made and we will redistribute the bios packet at the end of the conference. Daniel Aldana Cohen
Daniel is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the niversity of Pennsylvania— focusing on the intersections of climate, politics, and inequality—and is the co- author of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green Deal. More...
Ruth Andrade
Ruth leads the regenerative impact strategy for Lush, is a Trustee/co-founder of Re.Alliance—a collective of practitioners bringing regenerative design to the humanitarian sector—and a member of the conference organizing committee. More...
Nichole Argo Ben Itzhak
Nichole is Director of Research and Field Advancement at Project Over Zero and an academic researcher whose work on intergroup dynamics has been published in leading journals and in consulting with governments, media groups, and policy think tanks to bring the science of intergroup conflict and cooperation into practice. More...
Nnimmo Bassey
Nnimmo is director of the ecological think-tank, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), based in Nigeria, a steering committee member of Oilwatch International, former chair of Friends of the Earth International, and former Executive Director of Nigeria’s Environmental Rights Action. More… Monamie Bhadra Haines
Monamie is an Assistant Professor of Global Science, Technology, and Society (STS) at Nanyang Technological University, focusing on the political and cultural implications of energy transitions in the developing world, specifically in Asia. More...
Andrew Bowman
Andrew is President of the Land Trust Alliance, former Program Director at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and a Trustee of the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation. More...
Tom Brookes
Tom is the Executive Director for Strategic Communications at the European Climate Foundation and Managing Director, Energy Strategy Centre. More...
Nick Buxton
Nick is a communications consultant at the Transnational Institute—working actively on issues of climate change, militarism, and economic justice—and is co-editor of The Secure and The Dispossessed - How the Military And Corporations Are Seeking To Shape A Climate-Changed World. More... Danielle Celermajer
Danielle is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Sydney—with particular expertise in human rights and theories and practices of justice—and leads the Faculty’s Multispecies Justice FutureFix researchprogram. More...
Stan Cox
Stan is lead scientist at the Land Institute and is author of several books, including Any Way You Slice It: The Past, Present, and Future of Rationing and The Green New Deal and Beyond: Ending the Climate Emergency While We Still Can. More...
Leslie Davenport
Leslie is practicing integrative psychotherapist, founding member of the Institute for Health & Healing, and the author of Emotional Resiliency in the Era of Climate Change. More...
Tim DeChristopher
Tim is a co-founder of the Climate Disobedience Center and a well-known climate activist who was imprisoned for 21 months for his actions to disrupt an auction for oil and gas leases near national park land in Utah, USA. More... Navroz Dubash
Navroz is a Professor at the Centre for Policy Research, where he conducts research and writes on climate change, energy, air pollution, water policy, and the politics of regulation in the developing world. More:...
Mark Engler
Mark is a writer, an editorial board member at Dissent, a contributing editor at Yes! Magazine, and author of This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century. More...
Rufino Escasany
Rufino is an engineer and co-founder and director of Aspiring Citizens Cleantech, a Singapore-based technology company that offers data-driven solutions to address challenges in urban transportation, energy and pollution. More...
John Fellowes
John is Programme Director at the Hong Kong-based Full Circle Foundation and co-editor of the Asian Primates Journal. More... Daniel Fung
Daniel Fung is the former Solicitor General of Hong Kong and Founding Chair of Cambridge Global Champions, which is designed to combat existential challenges which lie beyond the ability of individual sovereign states acting alone or in combination to resolve. More...
Wing Fung
Wing is a Hong Kong-based social entrepreneur and philanthropist, focused on climate mitigation efforts, and member of the conference organizing committee.
Rebecca Gibbs
Rebecca is former project lead on climate economics at UK Parliament, who now work on social adaptation to climate change. More...
Adam Greenfield
Adam is an urbanist and author who has written and consulted widely on issues at the intersection of design, technology and culture, with an increasing focus on how these things interact in (and condition our experience of) cities. More...
Deepa Gupta
Deepa is the founder and former Executive Director of Jhatkaa.org, an Indian advocacy organization, and co-founder of the Indian Youth Climate Network. More... Nate Hagens
Nate is the co-founder of Institute for the Study of Energy and the Future, a well-known speaker on the big picture issues facing human society, and currently teaches a systems synthesis Honors seminar at the University of Minnesota. More...
Lukas Haynes
Lukas is Executive Director of the David Rockefeller Fund and member of the Center for Climate and Security’s Advisory Board, and formerly Vice President of the Mertz Gilmore Foundation. More...
Richard Heinberg
Richard is an author of 13 books, Senior Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute, and is regarded as one of the world’s foremost advocates for a shift away from our current reliance on fossil fuels. More...
Ken Henshaw
Ken is Executive Director of the Nigeria based NGO We the People. He is a researcher and campaigner for ecological justice for local communities in Nigeria affected by climate change and fossil fuel extraction. More...
Jason Hickel
Jason is an economic anthropologist at the London School of Economics—focusing on global inequality, political economy, post-development, and ecological economics— and author of Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World. More... Chung-Wha Hong
Chung-Wha is the Executive Director of Grassroots International, a global justice advocacy and grantmaking organization, and a long-time activist working on health care, worker rights and human rights issues. More...
Daniel Hoyer
Dan is a historian who currently holds a postdoctoral position at SESHAT: Global History Databank Project, a large-scale, interdisciplinary and comparative project hosted by the Evolution Institute and the University of Oxford. More...
Andrea Ixchiu Hernandez
Andrea is an organizer and journalist for Red Tz’ikin and Prensa Comunitaria focusing on issues of national policy, analysis of art, culture and the environment, as well as human rights of indigenous peoples. More...
Dahr Jamail
Dahr is a journalist and author, known for his reporting of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, and is now focusing on anthropogenic climate disruption and the environment, including in The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption. More...
Astrid Kann Rasmussen
Astrid is Chair of V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation, Observer at the Villum Foundation, and member of the Board of Directors at Partners for a New Economy. More... Hans Kann Rasmussen
Hans is Chair of the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation.
Kristian Kann Rasmussen
Kristian is Trustee of the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation and Observer at the Villum Foundation.
Jee Kim
Jee is Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, former Executive Director of the Narrative Initiative and, and previously part of the Civic Engagement and Government team at the Ford Foundation. More...
Ashish Kothari
Ashish is co-founder of Kalpavriksh, an Indian environmental NGO, a former member of the Steering Committees of the World Commission on Protected Areas, and former member of the Board of Directors of Greenpeace International and Greenpeace India. More...
Irene Krarup
Irene is the Executive Director at V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation and former Vice Consul and Cultural Affairs Attaché of Denmark to the United States. More... Sönke Kreft
Sönke is the Executive Director of Munich Climate Insurance Initiative, a PhD candidate, Wageningen University Public Administration and Policy Group, and previously led the Climate Policy Team at the German NGO Germanwatch. More...
Leonardo Lacerda
Leonardo is the Director of the Environment Programme at the Oak Foundation, which focuses on climate change, marine conservation, and wildlife conservation and trade. More...
Alnoor Ladha
Alnoor was a founding member and the Executive Director of /The Rules, board member of Greenpeace International USA, writer and speaker, and visiting lecturer at a number of universities. More...
Dana Lanza
Dana is the founder and Executive Director of Confluence Philanthropy and the past Executive Director of the Environmental Grantmakers Association. More...
Kristian Cedervall Lauta Kristian is the Associate Dean for Education at the Faculty of Law at the University of Copenhagen and author of Disaster Law, which investigates how a change in the way disasters are understood and managed affects fundamental notions of duty, responsibility and justice. More... Laurie Laybourn-Langton
Laurie is a Fellow at the U.K.-based Institute for Public Policy Research—focused on developing policy responses to environmental breakdown—former Director of the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change, Co-Chair of Trustees of Rethinking Economics, and member of the conference organizing committee. More...
Makoma Lekalakala
Makoma is the Director of Earthlife Africa, a civil society environmental justice and anti-nuclear organization, and recipient of the Goldman Environmental Prize for Africa 2018 award. More...
Peter Lipman
Peter is co-founder of Anthropocene Actions, former founding chair of Transition Network and former chair of the UK Government’s Community Energy Contact Group, philanthropist advisor, and member of the conference organizing committee. More...
Steve Martin
Steve is the CEO of Influence at Work UK, an author and business columnist, and visiting professor of behavioral science at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business. More...
Surabi Menon
Surabi is VP, Global Intelligence at ClimateWorks Foundation, former leader of the Heat Island Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and climate scientist at Columbia University and NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. More... Asher Miller
Asher is the Executive Director of Post Carbon Institute and member of the conference organizing committee. More...
Todd Miller
Todd has researched and written about border issues for more than 15 years and is the author of three books, including Empire of Borders: The Expansion of the U.S. Border Around the World and Storming the Wall: Climate Change, Migration, and Homeland Security. More...
Susanne Moser
Susi is a researcher and consultant—focusing on climate adaptation and resilience—Affiliated Faculty at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and Research Faculty in the Environmental Studies Department at Antioch University New England. More...
Shorey Myers
Shorey is Executive Director of the Jenifer Altman Foundation, where she focuses on global environmental health and justice issues as well as philanthropic support of critical social services. More...
Kumi Naidoo
Kumi is a life-long social justice campaigner who was Executive Director of Greenpeace International, co-founder and interim chair of the pan-African organization, Africans Rising, and until recently the Secretary General of Amnesty International. More... Fionnuala Ní Aoláin
Fionnuala is the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, a University Regents Professor at the University of Minnesota, faculty director of the Human Rights Center at the University of Minnesota Law School, and professor of law at the Queen’s University of Belfast, School of Law. More...
Amira Odeh
Amira is Regional Organizer for 350.org and Puerto Rico Chapter Chair of the Caribbean Youth Environment Network, which is currently working on a reforestation project to sustainably rebuild the island after Hurricane Maria and also focuses on food security. More...
Andrea Panaritis
Andrea is Executive Director of the Christopher Reynolds Foundation, which supports work relating to climate justice, climate resilience and adaptation and ecosystem health and integrity in the face of unravelling global systems. More...
Christine Parthemore
Christine is CEO of the Council on Strategic Risks, the parent organization of the Center for Climate and Security, and has deep experience addressing issues ranging from the security implications of climate change to countering weapons of mass destruction, including in the U.S. Department of Defense, security think tanks, and academia. More... David Pencheon
David leads the English National Health Service’s Sustainable Development Unit, which develops organizations, people, tools, and policy to help the NHS in England fulfill its potential as a leading sustainable and low carbon organization. More...
Maureen Penjueli
Maureen is Coordinator for the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG), a leading regional NGO working on trade and economic justice issues on behalf of civil society groups, faith-based organizations, communities and customary landowners. More...
Carola Rackete
Carola was a navigation officer for two years in scientific expeditions in the Arctic and the Antarctic for the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research and more recently captained the migrant rescue ship Sea-Watch 3, and was arrested for docking without authorization at Lampedusa, Italy. More...
Adel Ramdani
Adel is the G7 European Union Youth Delegate, and a trainee at the EU Delegation to the United Nations in Geneva, dealing with humanitarian affairs and migration. More... Asad Rehman
Asad is the Executive Director of War on Want, having been head of international climate at Friends of the Earth before that, and has served on boards of Amnesty International UK, Friends of the Earth International, Global Justice Now, and Newham Monitoring Project. More...
Ruth Richardson
Ruth Richardson is Executive Director of the Global Alliance for the Future of Food, and was the first Director of the Unilever Canada Foundation, Founding Chair of the Canadian Environmental Grantmakers’ Network, Founder and Chair of the Small Change Fund, and the first Environment Director at the Metcalf Foundation. More...
Albert Salamanca
Albert is a Senior Research Fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute’s Asia Centre—where he leads its Climate Change, Disasters and Development research theme—and manages SEI’s global initiative on Transforming Development and Disaster. More...
Elizabeth Sawin
Beth is Co-Founder and Co-Director of Climate Interactive, a systems- thinking trainer, and an expert on solutions that address climate change while also improving health, well-being, equity, and economic vitality. More... Petra Schneider
Petra from Alam Santi Sustainable Living Design works on community empowerment & education program planning and design, including integrated master planning, ecological buildings, water and wastewater management, renewable energy and energy efficiency passive design. More...
Anasuya Sengupta
Anasuya is Co-Director and co-founder of Whose Knowledge?—working to amplify marginalized voices in virtual and physical worlds—and is the former Chief Grantmaking Officer at the Wikimedia Foundation, former Regional Program Director at the Global Fund for Women, and a 2017 Shuttleworth Foundation Fellow. More...
Lois Smith
Lois is Professor of Ophthalmology at Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, a Trustee of the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation, and a member of the National Eye Institute’s National Advisory Eye Council. More...
Pablo Solón Romero
Pablo is the director of Fundación Solón, former Executive Director of Focus on the Global South, and served as both the Bolivian Extraordinary Ambassador for Integration and Trade and Ambassador to the United Nations. More...
Betsy Taylor
Betsy, the president of Breakthrough Strategies & Solutions, has served as Executive Director of the Ottinger Foundation, Stern Family Fund, and Merck Family Fund, and convened or took a lead role in the founding of a number of organizations and networks focused on peace, consumption and production, and climate. More... Asaf Tzachor
Asaf leads the food security and global catastrophic risks project at the Cambridge Centre for Study of Existential Risk and the AI for Food Supply Chains Risk Management project, which explores dependencies, distortions and risks in food systems and global agriculture. More...
Anahi Urquiza
Anahi is a Professor at the University of Chile, where her research focuses on the environment and society relationship, particularly in water vulnerability, poverty and energy transitions, participation, governance and resilience when facing climate change. More...
Felipe Viveros
Felipe founded the Black Line Initiative—an indigenous environmental consultancy with the Kogi people of Colombia—and is the European representative of the Gross National Happiness Centre Bhutan and a member of the UN Harmony with Nature initiative. More...
Lawrence Wilkerson
Larry was a U.S. Army Colonel (ret), a former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, Visiting Professor of Government and Public Policy, the College of William and Mary, and a member of the Climate Security Working Group. More...
Susan Zhu
Susan is the founder of Shanghai Treasure Carbon, sits on the council of the Centre for China and Globalization (CCG), a Beijing-based think tank, and is a frequent contributor as an external low-carbon expert at the Hong Kong Finance Academy. More...