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SEJ's 26th Annual Conference Speaker Information

 

 

SEJ 2016
Speaker Bios

 

 

Agenda Coverage Lodging/ Travel Advertise/ Exhibit Environmental News About Sacramento

 

Below are biographies (or links thereto) of speakers for SEJ's 26th Annual Conference, September 21-25, 2016, in Sacramento, California, as well as the sessions they're participating in. Sacramento conference home.

Alphabetical Speaker List

 

Chinook. © Carson Jeffries/UC Davis

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

A

Brant Allen

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 1, Fire and Water: Lake Tahoe’s Ecological Splendor and Stressors, 5:00 a.m.
  • Brant Allen has been conducting and assisting with ecological research at Lake Tahoe for the past 25 years. His focus has been on the effects of introduced and invasive species. Brant spends most of his time aboard one of the research vessels or diving in the lake to monitor water quality, collect samples, or assist visiting researchers with their specific needs.

Richard Allen

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, ENERGY AND LAND: What's Shaking with Earthquake Science — And Why You Need To Know About It, 9:00 a.m.
  • Richard Allen is the director of the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory, a professor and Garniss Curtis Endowed Chair of the Dept. of Earth and Planetary Science at UC Berkeley. He is an expert in earthquake alerting systems, developing methodologies to detect earthquakes and issue warnings prior to shaking and tsunamis. His group uses seismic and GPS sensing networks, and is experimenting with the use of a global smartphones network called MyShake. Testing of the ShakeAlert warning system for the US west coast is currently under way. Allen’s group also uses geophysical sensing networks to image the internal 3D structure of the Earth and constrain the driving forces responsible for earthquakes, volcanoes and other deformation of the Earth’s surface. His research has been featured in Science, Nature, Scientific American, the New York Times and dozens of other media outlets around the world. He has a BA from Cambridge University, a PhD from Princeton University and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Caltech.

 

Marcia Argust

  • Event: Sunday, Post-Conference Tour, Tall Trees and the Range of Light, Sunday, September 25 – Wednesday, September 28
  • Marcia Argust, director of The Pew Charitable Trusts’ campaign to restore America’s parks, works with a team of land management and legislative experts to address deferred maintenance issues within the National Park System. Argust previously served as Pew's project director of the U.S. public lands program and worked with the campaign for America’s wilderness. In these roles, she guided policy on Pew’s land protection efforts, including managing the Boulder-White Clouds campaign that resulted in the designation of over 275,000 acres of wilderness in Idaho. She also worked to win passage of 2009 federal legislation that led to the designation of two million acres of wilderness. Before joining Pew, Argust held positions in government affairs with the American Society of Landscape Architects and the National Parks Conservation Association. She also spent five years working for former Representative Sherwood Boehlert of New York. Argust holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and psychology from Binghamton University and a master’s degree in environmental science from Johns Hopkins University.

 

Greg Asner

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, THE CRAFT 1: Data Journalism 102: Drones, Satellites and Other Hi-tech Tools, 10:45 a.m.
  • Greg Asner is a staff scientist for the Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science. Asner's professional interests fuse ecology, biogeochemistry, biodiversity conservation, and remote sensing. Through the Carnegie Airborne Observatory he marries sophisticated satellite and airborne mapping technology with traditional gum-shoe fieldwork to develop innovative techniques to measure the Earth.

 

B

Nancy Baron

 

Joe Barr

 

Jim Baxter

  • Event: Wednesday, Opening Reception and Dinner, Welcome to California! 5:00 p.m.
  • A professor of biology at Sacramento State University, James Baxter has over 20 years of experience as a scientist and educator, with expertise in biological diversity, human impacts on ecological systems, and the role of educational media on environmental understanding. He has a B.A. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz and an M.A. in Ecology and Systematic Biology from San Francisco State University. He earned his Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolution from Rutgers University.

 

Peggy Berryhill

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH AND JUSTICE: Indigenous Rights and the Environment, 10:45 a.m.
  • Peggy Berryhill (Muscogee) is the founder of the Native Media Resource Center, which has been producing content about Native Americans and promoting racial understanding and cross-cultural harmony since 1996. Peggy has been instrumental in organizing Native radio stations and independent producers throughout her career. She began broadcasting in 1973 at KPFA in Berkeley where she produced Living on Indian Time, a weekly one-hour program focused on the Native community both local and national. Peggy has been a Program Director at KUNM-FM, KPFA-FM, and KALW-FM, and is the only Native person to have worked as a full-time producer at National Public Radio (NPR) in the Specialized Audience Programs Department from 1978-79. She has won numerous awards for her documentary work, media expertise and commitment to community. Peggy is known for her vision as a Media Architect designing media and technology opportunities and solutions by collaborating with numerous public broadcasting and community organizations and instituions such as the Smithsonian American History and the National Museum of the American Indian. Peggy’s work has been groundbreaking and she continues to expand her horizons and experiences. In 2014 Peggy was inducted into the Muscogee Nation Hall of Fame for her work.

 

Richard Blaustein

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, FOOD AND AGRICULTURE: What Is Sustainable Agriculture? 10:45 a.m.
  • Rich Blaustein is a freelance science and environmental journalist, and has articles in BioScience, World Policy Journal, Symmetry, Ecosystem Marketplace and other publications. He has written on new genetic understandings of staple crops and yield programs.

 

Gary Bobker

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 8, Kayaking California’s Imperiled Inland Sea, 7:45 a.m.
  • Gary Bobker is rivers and Delta program director for The Bay Institute, a conservation organization active in protecting the Bay-Delta estuary. In his 24 years at the institute, he has helped negotiate a number of landmark environmental agreements, including the Bay-Delta Accord and the San Joaquin River restoration settlement. His current work is toward enforcing and strengthening baseline environmental protections for the estuary, providing guidance and oversight to long-term restoration plans and projects, and reforming Central Valley water use and agricultural drainage management. He supervises The Bay Institute’s Ecological Scorecard Project and is a leader in the environmental community’s efforts to secure new state and federal water quality standards for the estuary and to shape the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan and the Delta Stewardship Council’s Delta Plan. Previously, he served as West Coast staff director for the National Toxics Campaign, as Northern California staff director for the California Natural Resources Federation and as pollution prevention research analyst for the Citizen Action Coalition.

 

Jane Braxton Little

  • Event: Sunday, Post-Conference Tour, Tall Trees and the Range of Light, Sunday, September 25 – Wednesday, September 28
  • Jane Braxton Little, an independent journalist based in California's Sierra Nevada, writes about science and natural resources for publications that include Scientific American, The Daily Climate, Environmental Health Perspectives and Audubon, where she is a contributing editor. She is co-coordinator of SEJ's Mentor Program.

 

David Brin

 

Baba Brinkman

 

Governor Jerry Brown

 

C

Julie Cart

 

James Connaughton

  • Event: Friday, Opening Plenary, The Environmental Bellwether State: What Happens in California Doesn’t Stay in California, 9:00 a.m.
  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, THE CRAFT 2: 2016 Elections: A Pivotal Moment for U.S. on Climate Change, 10:45 a.m.
  • James L. Connaughton is one of America’s most distinguished energy and environmental experts, as both corporate leader and prominent White House policymaker. He has creatively developed market-based solutions to some of the world’s most significant environmental challenges – deploying innovative technology to help protect the environment for future generations. Previously, Connaughton has served as Executive Vice President of C3 Energy, Executive Vice President and Senior Policy Advisor at Exelon and Constellation Energy (which merged with Exelon), and Chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. More.

 

Don Corrigan

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Breakfast Session 1, Moving Target: Preparing Students for an Evolving Profession, 7:30 a.m.
  • Don Corrigan is a long-time journalism educator at Webster University in St. Louis and well-known weekly newspaper editor and writer. In addition to his extensive international travels, he has produced award-winning outdoor and environmental books and articles, as well as garnered Messing, Kemper and College Media Association excellence in teaching awards. He directs the Outdoor/Environmental Journalism Certificate at Webster University, which has brought him recognition from the Missouri Coalition for the Environment and a distinguished achievement award from the Great Rivers Environmental Law Center. He oversees a student / professional blog: Environmental echo.com on Missouri outdoor and environmental issues.

 

D

Kevin De León

 

Helene Dillard

 

E

Justin Ehrenwerth

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, OCEANS AND GLOBE: Restoring the Deep and the Shoreline, 9:00 a.m.
  • Justin R. Ehrenwerth serves as executive director of the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council (Council). Created by the RESTORE Act of 2012 and comprising the Governors of the five Gulf Coast States and Secretaries from six federal agencies, the Council is responsible for restoring and protecting the natural resources, ecosystems, fisheries, marine and wildlife habitats, beaches, coastal wetlands and economy of the Gulf Coast. Prior to joining the Council, Ehrenwerth served as Chief of Staff to the Deputy Secretary of Commerce. More.

 

Lynn Epstein

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, FOOD AND AGRICULTURE: What Is Sustainable Agriculture? 10:45 a.m.
  • Lynn Epstein is a professor of Plant Pathology at the University of California at Davis who specializes in the biology and control of plant pathogenic fungi in agricultural crops; her laboratory research is currently focused on a new race of a soil-borne fungal pathogen of celery and options for control. Dr. Epstein has a long-standing interest in sustainable agriculture, from both biological and social perspectives. As a consequence, she has been interested in the evaluation of strategies for reduction of pesticide use, and is the author of a 2014 Annual Review of Phytopathology article, “Fifty years since Silent Spring” that concludes that Integrated Pest Management (IPM) “is a politically feasible policy that purports to reduce pesticide use and/or risk in agriculture but often does not, except in extreme cases of pesticide overuse that result in negative agricultural/economic consequences for growers.” She is also the instructor of “Genetics and Society” in the undergraduate Science and Society program, which considers issues about genetically modified plants, both from breeding/genetic engineering and social perspectives.

 

F

Laurel Firestone

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, WATER: Trouble at the Tap: Does America's Safe Drinking Water Act Have Our Back? 9:00 a.m.
  • Laurel Firestone co-founded and co-directs the Community Water Center (CWC), a non-profit environmental justice organization based in California’s Central Valley. The CWC helps disadvantaged communities gain access to safe, clean and affordable drinking water. In January 2016, she was listed as one of nine most influential people in California water policy by Environment & Energy Publishing. Laurel previously served as the Director of the Rural Poverty Water Project at the Center for Race, Poverty, & the Environment under a 2004‐06 Equal Justice Works Fellowship. Laurel was awarded the Gary Bellow Public Service Award by the Harvard Law School in 2013, and in 2010 she and her Co-Executive Director, Susana De Anda, were co-awarded the Carla Bard Advocacy Award from the Public Officials for Water and Environmental Reform (POWER). Laurel served on the Tulare County Water Commission from 2007‐12, and Co‐Chaired the Governor’s Drinking Water Stakeholder Group from 2012‐14. Laurel graduated with honors from Harvard Law School and holds a B.A. magna cum laude in Environmental Studies from Brown University. In 2009, Laurel authored the comprehensive Guide to Community Drinking Water Advocacy.

 

Alissa Fogg

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 6, Living with Fire: Wildfires and Forest Health, 7:00 a.m.
  • Alissa Fogg is the Central Sierra Program Leader with Point Blue Conservation Science. She conducts avian research throughout the entire Sierra Nevada, but she works to build partnerships throughout the the Central Sierra to conserve, birds, their habitats and use science to help guide management and policy decisions. Alissa coordinates the Sierra Nevada-wide Bioregional Monitoring Project and works with federal and private partners to guide restoration in montane meadows, post-fire landscapes and the Sierra foothills. Prior to joining Point Blue, Alissa completed her M.S. in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation at Humboldt State University.

 

Jonathan Foley

 

Deb Frodl

  • Event: Saturday, Lunch Plenary, Can Technology Save the Planet? A Discussion with Innovators and Ecologists, 9:00 a.m.
  • A 27-year GE veteran, Deb Frodl leads GE Ecomagination, the company’s business strategy to accelerate innovation and growth in a resource constrained world through efficient and intelligent solutions. In this role, Deb was named the Women’s Council on Energy and Environment (WCEE) 2014 Woman of the Year. She held previous executive marketing, sales, and CEO roles for GE’s Capital Fleet Services, Capital Public Finance, Commercial Equipment Finance and Dealer Financial Services. In 2010, she was named Chief Strategy Officer for GE Capital Fleet Services and Global Alternative Fuels Leader. Deb is on the Board of the Advanced Energy Economy, US DOE Clean Energy, Education & Empowerment for Women and Masdar’s Women in Sustainability, Environment & Renewables. She earned her MBA at the University of St. Thomas and her Bachelors in Business from Minnesota State University. GE is a diversified infrastructure and finance company finding solutions in energy, health, transportation and finance.

 

G

Morningstar Gali

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH AND JUSTICE: Indigenous Rights and the Environment, 10:45 a.m.
  • Morningstar Gali, Pitt River, is the former Tribal Historic Preservation Officer. Gali is an activist who is recognized nationally as young leader for Indigenous rights. She was literally a child of the AIM; she also worked with the International Indian Treaty Council. She grew up within the urban Indian community that embraced people of all Tribes. Her work encompasses the breadth of Indigenous issues.

 

Scott Gediman

  • Event: Sunday, Post-Conference Tour, Tall Trees and the Range of Light, Sunday, September 25 – Wednesday, September 28
  • Scott Gediman serves as the public affairs officer in Yosemite National Park, a position he has held since 1996. Scott and his staff handle all media relations, legislative affairs, special events and visiting dignitaries for the iconic national park. A 26-year veteran of the National Park Service, he has previously worked in Utah and Arizona at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and Rainbow Bridge National Monument. Scott holds a bachelor's degree in journalism-public relations from San Diego State University. He and his wife, a former park ranger, have two children and live in Yosemite National Park.

 

Peter Gleick

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, WATER: Trouble at the Tap: Does America's Safe Drinking Water Act Have Our Back? 9:00 a.m.
  • Dr. Peter H. Gleick is co-founder and president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security in Oakland, California. His research and writing address the critical connections between water and human health, the hydrologic impacts of climate change, sustainable water use, privatization and globalization, and international conflicts over water resources. Dr. Gleick is an internationally recognized water expert and was named a MacArthur Fellow in October 2003 for his work. In 2001, he was dubbed a “visionary on the environment” by the British Broadcasting Corporation and in 2006. Peter Gleick received a B.S. from Yale University and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of many scientific papers and several books.

 

Adam Glenn

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, CLIMATE AND AIR: Innovating with Nature: Ecosystem-based Adaptation to Climate Risk, 10:45 a.m.
  • A. Adam Glenn is an award-winning journalist, media consultant and journalism educator with 35 years in newspaper, magazine and online newsrooms, including ABCNews.com. A long-time specialist in environmental news, he is executive producer of the Reporter's Guide to Climate Adaptation, and manages the climate adaptation news service AdaptNY. Adam is also editor of the SEJournal, and serves on the SEJ editorial advisory board and its Publications 3.0 Task Force. An online pioneer since the 1990s, Adam's consulting clients have included news publishers, journalism think tanks, and non-profit and charitable organizations. He has taught at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, NYU and Columbia University. Adam has won numerous fellowships and grants, including as a 2015 public policy scholar at the Wilson Center think tank. He holds a Master of Arts degree in international policy from the Fletcher School of International Law and Diplomacy, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism from Boston University. He lives with his daughter in the Lower Hudson Valley outside New York City.

 

Gloria Gonzalez

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, CLIMATE AND AIR: The Future of Cap-and-Trade in the U.S., 11:00 a.m.
  • Gloria Gonzalez, an SEJ board member, is senior editor at Crain Communications where she covers health care and environmental health and safety issues. Gloria was previously the news editor and a program manager 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.

 

Patrick Gonzalez

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, THE CRAFT 2: Communicating Climate Change, 9:00 a.m.
  • Patrick Gonzalez is Principal Climate Change Scientist of the U.S. National Park Service and a Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. A forest ecologist, he conducts applied research to detect impacts of climate change, analyze vulnerabilities of ecosystems and people, and quantify forest carbon. He then works with land managers to adapt natural resource management to climate change, with policymakers to integrate science into policy, and with local people to implement community-based natural resource management. Patrick has conducted and published field research on climate change in Africa, Latin America, and the United States and has served as a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the organization awarded a share of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. More.

 

Ashlan Gorse Cousteau

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, OCEANS AND GLOBE: Restoring the Deep and the Shoreline, 9:00 a.m.
  • Veteran journalist & adventurer Ashlan Gorse Cousteau travels the world in search of stories that entertain and inspire. Ashlan's debut documentary Nuclear Sharks, for Discovery Channel's Shark Week, premiered as the #1 rated show across all cable programming. Traveling to the Marshall Islands she, along with her husband Philippe Cousteau, lead an expedition to film, tag and investigate the mysterious grey reef sharks who survived against all odds in the fall out of one of the world’s largest nuclear testing grounds. For over a decade, Ashlan has worked as a correspondent for Emmy award winning entertainment shows Entertainment Tonight and E! News. Cousteau’s endeavors go beyond the small screen. At the request of the United Nations, Ashlan served as host for the United Nations’ convention in Quito, Ecuador. She was selected by former Vice-President Al Gore to be the opening anchor for his internationally live broadcast of Climate Reality, 24. Ashlan attended the prestigious School of Journalism at UNC Chapel Hill. More.

 

Jessica Grannis

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, CLIMATE AND AIR: Innovating with Nature: Ecosystem-based Adaptation to Climate Risk, 10:45 a.m.
  • Jessica Grannis is the adaptation program manager for the Georgetown Climate Center and is a staff attorney and adjunct professor at the Harrison Institute for Public Law at Georgetown University Law Center. Jessica oversees staff and student research and analysis of federal, state and local adaptation efforts. Her recent publications include an "Adaptation Tool Kit for Sea Level Rise" (2012) and a book chapter on "Coastal Retreat in the Law of Climate Change: U.S. and International Aspects" (2012, with Peter Byrne). Prior to joining the Harrison Institute, she was staff counsel for the California State Coastal Conservancy and the Ocean Protection Council.

 

Elizabeth Grossman

 

Sharon Guynup

 

H

Scott Hamilton

 

Kim Harley

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH AND JUSTICE: Expanding the Environmental Justice Battlefront, 2:00 p.m.
  • Kim Harley, PhD is a faculty member in Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley and Associate Director of the CHAMACOS Study of farmworker women and their children living in California's agricultural Salinas Valley. She is a reproductive and environmental epidemiologist whose research focuses on the association between endocrine disrupting chemicals and women's health, including fertility and pregnancy outcomes, and child development, including neurodevelopment, obesity, and timing of puberty. Dr. Harley has considerable experience in community-based participatory research in farmworker communities, having spent much of her career examining sources and health effects of pesticide exposure among families in California's Salinas Valley. One of her current research interests is participatory action research with youth, including youth-driven projects to examine adolescent girls' exposure to hormone-disrupting chemicals in make-up and to carcinogenic pesticides used in fields near their homes. She has also published on the health effects of multiple chemicals in consumer products, including flame retardants in furniture, hormone disruptors in plastics, and chemicals in personal care products.

 

Thomas Harter

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, WATER: Trouble at the Tap: Does America's Safe Drinking Water Act Have Our Back? 9:00 a.m.
  • Thomas Harter is the Robert M. Hagan Endowed Chair for Water Resources Management and Policy at the Department of Land, Air, and Water Resources, UC Davis. Dr. Harter received his BS and MS in Hydrology from the Universities of Freiburg and Stuttgart, Germany; and his PhD in Hydrology from the University of Arizona. Before moving to Davis in 2000, Harter was Assistant Cooperative Extension Specialist at the University of California Kearney Agricultural Research Center in Fresno County, where he established his research program in agricultural groundwater hydrology, which he continues to develop at UC Davis. Currently, he is a member of the American Geophysical Union, the Groundwater Resources Association, the National Groundwater Association, and the Soil Science Society of America. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Groundwater Resources Association and of the Water Education Foundation. Dr. Harter's research emphasizes the nexus between groundwater and agriculture. In 2008, his research and extension program received the Kevin J. Neese Award in recognition of its efforts to engage scientists, regulators, farm advisors, dairy industry representatives, and dairy farmers to better understand the effects of dairy operations on water quality.

 

David Helvarg

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 3, Bodega Bay: Boats, Buoys and Bivalves, 6:15 a.m.
  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, OCEANS AND GLOBE: What's New on the Blue Beat? 2:00 p.m.
  • David Helvarg is an author and executive director of Blue Frontier, an ocean conservation and policy group. He has written six books, "Blue Frontier," "The War Against the Greens," "50 Ways to Save the Ocean," "Rescue Warriors," "Saved by the Sea" and "The Golden Shore." He's editor of the Ocean and Coastal Conservation Guide, organizer of 'Blue Vision' Summits for ocean activists and co-founder of the Peter Benchley Ocean Awards, the world's top marine conservation prize. He's winner of Coastal Living Magazine's Leadership Award and the Herman Melville Literary Award. Helvarg worked as a war correspondent in Northern Ireland and Central America, covered a range of issues from military science to the AIDS epidemic, and reported from every continent including Antarctica. An award-winning journalist, he produced more than 40 broadcast documentaries for PBS, The Discovery Channel, and others. His print work has appeared in publications including The New York Times, LA Times, Smithsonian, National Geographic, Popular Science, Sierra and Salon. He's done radio work for Marketplace, AP radio, and Pacifica. He's led workshops for journalists in Poland, Turkey, Tunisia, Slovakia and Washington DC. He is a licensed private investigator, body-surfer and scuba diver.

 

Tom Henry

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, WATER: Trouble at the Tap: Does America's Safe Drinking Water Act Have Our Back? 9:00 a.m.
  • Tom Henry is a member of Central Michigan University's Journalism Hall of Fame. He began his journalism career 35 years ago. He has focused on Great Lakes environmental-energy issues for most of his 23 years at The (Toledo) Blade. His many awards include one in 2014 from the International Association for Great Lakes Research, which honored Tom as the first newspaper journalist to receive its prestigious Jack Vallentyne Award for public outreach. IAGLR created that award a few years ago to recognize one person each year it believes has made a contribution to the public's understanding of the Great Lakes through sustained, high-level science communications for at least 20 years. In 2015, Tom received an excellence in environmental writing award from Wayne State University's Great Lakes Environmental Law Center. He has won multiple other awards. Tom is the only two-time recipient of a Vermont Law School fellowship for environmental journalists. In 2008, Tom spent 10 days in Greenland researching what became a four-day, nine-story series about climate change connections between Greenland and the Great Lakes region. Tom is a former Society of Environmental Journalists board member and currently serves as book editor and on the editorial board of the SEJournal. He has been a guest speaker at numerous events, from area colleges to civic groups. He delivered the keynote address to the University of Toledo College of Law's 2012 Great Lakes Water Law conference, and prior to that was a keynote speaker for a statewide convention of the Ohio League of Women Voters. You can contact Tom via email, thenry@theblade.com, by telephone, 419-724-6079, on Facebook, or via Twitter @ecowriterohio. You can follow his blog here.

 

Tessa Hill

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 3, Bodega Bay: Boats, Buoys and Bivalves, 6:15 a.m.
  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, OCEANS AND GLOBE: California’s Marine Reserves: After 10 Years Are There Unexpected Surprises? 10:45 a.m.
  • Dr. Tessa Hill is an Associate Professor and Chancellor’s Fellow at University of California, Davis, in the Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences. She is also affiliated with UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory, a research station on the Northern California Coast. Tessa graduated with a B.S. in Marine Science from Eckerd College (1999) and a Ph.D. in Marine Science from UC Santa Barbara (2004). She was then a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Davis, prior to starting a faculty position. Research interests include climate change, both past and present, and understanding the response of marine species to environmental change. She is part of the Bodega Ocean Acidification Research (BOAR) group at Bodega Marine Laboratory, which aims to understand the impact of ocean acidification on native species. Tessa leads an NSF-supported program with future (pre-service) K-12 science teachers to infuse their classrooms with climate change science, and an industry-academic partnership to understand the consequences of ocean acidification on shellfish farmers. Tessa is a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences and was recently a recipient of a AAAS Leshner Leadership Fellowship in Public Engagement, and a Presidential Early Career Award for Science & Engineering.

 

Lindsey Hoshaw

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 4, Mercury Pollution, Wildfire and Fault Line Impacts on Lake Berryessa, 6:30 a.m.
  • Lindsey Hoshaw’s journalism career started in Buenos Aires, Argentina where she wrote about politics and the environment for The Argentina Independent. After receiving a graduate degree from Stanford University she lived on a boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for a month to write about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch for the New York Times. All reporting costs were crowd-sourced through the Knight News Challenge-winning website Spot.us. Lindsey went on to write for The Boston Globe, Forbes and Scientific American. At KQED she is the interactive producer, where she manages the Science website, oversees @KQEDScience, writes web articles and produces radio stories.

 

J

Lupe Jimenez

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 9, California: The Clean Energy Proving Ground, 9:00 a.m.
  • Lupe Jimenez is currently the program manager for the Sacramento Municipal Utility District’s Energy Research and Development Demand Response programs. The program portfolio includes research pilots for dynamic pricing, electric vehicle demand response and enabling technology that encourage behavior changes, automation and control for residential customers. Prior to joining the SMUD team, her career in market intelligence included green and energy efficiency utility programs, real estate development, marketing, and public policy as a research professional.

 

Christopher Joyce

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, THE CRAFT 2: EJ Reporting: Don't Forget the Science, 2:00 p.m.
  • Event: Saturday, Lunch Plenary, Can Technology Save the Planet? A Discussion with Innovators and Ecologists, 9:00 a.m.
  • Christopher Joyce is a correspondent on the science desk at NPR. In his 24 years at NPR, he has reported from remote villages in the Amazonian and Central American rainforests, Tibetan outposts in the mountains of western China and the bottom of an abandoned copper mine in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Over the course of his career, Joyce has written stories about volcanoes, hurricanes, human evolution, tagging giant blue-fin tuna, climate change, wildfires, wars in Kosovo and Iraq, and the artificial insemination of an African elephant. More.

 

K

Jane Kay

 

Graham Kent

 

Rona Kobell

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 3, Bodega Bay: Boats, Buoys and Bivalves, 6:15 a.m.
  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, OCEANS AND GLOBE: What's New on the Blue Beat? 2:00 p.m.
  • Rona Kobell is a reporter for the Chesapeake Bay Journal, a nonprofit monthly newspaper covering science and policy in six states and the District of Columbia. For five years, she produced and co-hosted a live monthly radio show on WYPR in Baltimore that was broadcasted statewide. She blogs regularly at bayjournal.com and runs the Bay Journal’s Facebook page. In 2015, she was named one of 26 “women greening journalism” by the National Audubon Society. The same year, Baltimore Magazine named her Best Bay Watcher. She has twice appeared at the popular Stoop Storytelling Series and speaks frequently at local schools and universities. Recently, she addressed the Global Estuaries Forum in Deauville, France. A former Baltimore Sun reporter, she was awarded the Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan in 2008. Her work has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, Grist, Slate, Modern Farmer, Yale Environment 360 and the Columbia Journalism Review. She lives in Towson with her husband, journalist Jesse Walker, and their two daughters.

 

Michael Kodas

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Breakfast Session 1, Moving Target: Preparing Students for an Evolving Profession, 7:30 a.m.
  • Michael Kodas is the Associate Director of the Center for Environmental Journalism in the University of Colorado’s College of Media, Communication and Information. His work has focused on environmental issues including overfishing, deforestation, climate change, development, and wildfire. His writing and photojournalism has appeared in the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, The Denver Post, National Public Radio, The PBS Newshour, Newsweek, the CBS Evening News, OnEarth, National Geographic New Watch, Mother Jones, and many other publications. He was part of the team at The Hartford Courant awarded The Pulitzer Prize and has been honored with awards from the Pictures of Year International competition, the Society of Professional Journalists and the National Press Photographers Association. His book, High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed, was named Best Non-Fiction in USA Book News’ National Best Books Awards of 2008, and was a question on the game show Jeopardy. Kodas’s recent work documented how development has expanded into Colorado’s most flammable forests. He has facilitated outreach by fire scientists to policymakers and the press and is completing a book documenting the global increase in wildfire for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

 

Jon Krosnick

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, THE CRAFT 2: Communicating Climate Change, 9:00 a.m.
  • Jon Krosnick is Frederick O. Glover Professor in Humanities and Social Sciences, and Professor of Communication, Political Science, and Psychology at Stanford University, Director of Stanford’s Political Psychology Research Group, and Research Psychologist at the U.S. Census Bureau. He has expertise in questionnaire design and survey research methodology, voting behavior and elections, and American public opinion. He has taught courses for professionals on survey methods for 25 years around the world and has served as a methodology consultant to government agencies, commercial firms, and academic scholars. He is a world-recognized expert on the psychology of attitudes, especially in the area of politics, and co-principal investigator of the American National Election Study, the nation's preeminent academic research project exploring voter decision-making. For 30 years, Dr. Krosnick has studied how the American public's political attitudes are formed, change, and shape thinking and action. As an expert witness, he has evaluated surveys presented by opposing counsel and has conducted surveys to inform courts in cases involving unreimbursed expenses, uncompensated overtime work, exempt/non-exempt misclassification, patent/trademark violation, health effects of accidents, consequences of being misinformed about the results of standardized academic tests, economic valuation of environmental damage, change of venue motions, and other topics.

 

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Jennifer LaFleur

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, THE CRAFT 1: Data Journalism 101: Mining Databases, 9:00 a.m.
  • Jennifer LaFleur is senior editor for data journalism at The Center for Investigative Reporting. Previously, she was the director of computer-assisted reporting at ProPublica and has held similar roles at The Dallas Morning News, the San Jose Mercury News and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She also is a former first training director for Investigative Reporters and Editors. She has won awards for her coverage of disability, health care, legal and open government issues.

 

John Laird

 

Scott Lankford

  • Event: Sunday, SciFi and CliFi at the Library, 9:00 a.m.
  • Scott Lankford earned his PhD in Modern Thought and Literature at Stanford University in 1991 with a dissertation on "John Muir and the Nature of America." His book “Northwest Passages: From the Pen of John Muir” received a Franklin Award in 1988. His 2010 book “Tahoe Beneath the Surface” was awarded a Bronze Medal as Nature Book of the Year from Foreword magazine. As a Stanford EPIC Fellow for 2015-2016, he created a Climate Change Across the Curriculum Program designed for use in college composition classes nationwide. More.

 

Nancy Lord

  • Event: Sunday, SciFi and CliFi at the Library, 9:00 a.m.
  • Nancy Lord, former Alaska writer laureate and author of the upcoming clifi novel "The Pteropod Gang" (Alaska Northwest Books, August 2017) and the nonfiction climate change book, "Early Warming" (Counterpoint Press, 2011). Lord also edited the anthology "Made of Salmon" (University of Alaska Press, 2016).

 

Jay Lund

 

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Bobby Magill

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, THE CRAFT 2: Communicating Climate Change, 9:00 a.m.
  • Bobby Magill, an SEJ board member, is a senior science writer covering energy and climate at Climate Central in New York City. Prior to joining Climate Central, Bobby covered Western energy and environmental issues as a freelance writer for Popular Mechanics and as a reporter for the Coloradoan newspaper in Fort Collins, Colorado, and the Daily Sentinel newspaper in Grand Junction, Colorado. His work has also appeared in USA Today, High Country News, NewWest.net and other publications. His coverage of oil and gas drilling and fracking at the Coloradoan earned a commendation from the Columbia Journalism Review as a "model for other reporters on this beat in the West and beyond." Born and raised in Charleston, S.C., Bobby was a wilderness guide in Colorado and New Mexico and holds a B.A. in Communications with a specialization in Mass Media from the College of Charleston. He lives in New York City.

 

Felicia Marcus

 

Kelly Martin

  • Event: Sunday, Post-Conference Tour, Tall Trees and the Range of Light, Sunday, September 25 – Wednesday, September 28
  • Kelly Martin is chief of Fire and Aviation Management at Yosemite National Park. She began her career with the National Park Service as a co-op student while attending Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin, quickly moving on to Grand Canyon National Park. She took a 16-year break to work in fire management for the U.S. Forest Service before returning to the Park Service at Yosemite. Martin's passion remains focused on expanding the role of fire on the landscape and helping the public understand how implementing landscape fire under prescribed conditions now can help prevent the larger, more destructive wildfires under extreme conditions in the future.

 

Linda Mazzu

  • Event: Sunday, Post-Conference Tour, Tall Trees and the Range of Light, Sunday, September 25 – Wednesday, September 28
  • Linda Mazzu is the Chief of Resources Management and Science at Yosemite National Park. Linda has over 28 years of service to the federal government. She began her career in the Sierra at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. There, she focused her research on the impact of packstock on alpine meadows. Her career has spanned several NPS units including Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, Grand Canyon National Park and Washington DC. She also worked as a botanist/plant ecologist for the BLM, Forest Service and at the National Interagency Fire Center on multi-agency landscape partnerships and planning efforts. Linda most recently worked at Yellowstone National Park as the Chief of the Resources Compliance and Science Coordination branch in the Yellowstone Center for Resources. Linda has a B.S. in Park and Recreation Management from the Pennsylvania State University, PA and a M.S. in Natural Resources from Humboldt State University, CA.

 

Stephen McCord

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 4, Mercury Pollution, Wildfire and Fault Line Impacts on Lake Berryessa, 6:30 a.m.
  • Stephen McCord is president of McCord Environmental. He holds a B.S. degree in Civil Engineering from Clemson University, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Civil & Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Davis. He has over 20 years of consulting, research and teaching experience in the environmental engineering field throughout California, in several other US states, and internationally. As a registered Professional Engineer in the State of California, Dr. McCord has conducted water quality studies and management projects in numerous rivers, lakes, wetlands, deltas and bays. He works effectively with many diverse communities of stakeholders, leading the development of water quality policies, regulations and plans. A particular area of focus has been mercury contamination — tracking pollution from sources to impacted areas, restoring abandoned mine sites, strategic planning and facilitating stakeholder groups. Dr. McCord also supports numerous non-profit professional and community-based organizations as a leader, board member, committee member, mentor and supporter.

 

Sunshine Menezes

  • Event: Wednesday, All-Day Journalism Workshop, Power Sector in the Hot Seat: Challenges, Opportunities and Goals for Reducing Carbon Emissions, 8:00 a.m.
  • Sunshine Menezes is executive director of Metcalf Institute for Marine & Environmental Reporting at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography and Engagement Team co-lead for the Deep Carbon Observatory, a global community of multi-disciplinary scientists unlocking the inner secrets of Earth through investigations into quantities, forms, movements, and origins of deep carbon. Menezes is responsible for strategic and operational aspects of Metcalf Institute’s mission to expand accurate environmental news coverage through innovative training and resources for journalists, scientists, and other science communicators to build a deeper public understanding of science and the environment. She previously developed national and state-level environmental policy, as a Dean John Knauss National Sea Grant Marine Policy Fellow with Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. and later as part of a multidisciplinary team at the URI Coastal Resources Center and Rhode Island Sea Grant. Menezes received a B.S. in zoology from Michigan State University and a Ph.D. in biological oceanography from the URI Graduate School of Oceanography. She serves on the selection committee for the American Geophysical Union’s Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism. In her spare time she sings, cooks, gardens, and tries to write halfway decent songs.

 

Craig Miller

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, ENERGY AND LAND: What's Shaking with Earthquake Science — And Why You Need To Know About It, 9:00 a.m.
  • Craig Miller is KQED’s Science Editor. A multi-faceted journalist at home on either end of the microphone, he brings three decades of diverse experience to KQED’s science coverage. Prior to his current assignment, Craig led the team that launched KQED’s award-winning Climate Watch project in 2008. From producing and directing documentaries on public television to his reporting for outlets such as CNN and National Geographic Channel, Craig’s background makes him uniquely suited to help lead KQED’s Science and Environment editorial team. As a radio correspondent for KQED’s The California Report, Craig has reported extensively on environmental and resource issues facing California and the American West.

 

Eldridge Moores

 

Mike Moran

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 8, Kayaking California’s Imperiled Inland Sea, 7:45 a.m.
  • Mike Moran is supervising naturalist at the East Bay Regional Park District’s visitor center at Big Break Regional Shoreline in Oakley, a nature park on the edge of a flooded Delta island that has become a lake. He has been interpreting in myriad settings, specializing in marine and aquatic science, and boning up on birds. In his “off time” he likes leading whale-watch trips, skiing, golfing (hacking), quenching his curiosities and exploring the Northwest. The National Association for Interpretation recently recognized East Bay Regional Park District Naturalist Michael Moran as one of only two national 2012 Master Front-Line Interpreters.

 

Peter Moyle

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 8, Kayaking California’s Imperiled Inland Sea, 7:45 a.m.
  • Peter Moyle is Professor Emeritus in UC Davis' Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology and associate director of the university's Center for Watershed Sciences. Among his many interests, Moyle has brought to light the struggle of the Delta smelt to avert extinction amid fierce debate over the effects of water diversions, pollution, habitat disruption and introduced invasive species. He is author or co-author of more than 225 publications, including the definitive "Inland Fishes of California" (2002). He is currently completing a book on the ecology and management of floodplains. Moyle has served on numerous advisory bodies, including the Ecosystem Restoration Program Science Board of the California Bay-Delta Authority and the National Research Council Panel on the Klamath River, as well as serving as an expert witness in trials and hearings dealing with fish. His research interests include conservation of aquatic species, habitats and ecosystems, including salmon; ecology of fishes of the San Francisco Estuary; ecology of California stream fishes; impact of introduced aquatic organisms; and use of floodplains by fish.

 

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Mark Neuzil

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Breakfast Session 1, Moving Target: Preparing Students for an Evolving Profession, 7:30 a.m.
  • Mark Neuzil is professor of Communication and Journalism at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. He is the author or co-author of seven books, including the upcoming "Canoes: A Natural History in North America," with Norman Sims and a foreword by John McPhee.

 

Mary Nichols

 

Malcolm North

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 6, Living with Fire: Wildfires and Forest Health, 7:00 a.m.
  • Malcolm North is a Research Forest Ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station, and an Affiliate Professor of Forest Ecology, Department of Plant Sciences at the University of California, Davis. He received his Master of Forest Science (1988) at Yale University and his PhD in Forest Ecology from the University of Washington (1993). He has worked on research examining the effects of fire suppression and past management practices on western forest ecosystems. His lab (students and postdoc) primarily focuses on forest and fire ecology of Sierra Nevada mixed-conifer forest. More.

Koren Nydick

  • Event: Sunday, Post-Conference Tour, Tall Trees and the Range of Light, Sunday, September 25 – Wednesday, September 28
  • Dr. Koren Nydick has been an ecologist/science coordinator with Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks since 2010. She coordinates and works on climate change science and adaptation projects and partnerships as well as the parks’ permitted research program. She is the project lead for the parks’ Resource Stewardship Strategy , coordinator for the Giant Sequoia Drought Response Leaf to Landscape Initiative (NPS, USGS, UC Berkeley, and Carnegie Airborne Observatory), and is an instructor for the National Conservation Training Center’s Climate-Smart Conservation and Scenario Planning courses. Dr. Nydick co-led the Alternative Fire Management Futures exercise (NPS, USFS, USGS, and UC Davis) and the parks’ Natural Resource Condition Assessment, and coordinated the 2013 interagency Southern Sierra Adaptation Workshop. Her recent work has incorporated climate change vulnerability assessment, scenario thinking and geospatial decision support tools. Previously, Koren was the executive director of the Mountain Studies Institute in Colorado where she collaborated with managers, scientists, educators, and local communities on climate change, air and water quality, wetland, and educational initiatives. She also served as a postdoctoral associate at Utah State University researching nutrient cycling in mountain lakes and streams. Her PhD is in ecology from Colorado State University where she investigated the ecological effects of air pollutants on high-elevation ecosystems.

 

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Madeline Ostrander

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, THE CRAFT 2: Freelance Pitch Slam, 11:00 a.m.
  • Madeline Ostrander is a freelance journalist based in Seattle, Washington, and a contributing editor to YES! Magazine. Her writing has appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, The Nation, Audubon Magazine, High Country News, Ensia, Al Jazeera America, Hakai and Science. Her work has been supported by the National Health Journalism Fellowship, the Fund for Investigative Journalism, the Northwest Science Writers Association and the Jack Straw Cultural Center.

 

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Katie M. Palmer

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, THE CRAFT 2: Freelance Pitch Slam, 11:00 a.m.
  • Katie M. Palmer is a senior associate editor at WIRED, where she oversees science and health coverage in print and online. Before coming to WIRED, she worked at publications including Discover and IEEE Spectrum. Palmer studied at Williams College and has a graduate degree from New York University’s Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program. Originally from Connecticut, she now lives in San Francisco.

 

Jason Peltier

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 8, Kayaking California’s Imperiled Inland Sea, 7:45 a.m.
  • Jason Peltier is executive director of the San Luis Delta Mendota Water Authority. He previously was deputy general manger of the Westlands Water District. Peltier served for six years as the deputy assistant secretary for water and science at the Department of the Interior in Washington D.C. In this position, he was a part of the management team responsible for the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Geological Survey. He has spent much of his professional career as manager of the Central Valley Project Water Association, an organization representing the interests of the eighty water districts serving three million acres of irrigated farm land and four million households. He grew up on a farm in Kern County.

 

Bob Perciasepe

 

Molly Peterson

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, THE CRAFT 1: Data Journalism 102: Drones, Satellites and Other Hi-tech Tools, 10:45 a.m.
  • Molly Peterson is a California-based reporter who has been covering the environment with a focus on water and climate change since 2002. She worked at Southern California Public Radio (KPCC-FM) for 8 years, and files for NPR, PRI, KQED, BBC and other outlets. In the last year she has also been a community reporter and producer for ISeeChange, a community climate and weather journal funded in part by NASA’s OCO-2 experiment.

 

Cheryl Phillips

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, THE CRAFT 1: Data Journalism 101: Mining Databases, 9:00 a.m.
  • Cheryl Phillips teaches journalism at Stanford University. She worked at The Seattle Times from 2002-14 as a reporter and editor, focusing on data journalism and investigations. In Seattle, she worked on Pulitzer Prize-winning breaking news stories in 2009 and 2014, included coverage of the 2014 Oso landslide that killed 43 people. She also co-edited a project on logging and landslides at The Seattle Times, which received the 2009 Risser Award for Western Environmental Journalism. Phillips has twice been part of teams that were Pulitzer finalists. She has worked at USA Today, in Michigan, Montana and Texas. She is a former IRE board president.

 

Kate Poole

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 7, Water Is for Fighting: Drought, Water Supply and Climate Change, 7:30 a.m.
  • Kate Poole is a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, director of NRDC’s Water and Wildlife project, and litigation director of NRDC’s Water Program. She has practiced environmental law since 1992, and has worked extensively on matters involving water resource and aquatic ecosystem protection, including serving as lead counsel for NRDC in a series of cases to reform the operations of the Central Valley Project and State Water Project to reduce their impacts on threatened and endangered fish. Ms. Poole also directs other litigation for NRDC’s Water Program, including efforts to restore the San Joaquin River and ensure that long-term contracts for the diversion and use of California’s rivers comply with environmental and natural resource protection laws. Before coming to NRDC, Ms. Poole was a partner with the law firm of Adams Broadwell Joseph & Cardozo, and was of counsel at the Seattle office of Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund. Ms. Poole graduated from the University of Michigan with a magna cum laude Bachelor’s degree in economics. She received a cum laude Juris Doctor from the University of Michigan Law School, and is admitted to practice before several bars, including the U.S. Supreme Court.

 

David Poulson

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Breakfast Session 1, Moving Target: Preparing Students for an Evolving Profession, 7:30 a.m.
  • David Poulson is the senior associate director of Michigan State University's Knight Center for Environmental journalism. The International Association of Great Lakes Research recognized him in 2015 for decades of “sustained efforts to inform and educate the public and policymakers.” He teaches environmental, investigative, public affairs and data analysis reporting, and organizes workshops in the U.S. and abroad to help journalists better report on the environment and researchers better explain their work. He is the founder and editor of Great Lakes Echo, a non-profit award-winning environmental news service and of The Food Fix, which produces multi-media reports on food systems innovation. Before arriving at MSU in 2003, he was a professional journalist for more than 22 years. His research interests include non-traditional methods of gathering and delivering environmental news, reader engagement, climate change communications and non-profit journalism.

 

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Amy Quinton

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 6, Living with Fire: Wildfires and Forest Health, 7:00 a.m.
  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, ENERGY AND LAND: Living with Fire, 2:00 p.m.
  • Event: Sunday, Post-Conference Tour, Tall Trees and the Range of Light, Sunday, September 25 – Wednesday, September 28
  • Amy Quinton is Environment Reporter for Capital Public Radio in Sacramento, where she covers water, wildfires, climate change and science. Before coming to Sacramento in 2012, she spent eight years as the Environment Reporter for New Hampshire Public Radio, where she also served as Interim News Director for a year. Previously, Amy worked six years as a reporter for NPR member station WFAE in Charlotte, and before that, worked freelance in Washington DC, where she contributed stories to WAMU and American Public Media's Marketplace. Her stories have been broadcast on NPR’s Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Here and Now, as well as on PRI’s The World. During her career, Amy has received numerous awards for her reporting, including the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service in Journalism, presented by the Society of Professional Journalists.

 

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Todd Reubold

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, THE CRAFT 2: Freelance Pitch Slam, 11:00 a.m.
  • Todd Reubold is the publisher, director and co-founder of Ensia. In this role he is responsible for overall leadership of the Ensia media platform; which includes Ensia's award-winning print and online magazine, live events and more. Reubold has interviewed luminaries such as ocean explorer Sylvia Earle, The Nature Conservancy President Mark Terceck, late Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai and numerous others. He regularly writes about environmental communications, sustainability, wildlife protection and more. Reubold is also a frequent speaker and moderator at national and international events focused on the intersection of media and the environment. More.

 

Sammy Roth

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, ENERGY AND LAND: Renewable Energy on Public Lands, 11:00 a.m.
  • Sammy Roth covers energy and the environment for The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, California, part of the USA Today Network. His work has focused on renewable energy's role in fighting climate change, the balance between conservation and energy development in California's vast deserts, and water conservation strategies during the state's historic drought. He graduated from Columbia University with a degree in sustainable development and American studies. You can sign up for his weekly energy and water newsletter, The Current, by going here.

 

Mary Ruckelshaus

 

Richard Ruggiero

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, OCEANS AND GLOBE: Crimes Against Nature: Law and Disorder from the Deep Forests to the High Seas, 11:00 a.m.
  • Richard G. Ruggiero is the Chief of US Fish and Wildlife Service’s Division of International Conservation. He received a Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 1989 with a dissertation on the Ecology and Conservation of Elephants in Central Africa. His Master’s research was on predator-prey relationships of lions and other large African carnivores. Based on 17 years of on-the-ground experience in Africa over his 35-year career, his work is centered on: African elephants; conservation policy; endangered species conservation; protected area design and management; wildlife security; the building of natural resource governance and capacity related to wildlife conservation; professional training; and measures to address international wildlife trafficking.

 

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Eric Sagara

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, THE CRAFT 1: Data Journalism 101: Mining Databases, 9:00 a.m.
  • Eric Sagara is a senior data reporter for Reveal. He joined Reveal following a news applications fellowship at ProPublica, where he worked on projects about pharmaceutical payments to doctors, deadly force in police agencies and the trail of guns in the United States. Prior to that, he was a reporter on The Newark Star-Ledger's data team. Sagara is originally from Arizona, where he reported on business, education, crime, wildfires and government. He is based in Reveal's Emeryville, California, office.

 

Jennifer Sahn

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, THE CRAFT 2: Freelance Pitch Slam, 11:00 a.m.
  • Jennifer Sahn is executive editor of Pacific Standard, where she bears a primary responsibility for acquiring and editing longform features. She previously served as editor of Orion, during which time the magazine was twice a winner of the Utne Independent Press Award for General Excellence and twice a finalist for a National Magazine Award. She has been a judge for several literary awards and fellowships and has taught or lectured at a number of writing workshops. Stories she has edited have been awarded the Pushcart Prize, O. Henry Prize, John Burroughs Essay Award, and have been widely reprinted in the Best American Series anthologies, The Norton Reader, and via online aggregators such as Longreads.

 

Mark Schleifstein

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, OCEANS AND GLOBE: What's New on the Blue Beat? 2:00 p.m.
  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, OCEANS AND GLOBE: Restoring the Deep and the Shoreline, 9:00 a.m.
  • Mark Schleifstein is the environment and hurricane reporter for NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. He is the co-author of the December 2008 series, "Losing Louisiana," explaining the role of global warming, sea level rise and subsidence on the future of the Louisiana coastline. He also was co-author of a March 2007 series "Last Chance: The Fight to Save a Disappearing Coast," which won the 2008 Communications Award of the National Academy of Sciences and the 2007 John B. Oakes Prize for Environmental Reporting from Columbia University. He's also co-author of the 2002 series, "Washing Away," which warned that much of New Orleans could be flooded by hurricane storm surge because levees were too low and subject to overtopping. The series won awards from the National Hurricane Conference and the American Society of Civil Engineers. Schleifstein's reporting on Katrina was among the newspaper's stories honored with 2006 Pulitzer Prizes for Public Service and Breaking News Reporting and the George Polk Award for Metropolitan Reporting. He's also the co-author with John McQuaid of the book "Path of Destruction: The Devastation of New Orleans and the Coming Age of Superstorms," about Katrina. Stories he wrote on coastal science issues were honored in 2006 with a special award from the American Geophysical Union. He also was co-author of the 1996 series, "Oceans of Trouble: Are the World's Fisheries Doomed?" which won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Two other series he co-authored were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize: "Home Wreckers: How the Formosan termite is devastating New Orleans," published in 1998, finalist for national reporting; and "Louisiana in Peril," published in 1991, finalist for explanatory journalism. Schleifstein is a member of the board of directors of the Society of Environmental Journalists.

 

Bob Schneider

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 4, Mercury Pollution, Wildfire and Fault Line Impacts on Lake Berryessa, 6:30 a.m.
  • Bob Schneider has a B.S. in geology with expertise in water and mercury issues. He volunteers with Tuleyome, the non-profit that spearheaded the recent designation of the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument. He sits on the Central Valley Water Board and the Bureau of Land Management Central CA Resource Advisory Council. Bob is married with two grown boys and is a mountaineer, sailor, rafter and skier.

 

Gregor Schuurman

  • Event: Sunday, Post-Conference Tour, Tall Trees and the Range of Light, Sunday, September 25 – Wednesday, September 28
  • Dr. Gregor W. Schuurman is an ecologist in the U.S. National Park Service’s Climate Change Response Program, where he works with national parks and partners to understand and adapt to a wide range of climate change impacts. His work focuses on 1) incorporating climate projections into management and planning, 2) analyzing climate adaption options in the context of policy, 3) tracking ongoing adaptation in the NPS, and 4) developing and synthesizing management-relevant science. He has extensive experience in vulnerability assessments, monitoring, and management for a diversity of rare species, and has in the past focused on savanna ecosystem function in Southern Africa, rare species conservation and management in the upper Midwest, and climate-change sensitivity of endangered species in Hawaiian national parks.

 

Mark Schwartz

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, CLIMATE AND AIR: Innovating with Nature: Ecosystem-based Adaptation to Climate Risk, 10:45 a.m.
  • Mark Schwartz is associate director of the John Muir Institute of the Environment, and professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at UC Davis. He's a conservation scientist focused on natural resource managers decision making under climate change. Research projects include assessing climate change vulnerability for western forests and adapting fire management strategies, and establishing rational policies for emerging conservation strategies such as assisted migration, and building social capital for conservation.

 

Dean Scott

 

Rebecca Shaw

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, FOOD AND AGRICULTURE: Food Security and Public Health, 11:00 a.m.
  • In her role as Chief Scientist and Senior Vice President for World Wildlife Fund, Rebecca Shaw works with our many staff and partners around the world to identify the most important scientific questions that challenge our mission and advance solutions to those challenges. Rebecca came to WWF from the Environmental Defense Fund, where she was responsible for developing and implementing the vision and strategy of the Land, Water & Wildlife program. Prior to joining EDF in 2011, she served first as Director of Conservation Science and then as Associate State Director at the Nature Conservancy's California Chapter. She's also researched the impact of climate change at the Carnegie Institution for Science's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University. Rebecca has been published widely, including a number of peer-reviewed works in leading journals such as Science and Nature, and is the recipient of numerous research fellowships. She is a lead author of the section of the 2014 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fifth Assessment Report that focuses on impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability, and serves as a member of the California Climate Adaptation Advisory Panel. Rebecca holds an M.A. in environmental policy and a Ph.D. in energy and resources from the University of California, Berkeley.

 

Caleen Sisk

 

Brendan Smith

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, THE CRAFT 1: Data Journalism 102: Drones, Satellites and Other Hi-tech Tools, 10:45 a.m.
  • Brendan Smith is a Ph.D. student in Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Merced. Brendan began his research with Mechatronics, Embedded Systems, and Automation (MESA) Lab during his senior year of undergraduate career. At MESA, Brendan performs research on unmanned aerial systems (UASs) with an emphasis in in-situ environmental sampling. At present, Brendan performs his Ph.D. research at NASA JPL, studying fugitive gas leaks in natural gas infrastructure. Brendan’s interests include UAVs, robotics, R/C systems, and sustainable systems.

 

Lauren Sommer

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 7, Water Is for Fighting: Drought, Water Supply and Climate Change, 7:30 a.m.
  • Lauren Sommer covers environment, water, and energy for KQED, the NPR station in San Francisco. As part of her day job, she has scaled Sierra Nevada peaks, run from charging elephant seals and desperately tried to get her sea legs — all in pursuit of good radio. She has done in-depth coverage of renewable energy, fracking in California and the policy and politics of the state's perennial water shortages. Lauren has been recognized by the Society of Environmental Journalists, the National Edward R. Murrow Awards and is a recipient of the Harold Gilliam Award for Excellence in Environmental Reporting. She was also a fellow at Stanford University's Bill Lane Center for the American West. Her work has appeared on Marketplace, PRI's The World, Living on Earth and Science Friday and she is also a regular contributor to NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered.

 

Lisa Song

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, THE CRAFT 1: Data Journalism 101: Mining Databases, 9:00 a.m.
  • Lisa Song joined InsideClimate News in January 2011, where she reports on climate change, environmental health and natural gas drilling. She is co-author of "The Dilbit Disaster" series, which won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and worked on the Exxon: The Road Not Taken stories. Song has degrees in environmental science and science writing from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

 

Daniel Sperling

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, CLIMATE AND AIR: Transformational Transportation and Energy Policies, 9:00 a.m.
  • Event: Saturday, Lunch Plenary, Can Technology Save the Planet? A Discussion with Innovators and Ecologists, 9:00 a.m.
  • Dr. Daniel Sperling is Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science and Policy, and founding Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis (ITS-Davis). He holds the transportation seat on the California Air Resources Board and served as Chair of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies in 2015-16. Among his many prizes are the 2013 Blue Planet Prize from the Asahi Glass Foundation Prize for being “a pioneer in opening up new fields of study to create more efficient, low-carbon, and environmentally beneficial transportation systems.” He served twice as lead author for the IPCC (sharing the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize), has testified seven times to the US Congress, and provided 40 keynote presentations in the past five years. He has authored or co-authored over 250 technical papers and 12 books, including "Two Billion Cars" (Oxford University Press, 2009), is widely cited in leading newspapers, been interviewed many times on NPR radio, including Science Friday, Talk of the Nation and Fresh Air, and in 2009 was featured on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. More.

 

Naomi Starkman

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 2, FOOD AND AGRICULTURE: Hidden Hunger: Uncovering Stories from Food Deserts, 2:00 p.m.
  • Naomi Starkman is a Founder and the Editor-in-Chief of Civil Eats. She is a 2015-16 John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford. She is a founding board member of the Food & Environment Reporting Network. Naomi served as the Director of Communications & Policy at Slow Food Nation and has worked as a media consultant at Newsweek, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, GQ and WIRED magazines. She was previously the Director of Communications for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR). After graduating from law school, she served as the Deputy Executive Director of the City of San Francisco’s Ethics Commission. Naomi is an avid organic gardener, having worked on several farms.

 

Darrell Steinberg

 

Scott Stephens

 

Nate Stephenson

  • Event: Sunday, Post-Conference Tour, Tall Trees and the Range of Light, Sunday, September 25 – Wednesday, September 28
  • Nate Stephenson is a research ecologist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Western Ecological Research Center. With roots going back five generations in the Sierra Nevada, Nate Stephenson is a Research Ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Western Ecological Research Center, stationed in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. As a place-based scientist co-located with land managers, he has worked on forest ecology projects in the southern Sierra Nevada for the last 37 years, with emphases on fire ecology, giant sequoia ecology, effects of rapid climatic changes, and how land managers can adapt to an uncertain (but certainly unprecedented) future. His research is primarily in concert with USGS’s broader Western Mountain Initiative, a global change research project centered on national parks in the mountainous western U.S.

 

Michael Sutton

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, OCEANS AND GLOBE: California’s Marine Reserves: After 10 Years Are There Unexpected Surprises? 10:45 a.m.
  • Michael Sutton is an internationally respected leader in marine and coastal conservation. Governor Schwarzenegger twice appointed Sutton to the California Fish & Game Commission, where he served from 2007-2015 and was instrumental in creating the nation’s largest network of marine protected areas along the California coast. He was elected President of the Commission for two years and served on the state’s Wildlife Conservation Board. He currently leads the team working to create the Pacific Flyway Center in the Suisun Marsh, the $75 million legacy project of philanthropist Ken Hofmann. Sutton serves as Board Chair of COMPASS — a science communication organization; and as a founding Board member and Chair of Ocean Champions, the first political action committee for the oceans. He also is a member of the summer faculty at the Vermont Law School, where he teaches ocean & coastal law. The second edition of his book, “Ocean & Coastal Law and Policy,” was published by the American Bar Association in 2015. Sutton received a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Utah State University and studied coral reef fish ecology on the Great Barrier Reef through the University of Sydney, Australia. He also earned a law degree in international and natural resources law from George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C.

 

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Laura Tam

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, CLIMATE AND AIR: Innovating with Nature: Ecosystem-based Adaptation to Climate Risk, 10:45 a.m.
  • Laura Tam is sustainable development policy director at the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association, where she coordinates work in five major policy areas: green buildings, water supply, wastewater, energy and climate change. She has produced and participated in numerous public programs, citywide task forces, major research reports and advocacy recommending strategies for sea level rise, water efficiency and reuse, green infrastructure and reducing climate-change emissions. Laura currently serves on the board of directors of Friends of the Urban Forest, the board of the Green Infrastructure Foundation and the advisory council of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. Prior to working at SPUR, she worked for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

 

Sarah Terry-Cobo

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 9, California: The Clean Energy Proving Ground, 9:00 a.m.
  • Sarah Terry-Cobo is a reporter for The Journal Record, a daily business newspaper based in Oklahoma City. She covers energy, including oil and gas, wind, electric utilities, as well as natural resource issues, including water use, air and water pollution and illegal dumping. Previously she has worked for: NPR-affiliate KQED Radio, the Center for Investigative Reporting, GreenBiz.com, Forbes.com and The Oakland Tribune. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Policy from the University of Tulsa, a Master of Journalism in Journalism and Master of Arts in Latin American Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. Sarah was the co-chair for SEJ's 2015 conference held in Norman, Oklahoma in 2015. She has been a member of SEJ since 2007.

 

Kit Tyler

 

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Ian Urbina

 

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Danielle Venton

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 4, Mercury Pollution, Wildfire and Fault Line Impacts on Lake Berryessa, 6:30 a.m.
  • Danielle Venton is a radio reporter and science writer in the Bay Area whose work has appeared in WIRED, The Verge, Nature, High Country News and the airwaves of KQED Public Radio. She has a bachelor's degree in biology from Humboldt State University and studied science communication at UC Santa Cruz.

 

Emmanuel Vincent

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 3, THE CRAFT 2: Communicating Climate Change, 9:00 a.m.
  • Emmanuel Vincent is a Project Scientist at UC Merced's Center for Climate Communication. He is leading Climate Feedback: an initiative that organizes scientists from around the world to collectively evaluate the scientific credibility of influential climate change information online and help people identify trustworthy sources of information. He earned a PhD in climate science from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris and was a post-doctorate fellow at MIT studying hurricane-climate interactions.

 

Chris Voss

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, OCEANS AND GLOBE: California’s Marine Reserves: After 10 Years Are There Unexpected Surprises? 10:45 a.m.
  • Chris Voss is a California native and a life-long commercial fisherman. He has fished in California waters for rock crab, shrimp, sea cucumber, sea urchin, abalone, nearshore live fish and lobster. For the past 26 years he has also spent his summers in Bristol Bay, Alaska fishing for sockeye salmon. He is currently the president of Commercial Fishermen of Santa Barbara and former president of the California Abalone Association. He is an active member of the California Lobster Trap Fishermen's Association, Alaska Fishermen's Marketing Association and the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Marketing Association. He has a Bachelor of Arts from UCSB in Aquatic Biology and is working on a number of projects that aim to build stronger relationships between fishing communities, state managers and environmental NGO's.

 

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Brett Walton

  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Sessions 1, WATER: Drought-Proofing California and the West, 11:00 a.m.
  • Brett Walton writes about agriculture, energy and the politics and economics of water in the United States for Circle of Blue, and he occasionally reports on Australia, India and the Middle East. Brett also writes the Federal Water Tap, Circle of Blue’s weekly digest of U.S. government water news. In 2014, the Society of Environmental Journalists awarded Brett 3rd place in the SEJ annual awards competition for beat reporting in a small market. Brett has received fellowships from SEJ (2013) and the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources (2011).

 

Carolyn Whetzel

  • Event: Wednesday, Opening Reception and Dinner, Welcome to California! 5:00 p.m.
  • Carolyn Whetzel, co-chair of SEJ's 2016 conference, is an environmental reporter for Bloomberg BNA, a private publisher headquartered in Washington, D.C. that covers legislative developments, federal and state laws and regulations, court decisions, and economic trends. Whetzel is based in California and covers a variety of state environmental issues including air and water quality, hazardous wastes, chemicals, and energy since 1992. Her work appears primarily in Bloomberg BNA's Daily Environment Report, Environment Reporter, Toxics Law Reporter, Chemical Regulation Reporter, Occupational Safety & Health Reporter, and Daily Report for Executives. Whetzel joined BNA in 1970 while attending George Washington University, but left four years later to travel and move to California. Before rejoining BNA, which Bloomberg acquired in 2011, she wrote for in-house publications for several companies and institutions and was a freelance writer in San Francisco, Phoenix, and Dallas.

 

Jeffrey White

 

Carl Wilcox

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 8, Kayaking California’s Imperiled Inland Sea, 7:45 a.m.
  • Carl Wilcox is a Delta policy advisor to the director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. He is responsible for water planning and policy formulation programs related to the Delta. Previously he served as Bay-Delta Region Regional Manager (2011-2012) and Chief of the Water Branch (2005-2011). He is the department lead for permitting the California Water Fix and implementing California EcoRestore; department policy lead for drought planning and response related to operations of the State and Federal water projects and their endangered species and water quality authorizations; department policy lead for the Interagency Ecological Program, and issues related to water management and fishery conservation in the Central Valley.

 

Eric Wilder

  • Event: Saturday, Concurrent Sessions 4, ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH AND JUSTICE: Indigenous Rights and the Environment, 10:45 a.m.
  • Eric Wilder, former Tribal Chairman of the Kashia Band of Pomo Indians, has been advocating for Tribal rights to coastal access points for California Coastal tribe since the formation of the Marine Life Protection Act. He currently works as one of the Coastal Stewards for the Manchester-Point Arena Band of Pomo Indians and is working in a consortium of Pomo tribes to protect Cultural resources and sites along the coast of the tribes' aboriginal territories.

 

George Wuerthner

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 6, Living with Fire: Wildfires and Forest Health, 7:00 a.m.
  • Event: Friday, Concurrent Breakfast Session 2, Forest Wildfire Legislation: Do We Need To Control Wildfire? 7:30 a.m.
  • George Wuerthner recently retired as Senior Scientist/Ecological Projects Director at the Foundation for Deep Ecology where he worked on the synthesis and communication of scientific information. As an ecologist, he has published 38 books dealing with environmental and natural history topics, including "Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy" and "Yellowstone & the Fires of Change."

 

Lynn Wunderlich

  • Event: Thursday, Tour 5, Mines, Vines and Wines: Gold and Grapes in the Sierra Nevada, 6:45 a.m.
  • Lynn Wunderlich has served as a University of California Cooperative Extension Farm Advisor since 2000. She has responsibility for conducting agricultural research and delivering UC research-based information to winegrape and tree fruit growers in the Central Sierra region, covering El Dorado, Amador, Calaveras and Tuolumne counties. Currently, Lynn’s work includes the following projects: measuring actual vine water use (evapotranspiration) and vine water stress on slopes; implementing the powdery mildew model via index weather stations across the foothills; investigating Red Blotch virus spread in Zinfandel; and controlling pesticide drift and off-site movement through sprayer calibration. Lynn writes a blog — the "Foothill Fodder."

 

Z

Tom Zeller Jr.

 

Heather Zichal

 

Public
Region: 
California

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