Nicole Motzer is the Assistant Director for Interdisciplinary Science at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center in Annapolis, MD. She received her PhD in Geographical Sciences from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2017. Nicole facilitates, empirically investigates, enhances capacities for scientists and scholars who collaborate at the intersection of social and environmental systems to solve complex challenges. She has worked with hundreds of graduate students and dozens of early- and late-career researchers from across disciplines and around the world through first-of-their-kind programs, workshops, and trainings she regularly designs and leads. Her strongly interdisciplinary research background ranges from evaluating the efficacy of marine spatial planning around the globe, to assessing the effects of nature-based tourism on inequality in southern Africa, to investigating how food system regionalization and gender dynamics shape rural development processes in the Rocky Mountain West. Nicole serves as a Steering Committee member for the ANGLES network.
Aleta Rudeen Weller is the Senior Research and Engagement Officer at Colorado State University’s School of Global Environmental Sustainability. She also serves as President of the Board of Directors of the Sustainable Living Association in Fort Collins and on the advisory council for CSU’s Center for Environmental Justice. She received her Master of Science degree in 2009 from CSU in Rangeland Ecosystem Science and Bachelor of Arts degree in 2006 from Northern Arizona University in International Affairs. Aleta has a background in collaborative process, facilitation, communication, conflict management, and linking science and management in natural resources. For the School, Aleta facilitates creative approaches to research, graduate and postdoc leadership development, and community engagement. She is charged with the School’s strategy for developing new transdisciplinary research activities for faculty, return on investment, messaging, and role in community and campus partnerships. Aleta serves as a Steering Committee member for the ANGLES network.
K Curran is an officer with the Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation at The Pew Charitable Trusts. They have a doctorate and master’s of science in geography from The Pennsylvania State University and a bachelor’s in communication and media studies and environmental studies from Macalester College. K oversees the Impact Initiative, an effort to support Pew Marine Fellows in networking and engaging with decision makers to inform marine conservation. K previously developed and implemented curriculum for science communication and leadership professional development at The Nature Conservancy and facilitated professional development and learning activities with international researchers and policy makers for START International Inc. Their research interests include measuring and tracking research impact, capacity development, participatory methods, biodiversity conservation, and climate change adaptation.
Simon Donner is an interdisciplinary climate scientist and professor in the Department of Geography at the University of British Columbia, where he teaches and conducts research at the intersection of climate change science and policy. He is also the director of the UBC Ocean Leaders program, and holds appointments in UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries and UBC's Atmospheric Sciences Program. He is currently a lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report.
Jason Heustis is a Lecturer in the Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Director of Student Development and Training Evaluation in the HMS Office of Graduate Education. He oversees initiatives to connect life sciences graduate students to resources promoting their wellness, skills training, professional development and job searches and also teaches courses and workshops on the responsible conduct of science, embedded teaching training, and graduate peer mentoring. His current research focuses on developing metrics for evaluating graduate student learning, development, career decision-making and outcomes and best practices for promoting student wellness and their informed decision-making.
Cathy Jordan is director of leadership and education for the Institute on the Environment and professor of pediatrics, University of Minnesota. She also serves as the consulting research director for the Children & Nature Network. Cathy earned a PhD in clinical psychology from Wayne State University in 1991. Cathy’s research interests focus on the developmental outcomes of nature play and nature-based learning; childhood connectedness to nature as a predictor of environmental stewardship; and the development of innovative models of sustainability education and leadership development. Cathy is the recipient of the following University of Minnesota Awards: the President’s Community Engaged Scholar Award (Medical School Awardee), the Excellence in Child Health Advocacy Award, the President’s Outstanding Community Service Award, and the Community-Campus Coordinators Alliance Outstanding Partner in Engagement Award. In addition, she is an inaugural inductee of the Academy of Community Engagement Scholarship.
Margaret Krebs, Program Designer of the Earth Leadership Program began working with the program in 2008, focusing on expanding the leadership component of the core training to address the skills needed to foster partnerships with colleagues outside of the academic arena. Margaret’s commitment and experience designing leadership development programs led her to be selected as a participant in the 2014 Leadership for Collective Intelligences, led by Dialogos. She has melded the content of that training with her own experience, resulting in work with graduate leadership programs within multiple universities. Prior to her position with the Earth Leadership Program, Margaret managed training grants in Stanford’s Graduate School of Education and its School of Medicine. Margaret’s interest in facilitating collaboration developed while she was an undergraduate in innovative study programs at Earlham College. She continued her study and received a Masters degree in Psycho-educational Processes at Temple University.
Lydia Olander directs the Ecosystem Services Program at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University and is an adjunct professor at the Nicholas School of the Environment. She leads the National Ecosystem Services Partnership, advances ecosystem services consideration in natural resource decision making, studies environmental markets and mitigation, climate mitigation and resilience on natural and working lands, and is working to expand engaged interdisciplinary sustainability science in academia. For 15 years she has involved students in co-produced actionable science, resource management, and policy projects. Over the last year she coordinated a pilot environmental leadership training program for doctoral students at Duke and led training on policy engagement. Prior to joining the Nicholas Institute, she spent a year as an AAAS Congressional Science and Technology Fellow working with Senator Joseph Lieberman on environmental and energy issues. She received her PhD in biogeochemistry from Stanford University.
Kirsten Rowell directs two programs aimed at fostering research leadership: The Global Sustainability Scholars Program which recruits, trains, and networks underrepresented students interested in sustainability research; and the Research and Innovation Office Faculty Fellows, which builds communities of practice around research leadership on campus. Kirsten received a MS in Aquatic Ecology from Northern Arizona University (2001) and a PhD in Geosciences from University of Arizona (2006). Kirsten has focused her research on examining the impact of management on ecosystems using subfossils and comparing them to contemporary specimens. She has been a member of ESA, AAAS, and SCB. She was recently recognized for her individual contribution to Sustainability, recipient of the CU Boulder Sustainability Award.
Linda Silka is the Senior Fellow at the University of Maine Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions, Executive Editor, Maine Policy Review, and Professor Emeritus, School of Economics at University of Maine. She is a community and social psychologist by training and has devoted her career to bringing the social and community psychology into transdisciplinary research and action. She is incoming president to the American Psychological Association’s Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, a division which focuses its efforts on research addressing disparities and ensuring that research leads to action. Much of her work has been on community-university research participants, often with refugee and immigrant communities and with a focus on how students from many different disciplines can learn to work effectively with diverse group on challenging sustainability problems.
Diana H. Wall is a Colorado State University (CSU) University Distinguished Professor, Professor of Biology, and Director of the School of Global Environmental Sustainability (SoGES). Since the founding of SoGES in 2008, Diana has been a driving force for connecting CSU faculty, researchers, and students by providing innovative programs and tools to address the world’s greatest sustainability challenges. An ecologist, she is recognized for her work on soil biodiversity and climate change impacts, specifically on soil nematode dynamics, functions, and survival in the Antarctic dry valleys. Wall Valley, Antarctica was designated for her contributions. Diana was president, Society of Nematologists and the Ecological Society of America. She received the 2013 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, the Ulysses Medal, University College Dublin, the 2019 President’s Medal of the British Ecological Society and is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences. She earned her PhD at the University of Kentucky.
Abigail York is a Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University. She co-directs Earth System Science for the Anthropocene (ESSA) a transdisciplinary graduate training network in the Global Futures Lab launched in 2021, which trains graduate students in transdisciplinary team science focused on justice, equity, and co-production of solutions with communities and stakeholders to solve today’s Anthropocene challenges. Abigail has a BA in economics from Knox College and a PhD in Public Policy from Indiana University. Her work is focused on environmental governance of social-ecological systems that are rapidly changing - she leads several large National Science Foundation funded transdisciplinary projects including work on sea ice change in the Beringia region of Far Eastern Russia and Alaska, unconventional oil and gas drilling in Appalachia, and urbanization and climate justice in Phoenix, and a US Department of Agriculture funded project on governance of water and irrigated agriculture in areas facing snowpack decline due to climate change.
