Speaker Bios

Shere Abbott

abbott Sherburne “Shere” Abbott serves as the Associate Director for Environment of the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President. She manages a portfolio of S&T policy that ranges from energy and climate change to environmental quality and sustainability.

Prior to her confirmation for this position by the Senate on April 30, 2009, Ms. Abbott was a faculty member of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin and served as the Director of the Center for Science and Practice of Sustainability in the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost. Previously, Ms Abbott served as Chief International Officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Prior to that appointment, over a 17 year period at the National Academies’ National Research Council she served as Executive Director of the Board on Sustainable Development, the Director of International Organization Programs for the Office of International Affairs, and the Director of the Polar Research Board of the National Academies’ National Research Council. Ms. Abbott also served as Assistant Scientific Program Director of the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission.

Ms. Abbott earned her A.B. from Goucher College and her M.F.S. from Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

David Behar

behar David Behar career spans over twenty years in water management, environmental advocacy, and policy analysis. David currently serves as Climate Program Director at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. The SFPUC is the sixth largest municipal water provider in the U.S. and manages water and power facilities and operations that serve 2.5 million Bay Area customers. David led development of the SFPUC-sponsored Water Utility Climate Change Summit held in San Francisco in early 2007 and has served as staff chair of the Water Utility Climate Alliance (WUCA) since its founding in 2007. WUCA is a coalition of ten water utilities dedicated to providing leadership and collaboration on climate change issues affecting drinking water utilities by improving research, developing adaptation strategies and creating mitigation approaches to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. WUCA is chaired by SFPUC General Manager Ed Harrington and includes the Central Arizona Project, Denver Water, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, New York City Department of Environmental Protection, Portland Water Bureau, San Diego County Water Authority, Seattle Public Utilities, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, Southern Nevada Water Authority, and Tampa Bay Water. Collectively, WUCA members deliver drinking water to over 43 million Americans.

Prior to joining the SFPUC, David was an environmental policy consultant whose clients included the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Pacific Rivers Council. At NRDC, he served as Program Manager for San Joaquin River Restoration for two years. From 1991-97, he served as Executive Director of The Bay Institute of San Francisco. From 1989-91, he served on the staff of U.S. Senator Alan Cranston (D-CA). In November 2006 he was elected to the Board of Directors of the Marin Municipal Water District, a 200,000-customer water district just north of San Francisco in Marin County.

Rosina Bierbaum

In October 2001 Dr. Rosina Bierbaum joined the University of Michigan as Dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE). In April 2009, President Obama named her to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). PCAST consists of 20 of the nation's leading scientists and engineers. They advise the President and Vice President directly to help the administration formulate policy in the many areas where understanding of science, technology and innovation is key to forming responsible and effective policy.

In April 2008, Bierbaum was selected by the World Bank to co-author and co-direct its prestigious World Development Report 2010, which will focus on climate change and development. Bierbaum has been elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Science as well as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2000 she was awarded the Waldo E Smith medal of the American Geophysical Union for ‘extraordinary service to geophysics’, and in 1999 she was awarded the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Climate Protection Award”. Prior to joining the School of Natural Resources and Environment, Bierbaum was acting director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) from January 2001, and preceding that, she directed the first Environment Division at OSTP. Dr. Bierbaum was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Associate Director for Environment of OSTP on July 30, 1998. She served as the administration’s senior scientific advisor on environmental research and development, with responsibilities for scientific input and guidance on a wide range of national and international environmental issues. These included global change, air and water quality, biodiversity, ecosystem management, environmental monitoring, and energy research and development.

She worked closely with the President’s National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), and co-chaired its Committee on Environmental and Natural Resources, which coordinated the $5 billion federal research and development efforts in this area, including the (then) $2 billion US Global Change Research Program. Bierbaum led the U.S. government reviews of the IPCC second and third assessment reports in 1995 and 2000. She also led the US delegations to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Plenary in Shanghai in 2001, the IPCC Plenary in Montreal in 1999, and the IPCC plenary in Costa Rica in 1998, and served as alternate head of delegation to the IPCC plenary in Mexico City in 1996. She headed the U.S. Delegation for the U.S./China bilateral on Climate Science in 2000.

Bierbaum’s career in Washington began in 1980 when she was awarded a Congressional Fellowship. She then continued working in the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) on a wide range of environmental issues, helping various Committees of the Congress tackle the emerging science and policy concerns posed by acid rain, marine pollution and mining, urban smog, ozone depletion, energy production and climate change. Her work led to 9 book-length publications and positions as Assistant Project Director for Acid Rain in 1982, Senior Analyst in 1985, and Project Director for Climate Change in 1988. In 1991, she was awarded OTA’s highest honor -- Senior Associate.

Maria Blair

Maria Blair is the Deputy Associate Director for Climate Change Adaptation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. She is on leave from her position as the Associate Vice President and Managing Director of the Rockefeller Foundation. Ms. Blair joined the Rockefeller Foundation in 2005 as Associate Vice President and Managing Director, providing leadership and strategic direction for all foundation initiatives, and leading major initiatives in climate change and innovation. Ms. Blair leads the Building Climate Change Resilience initiative, a multi-year, $70 million project to catalyze attention, funding and action in building climate change resilience for poor and vulnerable people globally. The initiative focuses on testing and experimenting with local action to prevent, reduce and alleviate the impacts of climate change on sub-Saharan African agriculture and mid-sized cities in Asia. The initiative also works on building networks for replication and dissemination of resilience practices, and increasing pressure on international and U.S. funders, practitioners and policy-makers to support increased resilience funding and action. Prior to joining the Rockefeller Foundation, Ms. Blair was an Associate Principal with McKinsey & Company, where she focused on private sector development, microfinance, corporate social responsibility and strategy development for nonprofits. She also worked with leading global financial services companies on strategy, new business development and performance management. Ms. Blair, who earned her undergraduate degree from Harvard, was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University’s Balliol College where she received a master’s degree in politics, economics and philosophy.

Juan Bonilla

bonilla Dr. Juan Pablo Bonilla
Chief, INE/ECC
Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Unit
Inter-American Development Bank

Mr. Juan Pablo Bonilla coordinates the activities related to Climate Change (Mitigation and Adaptation) at the Inter-American Development Bank. Before joining the IDB, Mr. Bonilla was Senior Environmental and Sustainable Development Specialist for Latin America and the Caribbean at the World Bank, and Member of the Clean Development Mechanism Executive Board to the United Nations. In his country, Colombia, Mr. Bonilla had the following positions: Deputy Minister of Environment, acting Minister of Environment, Housing and Territorial Development; principal advisor to the VicePresident of Colombia, Executive Director of Fundesarrollo (Foundation for the Development of the Caribbean of Colombia), and National Environmental Manager of ANDI (National Industry Association). He graduated with a BA in Civil Engineering from the Universidad Javeriana in Colombia and holds a MSc in Engineering Management and Systems Engineering and a PhD in Environmental and Energy Management from George Washington University.

Anne Choate

choate Anne Choate is a Vice President at ICF International and leads the company’s work on climate change impacts, vulnerability, and adaptation. Ms. Choate directs the Department of Transportation’s efforts to reduce the vulnerability of transportation infrastructure to projected climate change effects. Notable projects for DOT include managing Phase 2 of the Gulf Coast Study, developing a Climate Change Effects Typology, and creating a conceptual framework for incorporating climate change into transportation decisions. She oversees ICF’s support to three EPA Offices on the Climate Ready Estuaries Program, a nationwide adaptation program. Ms. Choate was also instrumental in the development of Synthesis and Assessment Product 4.4, a foundational report reviewing and identifying adaptation options for managers of natural resources. Ms. Choate has a Masters Degree in Environmental Science from Johns Hopkins University.

Joyce Coffee

coffee Joyce Coffee, LEED AP, is Director of Project Development, Policy and Research, for Chicago’s Department of Environment. She is leading Chicago Climate Action Plan (CCAP) efforts to decrease citywide greenhouse gas emissions 25% below 1990 levels by 2020, including creating the Plan’s continuous improvement and adaptation strategies. She manages the City’s green leadership team, facilitating implementation of more than 400 climate-related initiatives for the Mayor’s Office. She creates and advocates for changes to the environmental code, including the Air Ordinance, the Soil and Rubble Reuse Agreement, and the Stormwater Management Ordinance and is leading a multi-stakeholder effort to create a Chicago Air Quality Agenda.

Past initiatives include developing the City’s water conservation, water quality, and green infrastructure programs and initiating and leading the Chicago Conservation Corps, training hundreds of Chicagoans to be environmental change-makers in their communities.

Ms. Coffee received her Masters Degree in Urban Planning from Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she focused on innovations in municipal service delivery. She holds undergraduate degrees in Biology, Environmental Studies and Asian Studies from Tufts University. She also attended the University of Hanoi, Vietnam under a Henry Luce Fund scholarship.

Ms. Coffee has lead industrial environmental management and potable water projects in cities throughout Asia for the Unites States Agency for International Development and the World Bank with oversees assignments in Hanoi Vietnam and Manila, The Philippines. Among her many volunteer engagements, she is a member of the Alliance for Water Efficiency’s board.

Jack D. Fellows

fellows Dr. Fellows began his career as a research faculty member at the University of Maryland, where he conducted research in the use of satellite data in hydrologic models. In 1984, he was selected as the American Geophysical Union’s congressional science fellow and worked on a range of policy issues, including water resources, satellite remote sensing, R&D, and helped write legislation to commercialize land remote sensing satellites that was enacted. After his fellowship, he joined the White House's Office of Management and Budget, where he oversaw the budget and policy issues related to NASA, NSF, Federal-wide R&D programs, and helped initiate the U.S. Global Change Research Program. In 1997 he joined the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research as their Vice President for Corporate Affairs and the Director of UCAR Community Programs where he oversees a range of corporate, research, and education activities.

Adam Freed

Adam Freed is the Deputy Director of Mayor Bloomberg's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, which was charged with developing and implementing New York City's long-term sustainability plan ("PlaNYC"). Since releasing PlaNYC in 2007, the City has enacted landmark legislation to increase energy efficiency in existing buildings, invested $80 million a year to reduce City government's greenhouse gas emissions, and a launched comprehensive climate resilience program. Freed leads the City's resilience efforts and chairs the NYC Climate Change Adaptation Task Force, which consists of 40 city, state, and federal agencies and private companies and is identifying climate vulnerabilities to the city's critical infrastructure and developing strategies to mitigate these risks.

Freed has over 10 years of experience in city and state government. Prior to joining the Bloomberg Administration he served as the Assistant Comptroller for NYC in the Office of the New York State Comptroller. He has also worked on several city, state, and national political campaigns. Freed received his master's in Urban Planning from NYU and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners.

David Hayes

hayes David J. Hayes was confirmed as Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Interior on May 20, 2009. He was nominated for the position on February 27, 2009, after serving as a leader in President Obama’s Transition Team, heading the agency review process for the Department of Energy, Department of Agriculture, Department of the Interior and Environmental Protection Agency.

Deputy Secretary Hayes is the second highest ranking official at the Department of the Interior. By statute, he serves as the Department’s Chief Operating Officer and has authority over all of the Department’s bureaus and agencies. He is involved in implementing the Secretary’s priorities for the Department, including climate change, conservation of our treasured landscapes, responsible energy development on our public lands and offshore resources, fulfilling our trust responsibilities to American Indians and Alaskan Natives, western water issues, and other matters relating to Interior’s mission to conserve our nation’s natural and cultural resources.

Throughout his career, Deputy Secretary Hayes has been involved in developing progressive solutions to environmental and natural resources challenges. He previously served as the Deputy Secretary and counselor to the Secretary of the Interior in the Clinton Administration. He is a former chairman of the Board of the Environmental Law Institute; he served as a Senior Fellow for the World Wildlife Fund, and was the Vice-Chair of the Board of American Rivers. Hayes was a consulting professor at Stanford University’s Woods Institute for the Environment and he has written and lectured widely in the environmental and natural resources field. He also worked for a number of years in the private sector where he chaired the Environment, Land and Resources Department at Latham and Watkins, an international law firm.

Hayes is a native of Rochester, New York. He graduated summa cum laude from the University of Notre Dame and received his J.D. from Stanford University, where he was an editor of the Stanford Law Review. He is the former Chairman of the Board of Visitors for Stanford Law School.

Elizabeth Jines

Beth Jines is the Director of Sustainability for the City of Los Angeles. She is responsible for implementation of Sustainability, Adaptation and Climate Change action plans for City operations and for the community at large. Beth is a founding member and City representative on the Los Angeles Regional Collaborative for Climate Action and Sustainability, which coordinates the local climate and sustainability planning of the 88 cities, utilities, transportation agencies, water suppliers, businesses and academia into a regional climate and adaptation plan for the larger Los Angeles region of more than 10 million people.

Beth has more than 25 years of environmental policy experience both in the City of Los Angeles and with the State of California, where she was Chief Deputy Director of the State Water Resources Control Board and Assistant Secretary for Water at the California Environmental Protection Agency. She is a native of Bermuda and received her undergraduate degree from UCLA and MPA from Golden Gate University in San Francisco, CA.

Thomas Karl

karl Thomas Karl currently serves as director of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., and lead for NOAA's climate services. Karl is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society and serves as its current President. He is also a fellow of the American Geophysical Union and has published more than 150 peer-reviewed articles and several books as Editor and Contributor. He has received many awards and recognition for his work in services and science in climate, observing systems, and data stewardship including: two Presidential Rank Awards, five Gold Medals from the Department of Commerce and two Bronze Medals; the American Meteorological Society's Suomi Award; National Associate of the National Academy of Sciences; the NOAA Administrator's Award, and several others. He has served as Editor of the Journal of Climate (1997-2000) and has been the Convening and Lead Author and Review Editor of all the major IPCC assessments since 1990, which were recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He was Co-Chair of the US National Assessment and the recent Global Climate Change Impacts in the US state of knowledge report and a number of other assessments produced by the US Climate Change Science Program.

Andrew Revkin

revkin Andrew Revkin is one of the most respected and influential journalists covering climate change and other global environmental issues. Building on a quarter century of prize-winning print work, he now writes the "Dot Earth" blog for The New York Times, a forum where hundreds of thousands of readers "meet" each month to evaluate and discuss population, climate, biodiversity and related subjects each month. After 15 years at the Times, Revkin recently left his staff position to become the Senior Fellow for Environmental Understanding at Pace University's Academy for Applied Environmental Studies. He has reported on the science and politics of global warming from the North Pole to the White House and the tumultuous treaty talks in Copenhagen. He is the author of three books on environmental subjects in addition to countless newspaper and magazine articles. Revkin has received journalism awards from numerous organizations, including the National Academies of Science, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Columbia University and has been awarded an honorary doctorate from Pace and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. He lives in the Hudson Valley where, in spare moments, he is a performing songwriter and member of the roots band Uncle Wade. Background at: http://www.nytimes.com/revkin

Bill Richardson

Bill Richardson is serving his second term as Governor of New Mexico. He was re-elected in 2006 with the support of 69 percent of voters, representing the largest margin of victory for any Governor in state history. Prior to being elected governor, Bill Richardson served for fifteen years in northern New Mexico representing the 3rd Congressional District, one of the most ethnically diverse in the country. While a congressman, Richardson served as a special envoy on many sensitive international missions. He successfully won the release of hostages, American servicemen, and prisoners in North Korea, Iraq, and Cuba. He also secured the release of an Albuquerque resident who was kept hostage in Sudan.

In 2001, Richardson assumed the chairmanship of Freedom House, a private, non-partisan organization that promotes democracy worldwide. He also worked as a business consultant in Santa Fe and served on several boards including the Natural Resource Defense Council and United Way International.

In 1998, Richardson was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate as Secretary of Energy. In 1997, Richardson was nominated to be the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. At the U.N., Richardson addressed many difficult international negotiating challenges and crises all over the world. He served as an advocate for the realization of universal human rights and fair and democratic governance worldwide. He worked to increase security by fighting international terrorism and the creation and proliferation of biological weapons. He fought to increase awareness of the status of women in places like Afghanistan and Africa. He promoted economic development through both private and public means, and always stood for international fair labor standards. Richardson ensured that issues such as global warming, and public health crises were not overlooked.

Ron Sims

sims Ron Sims was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate on May 6, 2009, and sworn in as the Deputy Secretary for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on May 8, 2009. As the second most senior official at HUD, Sims is responsible for managing the Department's day-to-day operations, a nearly $40 billion annual operating budget, and the agency's 8,500 employees.

Sims previously served as the Executive for the King County, Washington, the 13th largest county in the nation in a metropolitan area of 1.8 million residents and 39 cities including the cities of Seattle, Bellevue and Redmond.

While serving three terms, Sims was nationally recognized for his work on transportation, homelessness, climate change, health care reform, urban development and affordable housing. His leadership in affordable housing and multiple community and housing partnerships have funded 5,632 units of housing during his 12 years.

One of the hallmarks of the Sims Administration in King County was the integration of environmental, social equity and public health policies that produced groundbreaking work on climate change, health care reform, affordable housing, mass transit, environmental protection, land use, and equity and social justice. Sims is also a proponent of Smart Growth programs and the preservation of green space before it is lost to development. The policies he implemented in King County stopped costly sprawl and resulted in 96 percent of new construction being concentrated in urban areas with only 4% in rural areas.

Sims was named Leader of the Year by American City and County Magazine in July, 2008 and was recognized as one of Governing Magazine's Government Officials of the Year in 2007. He has been honored with national awards from the Sierra Club, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Committee for Quality Assurance. Sims joined Senator Edward Kennedy and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as recipients of the 2008 Health Quality Award from the National Committee for Quality Assurance. Sims and King County are also recipients of HUD's prestigious Robert L. Woodson Jr. Affordable Communities Award for 2005. Born in Spokane, Washington in 1948, Sims is a graduate of Central Washington University.

Tom Vilsack

vilsack Tom Vilsack was appointed by President Barack Obama as the 30th Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and sworn into office on January 21, 2009. Prior to his appointment, Vilsack served two terms as the Governor of Iowa, the first Democrat elected to that office in more than 30 years. In that role, and as a state senator and the mayor of Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, Vilsack has a remarkable record of making positive change in the lives of those he has served. A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Vilsack was born into an orphanage and adopted in 1951. He received a bachelor's degree from Hamilton College in 1972 and earned his law degree from Albany Law School in 1975.

Tom Wilbanks

Thomas J. Wilbanks has been a Corporate Research Fellow at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory since 1986 and leads the Laboratory's Global Change and Developing Country Programs. He conducts research and publishes extensively on such issues as sustainable development, responses to environmental hazards and changes, and the role of geographical scale these regards. Co-edited recent books include Global Change and Local Places (2003), Geographical Dimensions of Terrorism (2003), and Bridging Scales and Knowledge Systems: Linking Global Science and Local Knowledge (2006). Recent invited presentations include Harvard, Yale, Minnesota, Iowa, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Academies of Science (NAS), the National Science Foundation, and the Energy Modeling Forum. He played roles in the first U.S. National Assessment of Possible Consequences of Climate Variability and Change (1997-2000); the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group II (Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability) Third Assessment Report; and aspects of the United Nations Environment Programme et al. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment related to issues of geographic scale and regional and local assessments. He served as Coordinating Lead Author for the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report, Working Group II, Chapter 7: "Industry, Settlement, and Society," which includes summaries of knowledge about vulnerabilities, adaptation potentials, and resilience for communities and societies. He also led several "synthesis and assessment" reports for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) in recent years, including summaries of current knowledge about impact and resilience issues for human settlements in the U.S. and for energy production and use in the U.S. Wilbanks is Chair of National Research Council's (NRC) standing Committee on Human Dimensions of Global Change, and he serves on a number of other NRC committees and panels, including serving on the NAS Committee on America's Climate Choices and as vice-chair of the Committee's panel on adapting to climate change.

Wilbanks is a past President of the Association of American Geographers (AAG), one of only three non-academics to serve as the president in its more than 100 years, and has been awarded a number of honors related to that field, including AAAS Fellow, 1985; AAG Honors, 1986, Distinguished Geography Educators Award, National Geographic Society, 1993; the Anderson Medal of Honor in Applied Geography, 1995; National Associate of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, 2003; and the AAG Presidential Achievement Award, 2009. In 2007, as a lead author of IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, he was recognized as a Co-Laureate for the Nobel Prize for Peace.

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