{"id":338,"date":"2019-08-20T09:49:07","date_gmt":"2019-08-20T16:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climateecos.org\/?page_id=338"},"modified":"2021-10-14T08:25:33","modified_gmt":"2021-10-14T15:25:33","slug":"bios","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/climateecos.org\/index.php\/bios\/","title":{"rendered":"Steering Committee Bios"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Viktor Josa, ECOS Focal Point<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Viktor Josa’s<\/strong> involvement in education and outreach roots from his youth engagement in the UN climate policy lobby. As a youth stakeholder in the WHO and UNFCCC processes he has developed an interest for climate empowerment, which he strives to foster by bridging the gap between civil society and international policy processes through innovative educational tools with a youth-led group called, CliMates. Previously, Viktor worked as a junior consultant for WHO\u2019s European Centre for Environment and Health on European health adaptation to climate change and currently works in a Brussels based NGO that focuses on raising the ambition of healthcare towards climate-smart solutions. As a former intern of the UNFCCC\u2019s Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE) team, Viktor is convinced about the integrity needed of education, awareness-raising and public information in climate change planning. To realize this, he joined ECOS in 2017 and volunteered to run ECOS meetings at UNFCCC sessions, which soon started to attract attention, but yet not enough according to him. He strives to be a dynamic link between the ever growing ECOS community and the UNFCCC secretariat and enjoys hiking and freestyle skiing when he is not acting as a co-focal point. 
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Mark McCaffrey, ECOS Focal Point<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Mark S. McCaffery<\/strong> is founder and co-focal point of ECOS and is based in Central Europe. Having helped establish a local watershed focused network two decades ago (BASIN<\/a>, the Boulder Area Sustainability Information Network), and a national digital library and online community (CLEAN<\/a>, the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network), Mark assisted in initiating the climate and energy literacy frameworks and authored Climate Smart & Energy Wise, published in 2014 by Pruitt Press. Relocating from North America to Central Europe to pursue international collaboration and engagement opportunities, he assisted in the launch of the Institute for Sustainable Development in Budapest and has consulted with  Climate-KIC, the largest EU public-private partnership on climate solutions, and various United Nations organizations, such as FAO and UN CC: Learn. In 2016, the UNFCCC Secretariat recognized ECOS (originally called ECONGO) as a community supporting Action for Climate Empowerment and the original Article 6 of the Convention. ECOS is also aligned with capacity-building goals of Article 12 of the Paris Agreement as well as other efforts to reduce climate risks and maximize societal and ecosystem resilience through effective, localized climate education and engagement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Isatis Cintron<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Isatis Cintron<\/strong> is a Puertorrican climate scientist studying the chemistry, transport and impacts of air pollution on glaciers from Antarctica to Greenland at Rutgers University. She has a long track record of community organizing, capacity building and support in Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) Region. She has been the Latin America Regional Coordinator for Citizens Climate Education since 2015. Citizens Climate Education focuses on empowering individuals in advancing environmental literacy and civic participation. She also is an acting Latin America liaison for the United Nations Climate Change Education, Communication and Outreach Stakeholders Community (ECOS). She has led numerous initiatives in Puerto Rico including the creation of the Community Guide for the Climate Ready Estuary program of the San Juan Bay Estuary, in an effort to build capacity of Puerto Rico\u2019s vulnerable coastal and estuarine communities to the impacts of climate change. She has developed climate and green science modules aligned with the Puerto Rico Department of Education Science Standards and interned in the Sustainable Management of Materials (SMM) – a partnership of the Environmental Finance Center of the University of Syracuse, the University of Cornell and the Puerto Rico Recycling Partnership. The SMM internship consisted in developing and coordinating a residue management plan in collaboration with schools while instructing students about the biogeochemical cycles, toxicity, analysis of life product, compost micro-habitat ecology and building a compost system. Cintron-Rodriguez leads on strategy and planning across the region to grow a strong, effective and diverse climate advocate society. Her work has been supported by the Union of Concerned Scientist to make citizens\u2019 assembly surrounding the issue in Puerto Rico, a blueprint that has served to coordinate and deploy citizens assemblies globally for broadening spaces for civic engagement at the local and international level. As part of her CCE and ECOS she is responsible for regional advocacy and partnership development. She  manages and design of engagement strategies working with civil society, scientists and policymakers across the world. Isatis believes that as scientists one of our greatest duties is to distribute and create information with multiple stakeholders, since the purpose of knowledge is to be shared. She is the founder of Climate Trace an organization that aims to build a grassroots Climate Agenda for Puerto Rico that translates into policy by building bridges between citizens, policymakers and scientists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Eileen Doohan<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Eileen Doohan<\/strong> cut her teeth on appropriate tech as a community developer in Fiji with the Peace Corps, then innovated along the bleeding edge of high tech back when Unix & C were still young, mobile tech and now cleantech projects for over 30 years with NEC (Japan), Alcatel (Germany) and NTT DoCoMo (Japan), plus newly-minted start-ups and public private partnerships int he US, Japan, Jamaica, UK and New Zealand. Eileen founded an interactive literacy gaming NGO for reading enrichment and worked as a Manager of ITU 3G\/4G partnerships for high-speed, IP-based telemetric mobile systems.  She also serves as EVP for Partnerships at www.RenewableNations.us, an #SDGAction13739, member of the Steering Committee for ClimateECOS.org UNFCCC constituency group,, Director of GloCha.org, COO of VITALcleantech.com, Founder of www.Bioproducts.Center, a non-profit project of LA Cleantech Incubator, and ClimateCelebrations.org, a non-profit project of GloCha.org. Her key interests are accelerating climate action with Pop-up Tech & Music Events for Climate, Global Benchmarks & Dashboards through action research for sustainability education that scales to empower and transform youth of all ages, Triple Bottom Line Accounting, Food Loss and Waste + Healthy Soils, and Sustainable Project Finance. A graduate of Kenneth Boulding’s Conflict & Peace Studies (CU Boulder, BA Econ), Eileen also enjoys skiing, poetry, and Zags college basketball. https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/eileendoohanprofile\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Dana\u00e9 Espinoza<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Dana\u00e9 Espinoza<\/strong> is an Internationalist graduated from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She is the co-coordinator of Movimiento de J\u00f3venes Latinoamericanos y Caribe\u00f1os frente al Cambio Clim\u00e1tico (CLIC!) and former YOUNGO Global South Focal Point to UNFCCC (2014). She has been part of the Mexican Delegation as a member of the CSOs working directly in the Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE) negotiations of the UNFCCC. She is the co-author of the book “Young people towards 2030. Innovation for transformation: Contributions for Reflection”,<\/em> a UNFPA publication in Mexico in collaboration with the Mexican Institute of Youth (IMJUVE) to make visible the importance of having the participation of young people in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. She has been part of the development and implementation of capacity building projects in climate change for youth in Mexico and in the Latin American region.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Deb Morrison<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Deb Morrison, PhD<\/strong>, is a collaborative design based educator-researcher engaged in disrupting racism and other forms of intersectional oppression, specifically in the area of climate literacy and action. Her work in ECOS connects across all three areas of education (teaching and learning climate change, justice and action in K-12 and community based education settings), communication (around climate literacy and justice), and outreach (collaborations with scientists in education and community based settings). She is a learning scientist at the Institute of Science and Math Education within the College of Education at the University of Washington. Deb\u2019s research interests are in environmental justice, literacy, and action, particularly in the area of climate change. In her positionality as a white science educator and researcher, Deb believes that praxis is a personal responsibility and seeks to engage in ethical research and its translation into practice. In terms of place, Deb is located in the Salish Sea region of North America, working across both British Columbia, Canada and Washington state, U.S. More about Deb can be found at www.debmorrison.me<\/a>; @educatordeb<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Sarah-Mae Nelson<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Sarah-Mae Nelson<\/strong> is Academic Coordinator for University of California, California Naturalist Program, Climate Stewards Initiative. She is developing a statewide volunteer program to foster community resilience in the face of climate impacts, calnat.ucanr.edu\/cs<\/a>. She has a M.A.S. in Climate Science and Policy from the University of California San Diego, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and, for her degree, created an interdisciplinary undergraduate Climate Change Studies Minor for UC San Diego. In 2018, she attended COP24 in Katowice, Poland and joined the ECOS community. She now serves as a ECOS Digital Communications Lead. In addition, Sarah-Mae works in climate change communication with the National Association for Interpretation (NAI), National Network for Ocean and Climate Change Interpretation (NNOCCI), and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) among other national and international networks. In 2016, Sarah-Mae was selected as a Young Woman Leader in Civic Engagement by the White House Council on Women and Girls. In 2015, she was one of eight people recognized by the Obama White House Office of Science and Technology as a Champion of Change in Climate Education and Literacy. She is particularly interested in the interactions of ocean, carbon dioxide, global warming, and climate change as she also holds a B.S. in Marine Biology from University of California, Santa Cruz. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Abby Ruskey<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Abby Ruskey<\/strong><\/a> possess deep experience and training in education and learning, sustainability and systems, cultural responsiveness, planning, research and policy. She has worked in executive positions for over 25 years to develop and integrate capacities, programs and tools for helping individuals and collectives catalyze and life-affirming systems change. She has degrees in planning and environmental education, certifications in transformative leadership and has served on a variety of related boards and commissions from the local to international levels. Recently, Abby researched and wrote strategic documents and articles, and pursued policies and projects to prepare and empower people for climate change and related social, health, infrastructure, food-agriculture and other disruptions. She worked to spur and secure Washington State\u2019s new climate literacy program for K-12 students<\/a> and in Olympia, Washington, U.S., created a local Youth-Education-Communications-Outreach network (YECO). She led the development of Project Drawdown<\/a>\u2019s curriculum prototype and education strategy and worked with scientists at the Stockholm Resilience Institute, Future Earth and elsewhere to research and model where the greatest level of greenhouse gas reduction and carbon sequestration can happen the soonest. She serves on the steering committee of ECOS and participated at the UN Climate Summit SB50 in Bonn in summer 2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Pasang Dolma Sherpa<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Pasang Dolma Sherpa<\/strong>, Executive Director of the Center for Indigenous Peoples’ Research (CIPRED) has been working in the area of Climate Change, natural resources management with indigenous and local communities both at national and international levels for more than a decade. Ms. Sherpa did her PhD on Climate Change Education and its interface with indigenous knowledge in Nepal. She has been following the climate change negotiation of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) since 2009 and be part of team of Education, Communication, and Outreach Stakeholder community (ECOS) now. Teaching has always been her passion and has been working as a faculty member of Kathmandu University. She is also the current Co-Chair of Facilitative Working Group (FWG) of Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples\u2019(LCIP) Platform of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Chair of the Specialist Group on Indigenous Peoples’ Customary and Environmental Laws and Human Rights (SPICEH), Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy (CEESP) of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Steering Committee Member of the International Indigenous Peoples\u2019 Forum on World Heritage (IIPFWH), UNESCO. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Evans Tembo<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Evans Tembo<\/strong> is a WASH and Environmental Engineer<\/em> as well as Public Health<\/em> Specialist <\/em>with eleven years of working experience in water security, environmental sanitation, climate resilience, environmental and public health. He is an Executive Director<\/em> for ENVAROS Innovative R&D Hub, promoting healthy and resilient communities through innovative research and capacity building in water security, low-cost water treatment technologies, environmental sanitation and climate resilience in Zambia. Further, Evans is a WASH and Climate Change Lecturer <\/em>at Levy Mwanawasa Medical University Department of Public Health and Environmental Health in Lusaka. Additionally, He has been engaged in a number of short term consultancies including; Team Leader on Centre for Environment Justice-GIZ Community Engagement and Empowerment program supporting Lusaka City Council (2019);  Team Leader on two ENVAROS waste-to-energy feasibility studies (2018 and 2019); Short-term Onsite Sanitation\/FSM Consultant <\/em>for GFA on a GIZ Lusaka sanitation program (2018 and 2019). He has been involved in climate change discourse as an educator\/facilitator at community level as well as a climate change negotiator at UNFCCC COP since 2009. As such, he have been part of YOUNGO and Africa Youth Initiative on Climate Change (AYICC) which have been promoting a global and consolidated youth voice towards climate actions. Additionally, Evans was Chairperson for the Zambia Youth Climate Forum from 2012 to 2015. Being part of ECOS community will enable him to share experiences\/lessons between the global north and south, as well as enhancing collaborations for a stronger voice. Through this platform, he is hopeful that the less represented and marginilised communities will have space to have their voices head thereby \u201cLiving No One Behind<\/em>\u201d. ECOS can achieve this by supporting the rolling-out community-based climate literacy programmes especially in Developing Counties. Evans holds an MSc in Environmental Sanitation with distinction (Belgium), MSc in Public Health Promotion (UK), Bachelors\u2019 in Environmental Engineering with merit (Zambia), Postgraduate Diploma in Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) (Zambia), Certificate in Teaching Methodology (Zambia) and Certificate in Climate Change Diplomacy (Switzerland). www.facebook.com\/envaros<\/a> https:\/\/youtu.be\/BVdv4KWEm4E<\/a> https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/evans-tembo-50313628\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Gregg Walker<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Gregg Walker<\/strong> is a professor of Communication and an adjunct professor in the environmental sciences, forestry, geosciences, marine resource management, and public policy programs at Oregon State University.  On campus, Gregg teaches courses in conflict management, negotiation, mediation, international negotiation, environmental conflict resolution, science communication, sustainable development, and argumentation.  Off campus, Gregg conducts training programs on conflict management, designs collaborative public participation processes, facilitates collaborative learning community workshops about natural resource and environmental policy issues, and researches community-level collaboration efforts. He has authored a numerous articles and papers on environmental communication and conflict resolution, and is co-author (with Steve Daniels) of Working Through Environmental Conflict: The Collaborative Learning Approach<\/em> (2001, Praeger) and co-editor of the forthcoming book, Breaking Boundaries: Innovative Practices in Environmental Communication and Public Participation<\/em> (2019, SUNY Press).  Gregg has served as a Fulbright Senior Specialist in the fields of Peace and Conflict Resolution.  He is an advisor to the National Collaboration Cadre of the USDA-Forest Service and on the roster of the U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution. Gregg is co-director of the Climate Change Project for Mediators Beyond Borders International and Chair of the Climate Change Negotiations Working Group for the International Environmental Communication Association.  In these roles he attends most of the United Nations climate change negotiation meetings and conducts related research on those negotiations.  Gregg holds Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in Communication Studies from the University of Kansas and B.A. and B.S. degrees in Speech Communication, Sociology, and History from the University of Minnesota. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Laura Weiland<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Laura Weiland<\/strong> is the former director of the Omega Center for Sustainable Living (OCSL), in Rhinebeck, NY, USA.  She has lived, studied, and worked across several countries and United States over the past two decades, starting as a student in an agricultural high school in Ambato, Ecuador. She has been imagining, designing, and creating nontraditional educational experiences for herself and others since the age of 15, with studies and experience from biology, farming, permaculture, and regenerative frameworks, to eco-social design, community organizing, and climate education. She holds a master’s degree in sustainable development with a focus in community development. Along with thousands of visitors and guests who tour the OCSL to see the first building to achieve both LEED Platinum and Living Building Challenge certification, Laura hosts student groups of all ages who visit Omega\u2019s EcoMachine, or natural wastewater treatment facility. In 2018, she and her team organized the first Drawdown Learn Conference, in partnership with the Project Drawdown organization, to explore how we could more deeply activate a solutions-oriented approach to climate education and engagement through schools and community participation. Through her work with the UNFCCC Education, Communication, and Outreach Stakeholder community (ECOS), and the development of Omega\u2019s Climate Education Initiative, Laura enjoys strong involvement in regional, national, and global network coordination, collaboration, and relationship building to ensure the health of our ecosystems and the possibility for all communities to thrive. eOmega.org\/OCSL<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additional ECOS Members<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
  • Timothy Damon <\/li>
  • Dana\u00e9 Espinoza<\/li>
  • Donna Goodman <\/li>
  • Jonas Haller <\/li>
  • Jen Kretser<\/li>
  • Dolphine Magero <\/li>
  • Henry McGhie <\/li>
  • Marcia McKenzie <\/li>
  • Saffran Minhra<\/li>
  • Tracey Osborne<\/li>
  • Miroslav Polzer <\/li>
  • Joseph Robertson<\/li>
  • Srishti Singh <\/li>
  • Alex Wang <\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Viktor Josa’s involvement in education and outreach roots from his youth engagement in the UN climate policy lobby. As a youth stakeholder in the WHO and UNFCCC processes he has developed an interest for...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-338","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/climateecos.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/climateecos.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/climateecos.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climateecos.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climateecos.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/climateecos.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1009,"href":"https:\/\/climateecos.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/338\/revisions\/1009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/climateecos.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}