Bob Berkebile (Chair)
Highly regarded by fellow professionals and recipient of numerous awards, Bob Berkebile focuses on improving the quality of life in our society with the integrity and spirit of his firm's work. A founding principal of BNIM Architects, Bob has become the leader of a national effort by American architects to develop the information needed by the design and construction industry to become responsible environmentally. He serves as the founding chairman of the AIA's National Committee on the Environment and of the Scientific Advisory Group on the Environment. By combining his design and leadership skills, Bob has consistently created new approaches and solutions to human relations, quality open housing, neighborhood conservation, preservation of our built and natural environment, mental health, and public safety. Bob continues to work with the National Parks Service, Federal Emergency Management Administration, Department of Energy, Department of Defense, Canadian Provincial Governments, the National Institute of Standard and Technology, and the National Science Foundation to develop sustainable guidelines for their projects. A board member of the U.S. Green Building Council, he has been a juror and/or guest lecturer at more than thirty universities including Harvard, Cambridge University, and the University of British Columbia. Bob has been effective in assisting opponents with diverse attitudes to identify their common interest and collectively apply their resources for the common good. For this reason, local and national organizations, universities, governors, U.S. Senators and Representatives, and organizations such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the Urban Land Institute seek his advice and participation. In the last five years, he has devoted much of his time to world peace and raising our nation's consciousness about the critical status of our planet by presenting lectures and workshops across the nation and speaking at international environmental conferences in Stockholm, Helsinki, Cambridge, Caracas, Vancouver and Ottawa.
Gregory A. Norris (Founder, Executive Director, Treasurer)
Greg Norris founded and directs Sylvatica, a life cycle assessment (LCA) research consulting firm in Maine, USA. Greg is Program Manager for the United Nations' Environment Program's (UNEP) global Life Cycle Initiative, directing the Program on Life Cycle Inventory Analysis. He teaches graduate courses on LCA and Industrial Ecology at the Harvard School of Public Health, where he also advises graduate students from HSPH and visiting research fellows from abroad. He consults on LCA and sustainable consumption to UNEP, to Federal and state agencies in the US, and to the private and non-profit sectors. He founded Earthster, an open source platform for publishing and analyzing information on company and life cycle sustainability. Greg is Adjunct Research Professor at the Complex Systems Research Center, University of New Hampshire; he advises the Life Cycle Assessment activities of the Athena Sustainable Materials Institute in Ottawa, Canada; he is a Program Associate in the Center for Hazardous Substance Research at Kansas State University, and an editor for the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment and the Journal of Industrial Ecology. A selection of personal writings is available here.
Maria Nandago
Maria Nandago is an experienced practitioner and promoter of participatory community development. During the past decade she as worked with ActionAid Uganda in different capacities, having joined the organisation as a field coordinator tasked with overseeing community development initiatives in two sub counties where ActionAid was working in one of the Development areas. She later became the Reflect Officer responsible for the development and scale up of Reflect in ActionAid Uganda. The role further expanded into coordinating Reflect throughout Uganda and the East and Horn of Africa sub regions. She now serves as manager of the PAMOJA Africa Reflect Network, a network of Reflect practitioners across Africa, where she coordinates and facilitates learning, sharing and the further evolution of Reflect and other participatory approaches, to ensure their continued relevancy in the rapidly changing context of Africa. PAMOJA is linked to the global Reflect circle (CIRAC) and works with other like minded organisations at national, Regional and global level to ensure social justice especially for marginalised people.
Suzanne Goldsmith Hirsch (Communications)
Acclaimed author of A City Year, which tells the story of her own season of service with Boston's City Year community service program, Suzanne is a journalist and former director of the Community Service Project at the American Alliance for Rights and Responsibilities. A graduate of Harvard University, Suzanne also authored a national guidebook on service learning, and was editor and publisher of Dig: People Growing Strong Communities, a newsletter about service, volunteering, and community-building.
Ana Quiros
Ana Quiros is President and founding partner of ECO GLOBAL, S.A. in San José, Costa Rica. She is also President and founder of the Committee of Social Responsibility of the North American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham), founder of the Environmental Committee of AmCham, Charter member and president of the Environmental Committee of INTECO, Member of the Board of directors of the Foundation To Be and To Grow, and for the Forum of Women Industralists and Professionals of Costa Rica. She is a civil engineer with two masters degrees, from Stanford University, U.S.A. She has more than 25 years of professional experience in consulting to organizations in the public and private sectors, as well as in teaching courses and seminars.
Bessa Whitmore
Elizabeth ("Bessa") Whitmore has written and taught widely on issues of international social development and participatory action research and evaluation. She has had a long standing interest in international social development, and has worked and taught primarily in Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2000, she co-authored a book entitled Seeds of Fire: Social development in an era of globalism (Apex Press). Her activities as President of the North American and Caribbean Association of Schools of Social Work, and Vice President of the International Association of Schools of Social Work broadened her interest and understanding of social work around the world. When she learned about participatory action research approaches in the early 1980s, she applied this to her PhD work in program evaluation at Cornell University. In 1998, she edited a volume entitled understanding and practicing participatory evaluation (Jossey-Bass). Most recently, Bessa is a co-editor, with colleagues from the UK and Scotland of a forthcoming book on Globalization and social work (Routledge). She is currently a professor at the School of Social Work, Carleton University, in Ottawa, Canada. In her real life, she is a mother of two children and about to become a mother-in-law.
Adriana Zacaras Farah
Adriana Zacaras Farah is Project Co-ordinator at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Division of Technology, Industry and Economics (DTIE), based in Paris, France. She coordinates development of the 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production at the global and regional level, including Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America. Before joining UNEP, Adriana was a consultant with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in the Environment Directorate, where she published the book "Towards Sustainable Household Consumption" (OECD, 2002). Adriana has experience in environmental policy development at national and international levels. She was a consultant at the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, and Project Co-ordinator at the Environment Ministry of Mexico. Adriana has worked with research institutes on projects related to sustainable development and poverty alleviation. Adriana also has extensive experience in the NGO sector, with an emphasis on facilitating youth activism and input to national and international policy on environment and development. She co-founded the UNEP Youth Advisory Council in 1999, and has also founded and directed a variety of other youth-based NGOs addressing environmental and sustainable development issues on local, national, and global scales. These include the Mexican Environmental Youth Network, the Interdisciplinary Environmental Program (at the ITAM), and Viento de Agua, among others. She has done social work with indigenous communities in Mexico. Adriana has a Masters in Environment and Development from Cambridge University, UK, and a degree in Political Science from Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico (ITAM). She attended High School in Germany.
Evan Andrews
Evan Andrews is an environmental consultant with RETEC|ENSR|AECOM. He is based in Seattle, USA. Evan's background is in environmental monitoring (air, water) and corporate social responsibility. He has completed internships at The United States Business Council for Sustainable Development (US BCSD) and CERES. Evan holds a B.S. in Labor Relations with a focus on Labor Economics from Cornell University and is a candidate for a Masters in Environmental Management. His thesis explores the use of Environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Social LCA in modelling the Sustainability impact of service firms. Evan also volunteers on New Earth's Earthster project.
Evan also serves in the executive office of New Earth, co-authoring the constitution, website and newsletters. He believes in New Earth's potential to facilitate grassroots democracy, and looks forward to participating in its evolution into a global resource for civic engagement.