Society of Environmental Journalists
14th Annual Conference
Speakers
Pittsburgh, PA
Robbie Ali is director of the Center for Healthy Environments and
Communities at the University of Pittsburgh. The center is a resource for
information on environmental health for the Pittsburgh area. Robbie has been an
emergency physician for 14 years, and worked around the world, from Antarctica
to Rwanda. He also works with The Nature Conservancy and the government of
Indonesia on a health initiative for rainforest-dwelling people.
Emilia Askari is a reporter with the Detroit
Free Press, with more than a decade of experience covering public health
and the environment. She was on the founding board of SEJ, serving as its
second president. This fall, Emilia is teaching
environmental journalism as an adjunct lecturer at the University of Michigan.
She is co-director of the Free Press High School Journalism program, which
assists Detroit public high schools in publishing student newspapers.
John Bachmann is the associate director for science policy and new programs at
the EPA's office of air quality planning and standards. He was a member of the
EPA team that worked on the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act, and revisions
and legal defense of the 1997 revisions to the National Air Quality Standards
for particulate matter and ozone. John is also a developer of alternatives for
electric power, including the Clear Skies Act and the Clean Air Interstate Rule
proposal.
Frances Backhouse is a freelance journalist based in British Columbia. She has been
writing for Canadian and American magazines since 1985 and is the author of two
books: "Women Of The Klondike" and "Hiking With
Ghosts: The Chilkoot Trail Then And Now." Her latest
book, "Woodpeckers Of North America," will be
published by Firefly Books in 2005.
Jennifer Bails is a science and technology reporter at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Prior to joining the T-R last summer, she was a staff writer
for the Valley News Dispatch in
Tarentum, PA.
Bob Batz Jr. has been
a general assignment feature writer in Pittsburgh for 18 years. During that
time he's covered area rail trails, a hike through West Virginia's highlands on
a search for mountain lions, rafted the Cheat River and traveled the Youghiogheny River.
Edwin Bender is
executive director of the Institute on Money in State Politics, and has been
the institute's research director since 1999. He has led research at the
institute, both developing its campaign finance databases and the analysis of
those databases. In March, he was a speaker at the Western Knight Center for
Specialized Journalism seminar "Campaign Coverage: From the Checkbook to the
Ballot Box."
Dan Boone is a wildlife ecologist and natural
resources policy analyst with 30 years of experience studying wildlife and
their habitat throughout the Appalachian region. He began his career as a wildlife biologist
with the US Fish & Wildlife Service in the Migratory Bird and Habitat
Research Lab at the Patuxent Wildlife Research
Center. He later served as the head of
Maryland Department of Natural Resource's Heritage Program, which was
responsible for the identification and protection of the state's rare species
and other biological diversity. Boone has been actively involved with concerns
regarding industrial wind energy development for two years — at the local,
regional and national level. He is a
member of the Environmental Working Group of the Virginia Wind Energy
Collaborative, and serves on the board of the grassroots organization Citizens
for Responsible Wind Power.
Beverly Braverman is the executive director of the Mountain Watershed Association,
a grassroots, community-based group dedicated to the
restoration and protection of the Indian Creek Watershed, southwestern PA, that
tackles pressing environmental justice challenges to the watershed and
community. She is an attorney and a fifth degree black belt in the martial arts
and owns two karate schools. Beverly is the Youghiogheny
Riverkeeper. She is returning to school to study
non-profit management, hoping to learn more about the theory behind the
practice.
Tom Buchele is director of the Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. The clinic was founded in 2000
to provide pro bono legal services regarding legal matters to individuals and
not-for-profit groups. Tom worked for two years as a public interest lawyer at
the Environmental Law and Policy Center in Chicago.
Doug Carlson is executive director of the Conservation District Planning
Department of Forest County Pennsylvania, and is a founding member of Allegheny
Forest Alliance, a non-profit organization promoting sustainable forestry,
environmental stewardship and multiple-use management of the Allegheny National
Forest.
Bill Caylor became
president of the Kentucky Coal Association in January 2001. Before that, he was
the group's vice president and general counsel since 1976. For the past 20 years, he has served as a
registered lobbyist representing the industry in Frankfort.
Meg Cheever founded
the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy in 1996 after years of watching the slow
deterioration of the great parks of Pittsburgh: Frick, Highland, Riverview and Schenley. The Conservancy runs successful environmental
education programs and lectures, leads ongoing restoration efforts in the parks
and holds symposia with international leaders in landscape design and
restoration ecology.
Jeanne Clark serves as director of communications for Citizens for
Pennsylvania's Future (PennFuture), and runs the
Environmental Communications Center of Western Pennsylvania. The Center
provides activists and the working press with a one-stop shop for expertise,
video, audio and print material and referrals on environmental issues. She has
more than 30 years of experience working for public interest advocacy. Jeanne's
resume includes service as national press secretary for the National
Organization for Women, campaign experience on national, state and local issue
and candidate campaigns and media expertise provided to women's rights, civil
rights, labor unions, consumer and environmental organizations.
Milt Clark is senior health and science advisor for Chicago's office of the
EPA, and adjunct professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at
the University of Illinois school of public health.
Since 2001, Milt has served on the science advisory board of the International
Joint Commission on the Great Lakes, where he has promoted reducing widespread
mercury pollution, which is responsible for more than 2,000 fish consumption
advisories in the U.S.
Jared Cohon is president of Carnegie Mellon University and a national
authority on environmental and water resource systems analysis. He has focused
on water resources planning and management in the United States, South America
and Asia, and on energy facility siting, including
nuclear waste shipping and storage. In June 1995, President Bill Clinton
appointed Dr. Cohon to the Nuclear Waste Technical
Review Board and appointed him as chairman in January 1997. Dr. Cohon assumed his duties as the eighth president of
Carnegie Mellon University on July 1, 1997.
Jennifer Constable is media director of the Rocky Mountain Institute. She has
written on green building and energy for RMI's
newsletter and the Japanese business magazine Nikkei Ecology.
Lucy Dalglish was a
media lawyer for almost five years in the trial department of the Minneapolis
law firm of Dorsey & Whitney LLP. From 1980-93, Lucy was a reporter and
editor at the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
She was awarded the Wells Memorial Key, the highest honor bestowed by the
Society of Professional Journalists, in 1995 for her work as Chairman of SPJ's national Freedom of Information Committee from
1992-95 and for her service as a national board member from 1988-91. She also
was named to the inaugural class of the National Freedom of Information Act
Hall of Fame in 1996.
Alison Davis is media liaison of the EPA's office of air quality planning
& standards, in Research Triangle Park, NC. She spent 10 years as a
reporter at papers in North Carolina and southwest Florida, and seven years as
a PIO in the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
Devra Lee
Davis is Director of the
Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer
Institute, and the author of the 2002 book "When Smoke Ran Like Water." She is a researcher of environmental health and
chronic disease and a visiting professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz
School as well as an expert advisor to the World Health Organization. Davis is
also a former member of the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board
and the former senior advisor to the assistant secretary for Health in the
Department of Health and Human Services.
Joseph Davis is director of SEJ's WatchDog Project, which
works with SEJ's First Amendment Task Force to
improve journalists' access to environmental information. He edits SEJ's WatchDog and TipSheet newsletters (TipSheet is co-sponsored by the
Radio and Television News Directors Foundation). Davis is a freelance
writer-editor who has specialized in environmental journalism for over 27
years. He also works as senior writer for Environment
Writer, a newsletter for environmental journalists, published by the
Metcalf Institute for Marine & Environmental Reporting.
Miguel Angel de Alba has been
an investigative journalist and newsroom manager since 1972. He is a co-founder
and first director of the Asociacion Mexicana do Perodistas Ambientales (Mexican Association of Environmental
Journalists), created this February. He is currently a freelance writer based
in Leon, Mexico.
Cornelia Dean is a science writer and
commentator at The New York Times.
From 1997 to 2003, she was the paper's science editor, where she was
responsible for coverage of science, health and medical news both in the daily
and the weekly "Science Times" section. In the 2003-2004 academic year, Cornelia taught on environmental science and public
policy at Harvard. She is working on a book about the misuse of scientific
information in American public life. Her first book, "Against The Tide: The Battle For America's Beaches," (Columbia
University Press, 1999) was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.
Sally Deneen, a
freelance reporter and editor in Seattle, has reported for publications from Organic Gardening to the Columbia Journalism Review. She contributed
a chapter to the 2004 book, "Feeling the Heat: Dispatches From
the Frontlines of Climate Change."
Jim Detjen is the director of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State
University. He joined the MSU faculty in January 1995 as the Knight Chair in
Journalism, the nation's only endowed chair in environmental reporting. He was
the founding president of the Society of Environmental Journalists and has
served on SEJ's board of directors since 1990. He
helped found the International Federation of Environmental Journalists (IFEJ)
in 1993 and served as IFEJ president from 1994 to 2000.
Dennis Dimick is now senior editor for environment and technology at National Geographic Magazine in
Washington DC. Besides editing a dozen Society books, at National Geographic he has produced stories on environmental
subjects from the earth's carbon cycle to the General Mining Law of 1872 and
genetically engineered food. A 74-page cover story he originated and
orchestrated on global climate change was published in September 2004. Dimick annually serves on faculty for the University of
Missouri Photo Workshop, where documentary techniques inspired by the 1930s
Farm Security Administration photographers are taught.
Jim Dunster is curator of birds at the National Aviary in Pittsburgh. He
worked as zookeeper at the Ross Park Zoo in Binghamton, NY, and at the Houston
Zoological Gardens, then the Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita, KS, before joining
the National Aviary. Jim is responsible for the daily supervision of keepers
along with maintenance and husbandry of the zoo's bird collection.
Odoemelam Chika Ebere hails from Umuja-Umunakanu-Ama, in
Ehime-Mbano L.G.A. of Imo State of Nigeria. He is
currently a master's degree student in environmental journalism at the
University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Kevin Elliott became the forest
supervisor of the Allegheny National Forest in April of 2001. He formerly
was deputy forest supervisor of Mark Twain National Forest in southern
Missouri, and worked in the Forest Service's legislative affairs and policy
analysis staffs in Washington, DC.
Ira Flatow is host
of National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation: Science Friday." Flatow is a veteran
National Public Radio science correspondent, and an award winning TV
journalist. He is also the founder and president of TalkingScience,
a non-profit company dedicated to creating radio, TV and Internet projects that
help make science information accessible to the masses.
David Fleshler has been
environmental reporter for the South
Florida Sun-Sentinel for the past five years. He specializes in marine
issues, endangered species like the manatee and Florida panther, and national
parks.
Larry Foulke is a consultant in reactor physics at Bechtel Bettis,
Inc. He received his Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from MIT in 1967 and was
inducted into the Engineering Hall of Fame at Kansas State University in
November of 2003. At Bettis, he has held management
positions in fleet performance analysis, reactor methods and programming,
reactor safety, environmental assessment, physical security, safeguards and
nuclear materials management.
David Garman was sworn in as Assistant U.S. Secretary of Energy on May 31,
2001. Before that, David was chief of staff to Alaska Senator Frank Murkowsi. He also served on the staff of the Senate Energy
and Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence. David also served as a U.S. Senate observer at nearly all major
negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
from 1995 to 2000.
Paul Gilman is the assistant administrator
for the office of research and development, the scientific and technologic arm
of the Environmental Protection Agency. He is also the agency science advisor,
charged with assuring that science is better integrated into the agency's
programs, policies and decisions. Paul has also been director of policy panning
for Celera Genomics, a bioinformation and drug
discovery company, and executive director of the life sciences and agriculture
divisions of the national research council of the National Academy of Sciences.
He also served on the staff of the United States Senate for 13 years.
Bernard Goldstein is the dean of the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of
Public Health. He served as the director of the Environmental and Occupational
Health Sciences Institute, a joint program of Rutgers University and the University
of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) Robert Wood Johnson Medical
School from 1986-2001.
Jim Grazio is an
aquatic biologist with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection
specializing in issues pertaining to Great Lakes biology. He
represents the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on the Great Lakes Panel on
Aquatic Nuisance Species and the Lake Erie Lakewide
Management Plan (LaMP) Working Group. Jim has
conducted considerable research into the population dynamics and control
of zebra mussel invasions in inland lakes and has written several
papers on these topics.
Noah Hall is the senior manager, water resources for the National Wildlife
Federation's Great Lakes Natural Resource Center in Ann Arbor, MI. In this
position, Noah directs efforts to protect the waters of the Great Lakes on
behalf NWF's four million members and supporters.
Prior to joining NWF, Noah practiced environmental law, representing a variety
of conservation organizations and private businesses in natural resource and
energy matters.
Marilyn Heiman is director of the Boreal Songbird Initiative, part of an effort
to protect one of the largest forest ecosystems remaining on the planet. She
was Alaska policy advisor for former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbit and was special assistant on natural resources and
oceans to the governor of Alaska.
Jack Hedlund is a retired school district administrator who now serves as the
executive director of the Allegheny Forest Alliance, a non-profit organization
promoting sustainable forestry, environmental stewardship and multiple-use
management of the Allegheny National Forest.
Tom Henry created The (Toledo) Blade's environment beat shortly after
joining the newspaper in 1993. He began his newspaper career in 1981at The Bay City (MI) Times after earning his bachelor's degree from Central Michigan
University. His prelude into full-time environmental writing ranged from the
woods of northern Michigan at his first job to alligator swamps of central
Florida at his second newspaper, The Tampa
Tribune, where he worked from 1985-91 and received accolades from none
other than singer Jimmy Buffett for his coverage of
endangered manatees.
Rick Hind is legislative director of the Greenpeace toxics campaign. He
presents the group's policies to government and the media. Hind has been with
the campaign since 1991. He has worked on efforts to identify vulnerability in
U.S. chemical plants, treatys on eliminating POPs, and proposals to phase out the use of PBC plastic.
Before he joined Greenpeace, Hind was environmental program director for the US
PIRG in Washington, DC.
Don Hopey has covered the environment for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette since 1992. He has written series about an
80-mile canoe trip through the Wild & Scenic sections of the Allegheny
River, the "Wise Use" movement in the East, problems with the
nation's hazardous waste incinerators and damage to historic homes buildings
due to subsidence caused by longwall mining in
southwestern Pennsylvania.
Thomas Hylton is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the author of "Save Our Land,
Save Our Towns," about the impacts of sprawl in the Mid-Atlantic states.
Jerry Ingersoll is the off-highway vehicle program manager for the USDA Forest
Service. He served as district ranger for the Ketchikan-Misty Fiords Ranger
District of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska
starting in 1999. Jerry has also been a forest planner, forester and ranger in
Arkansas, Nevada and Colorado.
Derrick Jackson has been a columnist at the Boston
Globe since 1988. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary in
2001. Prior to the Globe, Jackson was a news and sports reporter at Newsday and The Kansas City Star.
Kirk Johnson is executive director of Friends of Allegheny Wilderness, working
to win designation of additional federal wilderness areas within the Allegheny
National Forest under the 1964 Wilderness Act. His career in wilderness preservation
and conservation has included work with the National Park Service, the
Allegheny Defense Project, Wolf Haven International, and as a liaison between
the Washington Department of Natural Resources and Washington's 27 recognized
Native American tribes. Kirk has published "A Proposal For
Tionesta Wilderness Designation In The Allegheny National Forest,"
(Natural Areas Journal, 2001) and "Honoring A Wilderness Vision: A Proposal For
Pennsylvania's Allegheny National Forest" (Wild Earth, 2002.).
David Jones is senior news and feature editor at Business Traveler, based in New York. For the past three years,
David has been a freelance journalist based in Newark, NJ. In 2003, he was
awarded a senior fellowship by SEJ.
Jennifer Szweda
Jordan regularly reports and produces news
and feature stories heard on The Allegheny Front, the region's only locally
produced environmental radio program. She also writes for public radio station
WYEP-FM in Pittsburgh, after working for The Associated Press and daily newspapers
in NY and VA.
Charles Karpowicz is a civil engineer who has overseen 30 dam modification
projects, and the deactivation of more than 100 dams that affected the national
park system. Charles has more than 35 years of experience with dams, including
creating the Bureau of Indian Affairs manual for dam safety in 1979, and
developing the technical priority rating system in 1986.
Patricia Kennedy an attorney since 1981
and an SEJ academic member since 1999, is an associate professor in the
communication department at Clarion University of PA. She has experience in
environmental law.
Robert Kennedy Jr. is chief prosecuting attorney for the Hudson Riverkeeper,
senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, president of the Waterkeeper Alliance, a clinical professor and supervising
attorney at the Environmental Litigation Clinic at Pace University School of
Law in New York, and author, "Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His
Corporate Pals are Plundering the Country and Hijacking our Democracy."
Scott Klara manages the U.S. Department of Energy's carbon sequestration
program in the office of fossil energy at the National Energy Technology
Laboratory. He manages a $170 million dollar portfolio of more than 80 projects
dedicated to developing technology for greenhouse gas management and
mitigation.
Gillian Klucas is the author of the forthcoming book "Leadville: The Struggle To Revive An American Town," a narrative nonfiction account
of the challenges to clean up a hard-rock mining site. As a freelance writer,
Gillian has written about the environment and other topics for such
publications as Preservation, OnEarth, and High
Country News.
Mary Kostalos has been
a professor at Chatham College in Pennsylvania for 31 years. She teaches
biology, ecology, environmental studies and human health. Her research includes
studies of the detritus pathway in aquatic systems and stream remediation. Kostalos is also the secretary of the Nine Mile Run
Watershed Association and a board member of the Earth Force, a local
environmental group.
John Kostyack is
senior counsel in the National Wildlife Federation's Washington, DC, office,
where he manages the Federation's Wildlife Conservation Program. He also
serves as co-chair of the environmental community's Unified Endangered Species
Campaign. John serves as counsel for NWF and other environmental groups in a
variety of legal initiatives, including cases to protect the
critically-endangered Florida panther and to restore the gray wolf in the
northeastern U.S.
Scott Kovarovics serves as director of the Natural Trails and Waters Coalition.
The Coalition includes more than 110 conservation, recreation
and other groups working to better protect public lands and waters from the
impacts caused by all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), dirt bikes, jet skis and other
off-road vehicles. Before joining the Coalition in April 2001, Scott worked for
nearly seven years for U.S. Representative Sam Gejdenson of Connecticut,
including as chief of staff, legislative director and legislative
assistant.
Gail Krantzberg is director of the Great Lakes regional office of the
International Joint Commission, a team of American and Canadian scientific
experts studying the Great Lakes. She is past president of the International
Association of Great Lakes Research. Gail has written more than 80
peer-reviewed articles on issues pertaining to Great Lakes ecosystem quality,
science and policy.
Thomas Lacher
Jr. is the executive director of the Center for
Applied Biodiversity Science at Conservation International. He has held
positions at Texas A&M University, Clemson University, Western Washington
University and the University of Brasilia, Brazil.
Thomas has been working in the tropics for 30 years. His research has been
focused on the ecology and behavior of mammals, the applications of GIS
technology to wildlife conservation, the effects of environmental contaminants
on wildlife populations, and the integration of ecological and economic
principles in conservation.
Neal Lane is currently a professor at Rice University and is a former director of the
National Science Foundation and the Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Deborah Lange is the executive director of the Steinbrenner Institute for
Environmental Education and Research (SEER) at Carnegie Mellon University. The
SEER was founded in the Spring of 2004 with the mission to help the university
realize some of its boldest goals: inspiring students to make a real difference
in the real world; changing the way the world thinks and acts with regard to
sustainability; ensuring that future generations have the resources they need
to flourish; and transforming cultures of waste and depletion into cultures of
conservation and renewal.
Governor Michael Leavitt was sworn in as the 10th administrator of the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency in November 2003. Leavitt was a pioneer of collaborative
environmental management during his term as governor of Utah.
Edward Lloyd has been general counsel to the New Jersey Public Interest
Research Group since 1983. He was also founding director of the Rutgers
University Law School Environmental Law Clinic in 1985, and co-founder and
co-director of the Eastern Environmental Law Center.
Vivian Loftness is a professor in the school of architecture at Carnegie Mellon
University and senior researcher at the Center for Building Performance. She is
a board member of the U.S. Green Building Council, the AIA Committee on the
Environment and the Federal Energy Management Council of the U.S. Department of
Energy.
Francesca Lyman is a freelance writer and
investigative reporter who, for the last five years, has
written the "Your Environment" column for MSNBC.com. She has contributed to The New York Times, L.A. Times, Washington
Post, This Old House and such environmental periodicals as Land and People, The Green Guide, Organic
Style, Sierra, Orion, and Orion Afield. She is the author of two books, "The Greenhouse
Trap: What We're Doing To The Atmosphere And How We
Can Slow Global Warming" (Beacon Press), and a children's book, "Inside The Dzanga-Sangha Rain Forest: Exploring The Heart Of Central
Africa" (Workman Publishing).
Paul MacClennan was the environmental reporter for The Buffalo News for 30 years and continued to write a weekly
environmental column for several years after retirement. He continues as a
freelance journalist. A graduate of Syracuse University's School of Journalism,
he taught at The American University at Cairo for three years and then returned
to work at The Watertown Times before
joining The News. He covered Love
Canal for 25 years and was the pool reporter inside Attica prison during the
uprising.
Michael Mansur, local government reporter at The
Kansas City Star, has reported on the environment since the 1980s. In 1991,
he was a member of a team of reporters at The
Star who won a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting, for a series of
stories on the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Michael is past president of the
Society of Environmental Journalists and is currently editor of the SEJournal.
Robert McClure covers environmental affairs for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. In 2001 he and P-I reporter Andrew Schneider produced the most thorough newspaper
investigation to date of the General Mining Law of 1872, "The Mining of the
West: Pollution and Profit on Public Lands." Robert currently focuses on
natural resources, including mining, timber and fisheries.
Norris McDonald is founder and president of the African American Environmentalist
Association. The group is a national organization dedicated to protecting the
environment, promoting the efficient use of natural resources, enhancing human,
animal and plant ecologies and increasing African-American participation in the
environmental movement.
Jim McKay covers workplace and general assignment business issues for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where he has
been a staff writer for 21 years. His recent articles have looked at the
outsourcing of white-collar jobs to India, oil and natural gas production in
Pennsylvania, efficient manufacturing techniques and work skills aptitude
tests.
Granger Morgan is head of the department of engineering and public policy at
Carnegie Mellon University. He is also a professor in the Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the School of Public Policy and
Management. His research addresses problems in science, technology and public
policy.
Jim Motavalli is editor of E The
Environmental Magazine, a columnist for Environmental Defense and the
Appalachian Mountain Club's AMC Outdoors, a freelance writer for the New York Times, and author or editor of
four books: "Forward Drive: The Race To Build Clean Cars For The Future,"
"Breaking Gridlock: Moving Toward Transportation That Works," (both Sierra Club
Books), "Feeling The Heat: Dispatches From The Frontlines Of Climate Change," (Routledge) and "Green Living: An E Magazine Planetary
Resource Guide" (Plume, 2005).
Sean Moutlon has
served OMB Watch, since early 2002, as senior information policy analyst with
special attention on environmental information and right-to-know issues. Before
joining OMB Watch, Sean developed his lobbying and policy analysis skills as
the Tax Policy Analyst at Friends of the Earth, a national nonprofit
environmental advocacy group. Sean's work experience also includes several
years as a research fellow and contract employee with the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency in their Industry Sector Policy Division.
Ben Moyer is outdoors columnist and feature writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He has also written
"Pennsylvania's Wildlife And Wild Places: Our Outdoor
Heritage in Peril," (PA DCNR, 2003) and "Out Back: Reflections From The
Appalachian Outdoors" (Raven Rock Books, 2002).
Mike Mumau is the assistant park manager at Presque Isle State Park in Erie,
PA. His main responsibility is the development of the Tom Ridge Center at
Presque Isle but is also responsible for the park's environmental education and
interpretive program, natural resource management and intern/volunteer
programs. Mike has also worked as an outdoor educator in the Chesapeake Bay
area, and a backcountry ranger for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in
southwestern Alaska.
Keiran Murphy works as a research
specialist for Taliesin Preservation, Inc. (TPI), a non-profit organization in
Spring Green, Wisconsin. TPI preserves the 600-acre Taliesin estate, which
includes Frank Lloyd Wright's personal residence, Taliesin (1911-1959),
together with four other Wright-designed buildings. The Taliesin estate stands
on land originally farmed by the architect's maternal ancestors and Wright
traced his lifelong love of nature to his experiences there as a teenager. She
is a co-presenter at this year's Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy
conference on October 14 in a talk focusing on phase one of Taliesin's Save
America's Treasures project.
Dan Nephin is a newsman in the Pittsburgh bureau of The Associated Press. He
has been a journalist for more than a dozen years, covering everything from
parades to death penalty cases. Recently, he's begun focusing on environmental
issues. He's written about the Allegheny National Forest, invasive species,
pollution, mining and hunting and fishing.
Sara Nicholas is an associate director of dam programs with American Rivers,
and covers the Mid-Atlantic region including Pennsylvania, New Jersey,
Maryland, Virginia and Delaware. Her primary focus is removing dams that no
longer serve any purpose to help restore the region's rivers and streams. She
has worked in the environmental field for the past 15 years, including
positions with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the Environmental
Law Institute.
Raymond Orbach is director of the Office of Science at the U.S. Department of
Energy. He manages the third-largest federal sponsor of basic research in the
U.S. The office funds programs in high energy, nuclear physics, basic energy
sciences, magnetic fusion energy, biological and environmental research and
computational science. From 1992 to 2002, Raymond was chancellor of the
University of California-Riverside, increasing enrollment from 8,805 to more
than 14,400.
Doug Oster is the Backyard Gardener for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He covers gardening for the newspaper, as
well as for KDKA-TV's Saturday news show and Pittsburgh Today Live. Oster also writes, produces and
works on-air for WYEP public radio and WQED-TV.
Vince Patton covers the environmental beat for KGW-TV (NBC) in Portland, OR.
After winning SEJ's Best Documentary Award, Vince now
co-chairs SEJ's awards program. He is also a member
of SEJ's First Amendment task force tracking
increasing secrecy in government.
Eric Perry is a hydrologist with the U.S.
Office of Surface Mining's technical support group in Pittsburgh. His duties
include analysis of water quality and quantity impacts from active and
abandoned surface and underground coal mines; geochemistry of rocks; acid
drainage prediction, prevention and treatment; and characterization and
disposal of coal combustion wastes.
Scott Peterson is vice president for
communications at the Nuclear Energy Institute. He was senior director for NEI's communications division. Scott directs the
Institute's activities in media relations, advertising, editorial and creative
services, public opinion research and industry
communications. Before joining NEI, he was director of communications for the
American Nuclear Energy Council, a government relations organization for the
nuclear energy industry and one of three groups merged in 1995 to form the
Nuclear Energy Institute.
Gerald Poje has been a member of the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard
Investigation Board since its inception in 1997. He was on scene at the CSB's investigations into the chemical explosion at the
First Chemical Corp. manufacturing facility near Pascagoula, MS, the Kaltech reactive chemical explosion in Manhattan, NY, that
injured 32, the Georgia-Pacific toxic gas incident that killed two and injured
more than a dozen people near Pennington, AL, and the Sonat
Exploration explosion and fire that killed four near Pitkin,
LA.
Cindy Rank was president of the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy from
1988 to 1994 and now chairs the mining committee of that group. She has led
research and protests on coal mining and water quality issues in her area, and
was the first to compile a map visually documenting the extent of stream loss
from mountaintop removal valley fills in West Virginia.
Donna Vincent Roa is one of 10 researchers who studied the Treasury Department's
redesign of the $100 bill. She is now public affairs director for research and
development at the EPA.
Michelle Robbins joined American Forests as managing editor in 1992 and became
editor and director of publications in 1996. A former reporter, she left the
daily grind after five years to become editor of a start-up monthly, Capital Computer Digest in Washington,
DC in 1986. From there she was director of publications and marketing for the
National Association of Biology Teachers before joining American Forests.
Rick Rodriguez has been executive editor of The
Sacramento Bee since June 1988. He joined the paper in November 1982 as a
political writer in the paper's state capitol bureau. As executive editor, he
is in charge of the overall news operations of The Bee, which has a daily circulation of 295,000 and a Sunday
circulation of 350,000. Rodriguez is a long-time board member of the American
Society of Newspaper Editors and is slated to become president in 2005. He
would be the first Latino to be ASNE's president.
Edward Rubin is the
alumni professor of environmental engineering and science at Carnegie Mellon
University. He researches environmental control, energy use, and
technology-policy interactions, including the role of government policies in
environmental technology innovation. Edward is the author of more than 200
technical papers and reports, including the recent textbook "Engineering and
the Environment."
Ann Safley has
worked for the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission since 1991.She
reviews federal and state development projects for their effects on historic
properties, and increasing numbers of dam removal projects. Ann has also worked
on America's Industrial Heritage Project, which covered a nine-county region in
southern Pennsylvania.
Wayne Schloop is the
chief of operations for the Detroit District of the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers. He has worked for 20 years at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
and has been involved with the planning, design and construction of navigation,
hydropower and various marine projects. Wayne has also served as a project
manager in lock rehabilitation; breakwater, pier and revetment repairs;
dredging projects; and a bi-national study assessing the long-term navigation
requirements of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway.
John Schombert is the executive director of the 3 Rivers Wet Weather
Demonstration Program, a non-profit organization created in 1998 to help
municipalities in the Pittsburgh area address its aging and deteriorating sewer
system. The organization awards grants for demonstration projects, benchmarking
sewer technology and increasing inter-municipal cooperation. Before joining 3
Rivers, John worked for nearly 30 years in the Allegheny County Health
Department's water pollution, public drinking water and waste management
programs.
Kathryn Schulz is formerly managing editor and currently editor-at-large of the
online environmental magazine Grist
(www.grist.org). Prior to that, she was a reporter and editor for The Santiago Times, Chile's
English-language newspaper, where she covered environmental, labor and
human-rights issues.
Larry Schweiger became president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation in
March 2004. Previously, he served eight years as president and CEO of the
Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, where he increased visibility for the
conservancy through public advocacy and community garden projects.
Scott Segal is a partner in the government relations and strategy section of
the law firm of Bracewell & Patterson, LLP. For
the last 15 years, Scott has focused on environmental and energy policy
development in Washington DC, representing a range of industry and non-profit
interests. He serves as spokesman for the Electric Reliability Coordinating
Council, a coalition of utilities that has focused on air issues. He has argued
several major Clean Air Act cases before the Circuit Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia.
Ilsa Setziol is environment reporter for NPR-affiliate KPCC in Los Angeles.
Many of her stories concern efforts to save endangered species and preserve
open space in one of the world's biodiversity hotspots. Prior to her work as
environment reporter, Ilsa served as senior producer
of KPCC's morning talk show, Larry Mantle's AirTalk. During that
time she also reported and produced special projects, including a series on
race relations and programs about the history, cultures and contemporary lives
of California Indian tribes. She contributes to syndicated programs,
especially NPR's Living on Earth and The California Report.
Deanna Simon works for the city and county of San Francisco's municipal pest
management and pesticide reduction program. She also works with San Francisco's
Preferable Purchasing Program, helping the city buy less toxic products. Her
specialty is less-toxic alternatives to pest management.
Edith Smeesters is spokesperson for the Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides
(CAP), created in 1999 to reduce pesticide use in Québec, Canada. Her most
recent book is "Aménagement paysager
adapté à la sécheresse" (Landscaping For Drought) which was released in
March 2004. Edith has a degree in botany from Leuven
University in Belgium. She moved to Canada in 1970.
John Spengler is the Akira Yamaguchi Professor of Environmental Health and
Human Habitation, in the Exposure, Epidemiology and Risk Program, Department of
Environmental Health, at Harvard University's School of Public Health. He is
researching the integration of knowledge about indoor and outdoor air pollution
as well as other risk factors into the design of housing, buildings and
communities. In addition to his academic and research activities, John has been
active in professional education workshops and short courses on topics that
include pollution prevention and indoor environmental quality management for
schools, offices and hospitals, and distance learning.
Jodi Stemler joined the Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation in early 2002 and
brings a decade of experience in the wildlife conservation community to the
organization. Prior to joining CSF, she managed a legislative campaign to
increase federal funding for the conservation of wildlife and their habitats
and did communications work for a state fish and wildlife agency. At CSF, Jodi
focuses on communicating the work of the Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation and
the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus to the media and the general public.
Brian Stempeck is a senior reporter for Greenwire and Environment
& Energy Daily in Washington, DC. He covers climate change, transportation and automotive industry issues
for the two publications, where he has worked since 2001. Previously, Brian
wrote for the Louisville Courier-Journal
and Boston magazine.
Mark Stevenson is a freelance reporter and producer based in Toronto. His work
has appeared on CBC, CNN, The Discovery Channel (Canada) and the Canadian
national newspaper the Globe and Mail.
Mark has traveled across Canada, and into the arctic and Antarctica. He has a
certificate in East European Studies from the Jagellonica
University at Krakow, Poland, and a certificate in the Russian language from
the Institute of Youth at Moscow.
Ben Stout III is associate professor of biology and director of environmental
studies at Wheeling Jesuit University in Wheeling, WV. He has worked as an
instructor and researcher at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, and studied water
resources in Virginia and Tennessee.
Susan Stout has been employed as a research forester with the United States
Forest Service research project in Warren, PA, since 1981. In 1991, she was
named leader of the research team at that location. Her research interests
include forest diversity, deer impact on forests, and translating results from
ecosystem research into practical management guidelines for Pennsylvania's
forests and beyond. Currently, she is collaborating with the Sand County
Foundation and several landowners, land managers, hunters, and scientists to
improve both hunting and habitat on a 74,000 acre landscape in northwestern
Pennsylvania.
Dawn Stover, the science editor of Popular
Science, has been at the magazine for 18 years. She currently writes and
edits feature articles on science, technology and the environment. She has been
a telecommuter since 1991, working from an office in the Pacific Northwest.
Dawn has written for every section of the magazine, but her primary expertise
is in the life sciences. Her previous work includes stints at Harper's and Science Digest. Dawn has been co-coordinator (with Orna Izakson) of SEJ's Mentor Program since its founding in 2001.
Russell Train, is Chairman
Emeritus of the World Wildlife Fund and author of "Politics, Pollution and Pandas."
Train was the first chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality and the
second administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, both during
the Nixon Administration. He is also former Undersecretary of the Interior and
founder of the World Wildlife Fund and the African Wildlife Fund.
Ernesto Villanueva is a researcher with the legal research institute of the
University National Autonomuos of Mexico. He is also
director of the Comparative Media Law Journal. His most recent book is "Freedom
of Information in Latin America."
Eric Washburn is executive director of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation
Partnership. For the prior 10 years, Eric worked for Sen. Tom Daschle of South
Dakota, most recently as senior policy advisor on environmental and
conservation matters.
Deborah Weisberg covers fishing and the outdoors for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and is also a reporter and commentator for
WYEP-FM's Allegheny Front, the area's only locally produced environmental
program.
Tim Wheeler covers growth for The
Baltimore Sun. He has written about
the environment frequently in his 30-year journalistic career, which included a
decade as the beat reporter for The
Evening Sun and then The Sun
after the two papers merged. He recently spent nearly two years as an editor
coordinating The Sun's environmental
coverage, during which the paper won an SEJ award for spot-news coverage in
2001 of a chemical-laden train fire in downtown Baltimore.
Dale Willman runs his own production company and reports on environmental
issues for a number of outlets. He also lectures on college campuses on
numerous topics, from environmental journalism to diversity in the media. As
managing editor for the Great Lakes Radio Consortium for two years, Dale turned
a small radio news service into a regional powerhouse. The news feed's coverage
was expanded by 10 percent, reaching 135 public radio stations in 20 states and
Canada. He also spent more than 10 years in various roles at National Public
Radio in Washington, DC.
Elizabeth Withnell is
counsel to the Privacy Office for the Department of Homeland Security. She
provides legal advice on a wide range of privacy matters, and on issues
involving the Freedom of Information Act. In addition to serving as
counsel, Elizabeth also helped to establish the FOIA program for DHS
Headquarters. Prior to joining the staff of the Privacy Office, Elizabeth was a
senior attorney in the Office of Information and Privacy of the Department of
Justice, where she was involved in a wide range of administrative and
litigation-related activities involving the FOIA and the Privacy Act.
Chris Wood is the vice president for conservation at Trout Unlimited (TU).
Chris developed TU's public lands program, which
focuses in part on cleaning up abandoned mines in the Western U.S. He served as the senior policy and
communications advisor to the chief of the U.S. Forest Service. Chris is
co-author and editor of "Watershed Restoration: Principles And
Practices" (American Fisheries Society, 1997) and "From Conquest To
Conservation: Our Public Land Legacy" (Island Press, 2003).
Mike Wright is director of health, safety and environment for the United
Steelworkers of America. The USWA represents 600,000 members in the U.S.,
Canada and the Caribbean. Their members include most workers in the integrated
steel industry, and about half the workers in steel mini-mills. The USWA also
represents workers in other industries: aluminum and other non-ferrous metals,
mining, rubber, forest products, chemicals, containers, shipbuilding,
electronics, defense, manufacturing, health care and state and local
government. Mike is a current member of the EPA's Clean Air Act advisory
committee and NIOSH's mine health research advisory
committee.
Ed Zahniser is the senior writer/editor for the publications unit of the
National Park Service Media Development Group at the Interpretive Design Center
in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. He is the author of many official national
park visitor information brochures and national park handbooks on such areas as
Yellowstone, Grand Teton and Sequoia national parks. He is contributing editor
for and a contributing writer to "The Living Earth Book of North American
Trees," and editor of "Where Wilderness Preservation Began." His numerous books
of poetry include "The Way to Heron Mountain" and "A Calendar Of Worship And Other Poems."