Speakers: 2017 Climate Change Symposium

Wendy Abrams: Panel Discussion, "Call to Action: Climate Communications, Cognitive Science, and Identity Politics"
Founder, Cool Globes Inc.

Wendy Abrams is an environmental activist and founder of Cool Globes, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness about solutions to climate change. Designed to utilize the venues of public art and education, the inaugural “Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet” exhibition premiered in Chicago in 2007 and has since traveled to four continents and been translated into nine languages. 

She helped to establish the Abrams Environmental Litigation Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School and the Abrams Environmental Research Fellows at the University of Southern California. Abrams serves on the board of the Center for American Progress c4, the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund, and is a Trustee for Waterkeeper Alliance. She also serves on the board of trustees for WTTW (Chicago’s PBS affiliate), the RFK Human Rights Leadership Council, and Brown University’s President’s Council. Abrams earned her bachelor's degree from Brown University and received an MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management.

Andrew Barbeau: "NextGrid Illinois: A Plan for the Future"
President of The Accelerate Group and Senior Clean Energy Consultant at Environmental Defense Fund (EDF)

Andrew Barbeau is the President of The Accelerate Group, a Chicago-based company working to accelerate civic transformation, with a focus on innovative energy projects, new clean energy and smart city policy, and support of energy start-ups. As a consultant to Environmental Defense Fund, Barbeau worked as part of the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition to pass Illinois’ recent Future Energy Jobs Act, a landmark plan to increase new investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency in Illinois by $12-15 billion, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 50% by 2030. He also leads two first-of-their-kind smart building projects with a network of 60 buildings in downtown Chicago: the Combined Capacity Asset Performance Project to demonstrate the ability of different load and generation assets to combined their capabilities together in PJM’s capacity markets; and the new Smart Building Operations Pilot, a program that engages and incentivizes building operators to reduce energy below performance benchmarks in realtime. Barbeau is helping to guide the implementation of Shedd Aquarium’s Master Energy Roadmap, an unprecedented plan to reduce the cultural institution’s electric load and water use by 50% by 2020, and create the first “smart energy aquarium.” Before starting The Accelerate Group, Barbeau previously served as managing director of the Robert W. Galvin Center for Electricity Innovation at IIT, created the Illinois Smart Grid Regional Innovation Cluster with the US Small Business Administration, and served in the Office of the Governor.

Greg Bertelsen: "Carbon Tax, Redux: A Consensus Carbon Dividends Plan"
Senior Vice President, Climate Leadership Council 

Greg Bertelsen oversees the Climate Leadership Council’s outreach to business constituencies, is responsible for the Council’s congressional engagement, and contributes to policy research and development. Prior to joining the Climate Leadership Council, Bertelsen served as Senior Director of Energy and Resources Policy at the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). At the NAM, Bertelsen led advocacy efforts on behalf of manufacturers for a variety of energy and environmental policy issues. He has worked with congressmen, high-ranking administration officials, and served as an official advisor to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on environmental justice issues.

Previously, as an energy and policy consultant for Siemens AG, Bertelsen advised Fortune 100 industrial and utility companies on energy and environmental policy, including carbon tax and cap-and-trade proposals. Bertelsen is a lawyer by training who received his bachelor’s degree in Economics from Dickinson College and a JD from the American University Washington College of Law.

Hans Breiter: Panel Discussion, "Call to Action: Climate Communications, Cognitive Science, and Identity Politics"
Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine

Hans Breiter studies mathematical psychology related to behavior, big data, and artificial intelligence, as well as reward/aversion neuroscience using brain imaging and genetics, and malfunctions of reward/aversion in psychiatric illness. Accomplishments include: overseeing the Harvard team building a first full analysis pipeline for functional MRI (fMRI); performing the first application of fMRI to psychiatry; performing the first quantitative MRI-based morphometry in psychiatry; localizing reward circuitry in humans and starting reward neuroimaging; demonstrating reward circuitry is a generalized system (pleasure and pain); publishing the first neuroimaging in neuroeconomics (with Nobel Laureate Danny Kahneman); producing the first genetic association in economics; being one of the first to use information variables empirically in cognitive science to discover relative preference theory, which unifies the other reward theories and meets physics criteria for lawfulness; being one of four co-founders of the Brain Architecture Project with Nobel Laureate Jim Watson; producing the first subtyping of mental illness with neuroimaging; integrating constructs for memory, attention, and reward as one of the first mathematical models of emotion with Nobel Laureate Dale Mortensen; proving this emotion model allows for mechanism with behavior alone; performing experimental psychology at big data scale; and overseeing development of a concierge prototype of “explainable” AI (xAI) for potential anti-violence, mental illness, and ecommerce applications. Currently, his primary focus is the mathematical mapping of emotion, connecting it to neuroimaging, and assessing it for psychiatry, big data, and xAI.

Rob DeConto: "Force Multiplier: Sea-Level Rise and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet"
Professor, Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Rob DeConto is a Professor of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Rob’s background spans geology, oceanography, atmospheric science, and glaciology, and he has held research positions at both the US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Rob’s research is focused on understanding the long-term evolution of the Earth’s cryosphere, particularly the great polar ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica, and the future fate of those ice sheets in a warming world. This has included field work on Antarctica, the development of climate, ocean, and ice sheet models, and application of those models to a wide range of past and future climate scenarios. Rob serves on a number of national and international science boards and advisory panels. He is the 2016 recipient of the Tinker-Muse Prize for Science and Policy in Antarctica, and he is currently serving as a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Chad Frischmann: "Drawdown: 100 Substantive Solutions to Global Warming"
Vice President & Research Director, Project Drawdown

Chad Frischmann is the Vice President & Research Director at Project Drawdown, where he leads the Drawdown Coalition, Senior Research Team, and Fellowship Programs. Frischmann is the lead researcher and principal architect of the methodology and models used in Drawdown and all related publications. With an interdisciplinary background in public policy, sustainable development, and environmental conservation, Frischmann brings over 17 years of experience in program management and strategic leadership to the team. He has been with the organization since its inception in 2014, working as both head of research and operations. Previously, Frischmann also was the Senior Program Officer at The Europaeum; taught at the University of Oxford and the University of California at Berkeley; and worked as a consultant and researcher for numerous organizations, from small grassroots non-profits to UN agencies such as UNESCO and the International Fund for Agricultural Development. He holds a Master's degree in Public Policy from the University of California at Berkeley, a Master's degree in Art History from the University of Oxford, and a BA in International Affairs from George Washington University.

Tom Hodgman: "Financing Conservation Pays Climate Dividends"
Senior Director, Product Development – NatureVest, The Nature Conservancy

Tom Hodgman manages The Nature Conservancy’s work in conservation finance for large landscape conservation projects, with a focus on North American landscapes and forest conservation globally. Hodgman has an MBA and a Masters in Forestry from Yale University.

Jennifer Holmgren: "Black Gold: Carbon Utilization Markets"
Chief Executive Officer, LanzaTech

Jennifer Holmgren is the Chief Executive Officer of LanzaTech. Holmgren has over 20 years of experience in the energy sector including a proven track record in the development and commercialization of fuels and chemicals technologies. Prior to joining LanzaTech, she was Vice President and General Manager of the Renewable Energy and Chemicals business unit at UOP LLC, a Honeywell Company. In that role, she led UOP’s renewable business from its inception through to the achievement of significant revenues from the commercialization of multiple novel biofuels technologies.

Holmgren holds a BS degree from Harvey Mudd College, a PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and an MBA from the University of Chicago. She currently serves on multiple external advisory boards. She is the author or co-author of 50 US patents, 20 scientific publications and is the 2003 recipient of the Council for Chemical Research’s (CCR) Malcolm E. Pruitt Award.

Matthew Huber: "How Hot is Too Hot? -- Heat Indices and Public Health Risk"
Professor of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Purdue University

Matthew Huber is a Professor in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at Purdue University and co-founded and former director of the Purdue Climate Change Research Center. His research focuses on: past, present, and future climate; the mechanisms that govern climate; the different forms that climates can take on Earth; and the relationship between climate change and life. Major research areas include the radiative and dynamical processes generating tropical ‘thermostats’, and polar amplification of warming, as well as the ecological and evolutionary implications of these processes and patterns. He has specific interest in the ways in which passive tracers, water vapor, heat, spores, and other atmospheric components move from the tropics toward the Poles and how these processes operated during greenhouse climates tens of millions of years ago. Huber’s work draws on atmosphere-ocean dynamics, paleoceanography, geology, paleontology, and cutting-edge computer climate modelling. 

Malte Jansen: "The Ocean's Role in the Climate System"
Assistant Professor of Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago

Malte Jansen received his PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2013. After spending 2 years in Princeton as a postdoctoral fellow, he became an Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago in 2015. His research aims to improve our understanding of the large-scale dynamics of the oceans, the atmosphere, and the coupled climate system. He is particularly interested in the processes that govern the transport and storage of heat and carbon in the ocean. Understanding the mechanisms of these processes is key to deciphering the changes in the climate system during Earth’s past and future. 

Ma Jun: "Climate Activism in China"
Director, Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (Beijing, China)

As Director of the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE), Ma Jun has led the development and launch of China’s first environmental public database, the China Pollution Map, as well as the Blue Map (Weilan Ditu), a mobile app that helps the public use “micro-reports” against environmental violations and polluted rivers. The Green Choice supply chain program he and colleagues initiated has motivated more than 3,000 suppliers of major global and local brands to openly address their violation problems.

In 2006, he was awarded as China’s “Green Person of the Year” and was named as one of TIME Magazine’s World’s 100 Most Influential People. Ma was also honored with the Magsaysay Award in 2009 and Goldman Prize in 2012 for his environmental protection work in China, as well as the 2015 Skoll Foundation Award for Social Entrepreneurship for his innovative approach to “lifting the veil” on China’s pollution problems.

Jennifer Kay: "The Signal and the Noise: What Can We Learn from Climate Modeling?"
Assistant Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Colorado at Boulder 

Jennifer Kay is an Assistant Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and a Fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Kay's research is on climate change and variability, with a specific focus on connecting global coupled climate modeling with observed cloud, precipitation, and sea ice processes.

Nancy Loeb: "Law of the Seas: The Legal Governance of A Melting Arctic Pass"
Clinical Associate Professor and Environmental Advocacy Center Director, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law

Nancy Loeb is an Associate Clinical Professor of Law and the Director of the Environmental Advocacy Center (EAC) at Northwestern University Law School’s Bluhm Legal Clinic. Loeb founded the EAC in 2009. The EAC provides legal representation and advocacy on critical environmental issues, with a particular focus on representation of Environmental Justice communities. Loeb also teaches classes on Energy Law and Policy and on the intersection of Economics and the Environment.

Before joining Northwestern Law’s faculty, Loeb was the General Counsel of Takeda Pharmaceuticals, N.A., and held several legal positions at Honeywell and General Electric. She was a Law Clerk to Judge Dolores K. Sloviter of the United States Court Appeals for the Third Circuit and was a Legal Fellow at Natural Resources Defense Council. Loeb received her JD from New York University School of Law and BA and MA degrees from Johns Hopkins University. 

Loeb is a member of the Executive Committee of the Board and past Chair of the Board of the Environmental Law & Policy Center.  She also serves on the board of the National Women’s Law Center. She previously served as chair and as a board member of the Lawyers Committee for Better Housing of Chicago and as a member of the board of the Chicago Bar Foundation.

Luisa Marcelino: "Coral in the Coal Mine: What are Oceans Telling Us?"
Research Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University 

Luisa Marcelino is a Research Assistant Professor and Lecturer in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering. She obtained her PhD in Molecular Biology and Genetics from the University of Lisbon, Portugal in collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Marcelino’s research spans from biological understanding of partnerships involving microbes in particular corals and their symbiotic algae to applying optical technology and molecular biology techniques to characterize the role of both partners and understand the effects of global climate change on the partnership. Marcelino’s research group investigates the coral-algae partnership at the skeleton, tissue, cell and genetic levels. 

Eric Masanet: "How Low Can We Go? Energy Technology Pathways for Deep Decarbonization."
Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Associate Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Northwestern University; Former Head of the Energy Demand Technology Unit, International Energy Agency

Eric Masanet is an Associate Professor in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University, where he leads the Energy and Resource Systems Analysis Laboratory. He served as the Head of the Energy Demand Technology Unit at the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, where he led the development of long-term technology outlooks for the global buildings, industry, and transport sectors for the IEA’s Energy Technologies Perspectives, Tracking Clean Energy Progress, Technology Roadmaps, and other report series. He is the former Editor in Chief of Resources, Conservation, and Recycling, the leading peer-reviewed journal on sustainable resource systems. Prior to joining Northwestern in 2012, Masanet spent eight years at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), where he served as Deputy Head of the International Energy Studies Group. While at LBNL, he held a joint research appointment at UC Berkeley, where he also served as Program Manager of the Engineering and Business for Sustainability Certificate Program. He holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley, with a specialization in sustainable manufacturing.

Janet McCabe: "Endangered Species? Fruits of the Obama-Era Endangerment Finding"
Senior Law Fellow, Environmental Law and Policy Center; Director for Policy and Implementation at the Environmental Resilience Institute, Indiana University 

Janet McCabe is a Senior Law Fellow with the Environmental Law and Policy Center and Assistant Director for Policy and Implementation at the Environmental Resilience Institute at Indiana University. From July 2013 through January 2017, McCabe was the Acting Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation at the United States Environmental Protection Agency—a position President Barack Obama nominated her for. She joined the EPA in November 2009, serving as the Principal Deputy to the Assistant Administrator of OAR. Prior to joining the EPA, McCabe was Executive Director of Improving Kids’ Environment, Inc., a children’s environmental health advocacy organization based in Indianapolis, Indiana. She was also an adjunct faculty member at the Indiana University School of Medicine, Department of Public Health, and at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs. From 1993 to 2005, McCabe held several leadership positions in the Indiana Department of Environmental Management’s Office of Air Quality and was the office’s Assistant Commissioner from 1998 to 2005. Before coming to Indiana, McCabe served as Assistant Attorney General for environmental protection for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and Assistant Secretary for Environmental Impact Review. McCabe graduated from Harvard College in 1980 and Harvard Law School in 1983.

Amy Morsch: "Cities and States take the Spotlight: Case Studies in sub-national Leadership"
Director of Sustainability and Engagement, Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES)

Amy Morsch is Director of Sustainability and Engagement at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES). Morsch identifies emerging solutions to climate and energy challenges as well as develops opportunities for information sharing among cities, states, and companies. She manages the Alliance for a Sustainable Future, C2ES’ partnership with the US Conference of Mayors and Make an Impact, a partnership-based employee engagement initiative.

Morsch joined C2ES from the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, where she focused on local and state climate change mitigation and adaptation policies in the Southeast. She has served on the Board of Directors of Clean Energy Durham, and has previously worked with the City of Atlanta’s Division of Sustainability and the Sustainability Office for Durham, North Carolina.

Morsch holds a Master’s in Environmental Management from Duke University and a Bachelor’s in Zoology from Miami University. 

Mark Porter: "Business Takes the Lead: A Rising Tide of Corporate Carbon-Free Procurement"
Business Renewables Center (BRC) Manager, Rocky Mountain Institute 

Mark Porter worked for Ernst & Young’s transaction-focused renewable energy group for nine years. Working with projects across the technology spectrum in Europe and North America.

Porter joined the Business Renewables Center at Rocky Mountain Institute in March 2016, working to accelerate offsite non-utility procured renewable energy transactions. Porter and the Business Renewables Center team raises awareness of the benefits and challenges with transactions, has built an ecosystem of members, and develops scalable tools and products for corporates to execute transactions.

Kaitlin Raimi: Panel Discussion, "Call to Action: Climate Communications, Cognitive Science, and Identity Politics"
Assistant Professor of Public Policy, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at University of Michigan

Kaitlin Raimi is an Assistant Professor at the Ford School of Public Policy at University of Michigan. She is a social and environmental psychologist who studies how social motivations promote or prevent sustainable behaviors, especially those related to climate change. Raimi is particularly interested in how people compare their own beliefs and behaviors to those of other people, how different ways of framing climate change affect people's attitudes toward climate policy, and how the adoption of one sustainable behavior affects subsequent environmental decisions. Before joining the faculty at Michigan, she completed her PhD in Social Psychology at Duke University and a postdoc at the Vanderbilt Institute for Energy and Environment.

Varun Sivaram: "A Snapshot in International Climate Action"
Philip D. Reed Fellow for Science and Technology, Energy Security and Climate Change Program at the Council on Foreign Relations

Varun Sivaram is the Phillip D. Reed fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He is also a strategic advisor to the office of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Reforming the Energy Vision, and he is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. He is a member of the advisory boards for both the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and the Stanford Precourt Institute for Energy.

Before joining CFR, Sivaram was a consultant at McKinsey & Company, where he counseled Fortune 500 companies on adapting to the modern competitive landscape in energy. Prior to this role, he served as senior advisor for energy and water policy to the mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, and oversaw the city’s Department of Water and Power.

Sivaram’s work has appeared in Foreign Affairs, the Journal of Applied Physics, the Journal of Physical Chemistry, Nature, Nature Energy, Nature Climate Change, and Scientific American. A Truman and a Rhodes Scholar, he holds degrees from Stanford University in engineering physics and international relations, with honors in international security. Sivaram holds a PhD in condensed matter physics from St. John’s College, Oxford University, where he developed third-generation solar photovoltaic coatings for building-integrated applications.

Klaus Weber: "Corporate Climate Action Between Financial Reporting and Social Responsibility"
Associate Professor of Management & Organizations, Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management

Klaus Weber is an Associate Professor of Management & Organizations at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management. He is also affiliated with the Department of Sociology, Buffett Institute for Global Studies, Ford Company Center for Global Citizenship and Institute for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern (ISEN).

His research is grounded in cultural and institutional analysis, with substantive interests in the political economy of globalization, the intersection between social movements and the economy, and environmental sustainability.

Weber’s research has been published in journals such as Administrative Science Quarterly, American Sociological Review, Organization Science, Organization Studies, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Strategic Management Journal, and Harvard Business Review. His work has won best paper awards at the American Sociological Association, Administrative Science Quarterly, and the SYNTEC Conseil en Management. He was a senior editor at Organization Science and guest edited volumes for Organization Studies and Organization Science.

At Kellogg, Weber teaches MBA courses on sustainability, social innovation, and power and influence; and doctoral seminars on cultural and text analysis, organization theory, and research methods. He received his PhD from the University of Michigan.