Appendix C

Biographies of Workshop Speakers

INFORMATION GATHERING WORKSHOP 1: LOCAL STRATEGIES

Panel I: Sustainable and Equitable Food Systems

ALISON GRANTHAM is a scientist who brings a methodical, analytical, and quantitative approach to her work with nonprofits, private-sector businesses, and foundations to improve our food system through her practice, Grow Well Consulting. Current and recent projects include improving climate impacts of pasture-raised poultry, greenhouse gas, water and waste footprinting for an indoor agricultural business, a national urban food waste and food insecurity analysis and report, global seafood traceability to support food safety and sustainability outcomes, and a FLAG sector scope 3 engagement for an international environmental nongovernmental organization. Prior to launching Grow Well, she led Food Systems R&D and then Food Procurement at Blue Apron, overseeing food sourcing and procurement and implementing a national program to increase employee access to surplus product, as well as local communities through partnerships with Feeding America. There, she also served on the National Academies’ Ad Hoc Reducing Food Loss and Waste Committee. Previously, she led research at the Rodale Institute, including all aspects of organic and sustainable agriculture research. Dr. Grantham holds a dual-title Ph.D. in ecology and biogeochemistry from The Pennsylvania State University and B.A. summa cum laude in biological sciences and environmental studies from Mount Holyoke College.

RAVI KANBUR is T.H. Lee Professor of World Affairs, International Professor of Applied Economics, and Professor of Economics at Cornell University.

Dr. Kanbur researches and teaches in development economics, public economics, and economic theory. He is well known for his role in policy analysis and engagement in international development. He is Co-Chair of the Food Systems Economics Commission. He has served on the senior staff of the World Bank including as Chief Economist for Africa. Dr. Kanbur has also published in the leading economics journals, including Journal of Political Economy, American Economic Review, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Economic Theory, and The Economic Journal. The positions he has held include Chair of the Board of United Nations (UN) University-World Institute for Development Economics Research, member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) High Level Expert Group on the Measurement of Economic Performance, President of the Human Development and Capability Association, President of the Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, member of the High Level Advisory Council of the Climate Justice Dialogue, Co-Chair of the Scientific Council of the International Panel on Social Progress, and member of the Core Group of the Commission on Global Poverty.

EDUARD MÜLLER CASTRO is the Founder and President of the University for International Cooperation and Chair-holder for the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The University for International Cooperation is a global organization of educational innovation for an inclusive knowledge society, seeking a regenerative and evolutionary development to a complex, diverse, and changing world. Dr. Müller’s career spans more than 35 years and he has published more than 50 papers and book chapters. One of his most notable works was a chapter titled “December 22nd,” in a book titled Global Chorus. Dr. Müller has spoken for numerous organizations including The Earth Charter, the World Meteorological Organization, and the Latin American Parliament. His greatest achievement thus far has been having more than 5,000 students from 58 different countries graduate from his University. Dr. Müller attributes his success to his experience living in different countries. Dr. Müller is also an accomplished photographer.

SABINE O’HARA is Distinguished Professor and Ph.D. Program Director of the College of Agriculture, Urban Sustainability and Environmental Sciences (CAUSES) at the University of the District of Columbia, which is the only public university in Washington, DC, and the only exclusively urban Land-grant University in the United States. Prior to her current appointment, she served as the founding Dean of CAUSES and led the University’s efforts to build a cutting-edge model for urban agriculture and urban sustainability that integrates training in the agricultural, environmental, and health sciences with the practical aspirations of students and residents to embark on successful careers in the green innovation economy. Dr. O’Hara’s work has focused consistently on the quality of life and economic opportunity of local communities through multidimensional intellectual, social, and physical capacity development. A foundation of her

work is her belief that education should not only answer our questions, but also question our answers. This search for new answers has guided her work as the 10th President of Roanoke College in Virginia; Provost of Green Mountain College in Vermont; faculty member at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, New York; and Executive Director of the Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES), which administers the prestigious Fulbright Scholar Program. Dr. O’Hara holds master’s and doctoral degrees in agricultural economics and environmental economics from the University of Göttingen, Germany. She holds an affiliated faculty appointment with the Working Group on Institutional Analysis of Socio-Ecological Systems at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany; is the past President of the International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE) and the U.S. Society for Ecological Economics (USSEE); is a member of the International Advisory Board of King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah; and served on the editorial board of several academic journals.

Panel II: Education and Capacity Building

MARK MCCAFFERY is currently involved with a project called The Long Game, which aims to involve schools around the world in community-based climate action projects. Previously, he was founder of the UN Climate Change (UNCC) community ECOS (Education, Communication, and Outreach Stakeholders). Having helped establish a local watershed focused network two decades ago (BASIN, the Boulder Area Sustainability Information Network) and a national digital library and online community (CLEAN, the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network), Mr. McCaffery assisted in initiating the climate and energy literacy frameworks and authored Climate Smart & Energy Wise, published in 2014 by Corwin. 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 focused on climate solutions, and various UN organizations, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and UNCC: Learn. He has previously served as Programs and Policy Director at the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) and Associate Scientist at CIRES, the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he developed climate change and energy literacy education programs.

SARAH MENDELSON is Distinguished Service Professor of Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Head of CMU’s Heinz College in Washington, DC. Ambassador Mendelson previously served as the U.S. Representative to the Economic and Social Council at the UN until January 20, 2017. Confirmed by the Senate in October 2015, she was the USUN (United States Mission to the United Nations) lead on international development, human rights, and humanitarian affairs. There she oversaw campaigns to get country-specific

resolutions passed in the General Assembly and to get nongovernmental organizations, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, accredited to the UN. She led efforts to elevate the issue of combating human trafficking and was Senior Lead for the President’s Summit on Refugees. Prior to her appointment as Ambassador, she served as a Deputy Assistant Administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) from 2010 to 2014 where she was the Agency lead on democracy, human rights, and governance. A long-time policy entrepreneur, she has spent more than two decades working on development and human rights as a scholar and practitioner including in Moscow with the National Democratic Institute, on the faculty of the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and over a decade as senior adviser and inaugural Director of the Human Rights Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. There she also worked as a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program where she oversaw focus groups, public opinion surveys, and social marketing campaigns in Russia on a range of issues. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of more than 70 scholarly and public policy publications, Ambassador Mendelson received her B.A. in history from Yale University and her Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University.

CAROL O’DONNELL is the Senior Executive and Director of the Smithsonian Science Education Center, an organization of the Smithsonian Institution dedicated to transforming K-12 Education through Science™ in collaboration with communities across the globe. In her role at the Smithsonian (a nonprofit with quasi-governmental status), Dr. O’Donnell serves as the U.S. representative on the Global Council of the InterAcademy Partnership Science Education Programme, an appointment by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; and she serves on the UN Broadband Commission Working Group on School Connectivity: Hybrid Learning. Dr. O’Donnell also represents the Smithsonian on the Subcommittee on Federal Coordination in STEM Education, which advises and assists the Committee on STEM Education of the Office of Science and Technology Policy of the Executive Office of the President. In her role on the Program Committee for the International Dialogue on STEM Education, Dr. O’Donnell co-authored the position paper on “STEM Education for Sustainable Development” (http://bit.ly/3a3ObkS). Prior to joining the Smithsonian, Dr. O’Donnell was a group leader at the U.S. Department of Education, supporting states’ and districts’ implementation of Elementary and Secondary Education Act programs; she also oversaw the Cognition and Student Learning research grant program of the Institute of Education Sciences. A former K-12 teacher and curriculum developer, Dr. O’Donnell is still in the classroom today, serving on the part-time faculty of the Physics Department at The George Washington University, where she earned her doctorate. Her TedX talk demonstrates her passion for integrating digital and physical interactions in science classrooms.

MEGHNA TARE is the first Chief Sustainability Officer for The University of Texas, Arlington (UTA). Ms. Tare works collaboratively to foster partnerships among academic, research, and operational departments at UTA, and to address opportunities to promote sustainability in several areas including energy efficiency, resource conservation, waste management, transportation, education, outreach, community engagement, supporting and encouraging student initiatives, and implementing an interdisciplinary and sustainability-focused curriculum. Ms. Tare serves and represents UTA on several advisory boards including the National Academy of Sciences Board on Higher Education and Workforce Development—Policy and Global Affairs, Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, and Local Government for Sustainability (ICLEI), and she is a fellow at Hunt Institute for Engineering and Humanity at Southern Methodist University. She has also served on the Advisory Committee for the City of Dallas Environmental and Climate Action Plan, National Academy of Sciences Airport Cooperative Research Program panel, and the Water Resource Council of North Central Texas Council of Governments. She has spearheaded launching a Regional Center of Expertise for Education in Sustainable Development Goals in North Texas, a program of the UN University, and the Institute for Sustainability and Global Impact at UTA. She is a Tedx speaker, was featured as the Women in CSR by Triple Pundit, and was awarded Women of the Decade in Corporate Social Responsibility by the Women Economic Forum and 2020 Women in Sustainability—Transformational Leader by Wells Fargo. Ms. Tare graduated with an M.B.A. in sustainable management, M.S. in environmental science, and M.S. in chemistry.

Panel III: Urbanization

LYKKE LEONARDSEN is the Program Director for Resilient and Sustainable City Solutions for Copenhagen, Denmark. She has more than 25 years of experience in various fields of urban development, including local regeneration projects, international urban policies, and communication. Since 2008 she has worked for the Technical and Environmental Administration in charge of making Copenhagen more blue and green—tasked with water management and green infrastructure planning. It was as part of this work that the city’s Climate Change Adaptation plan was developed. She was the key driver for the work on climate change adaptation, the development of the adaptation plan and the cloudburst management plan, and the first steps toward a storm surge plan in Copenhagen and is currently focusing on sharing her city’s climate results with other cities around the world.

SUSAN PARNELL is a Global Challenges Research Professor in the School of Geography at the University of Bristol and Emeritus Professor at the African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Town. She has held previous academic positions at Wits University and the University of London. She was a Leverhulme Visiting Professor at University College London in 2011–2012, Emeka Anyaoku

Visiting Chair University College London in 2014–2015, and Visiting Professor at LSE (London School of Economics and Political Science) Cities in 2017–2018. She has been actively involved in local, national, and global urban policy debates around the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and is an advocate for better science policy engagement on cities. She is the author of numerous peer-reviewed publications that document how cities, past and present, respond to policy change. Her most recent books include the co-authored Building a Capable State: Post Apartheid Service Delivery (Zed, 2017) and the co-edited The Urban Planet (Cambridge, 2018). Dr. Parnell is currently on the Board of the International Institute for Environment and Development, serves as a member of the African Centre for Cities Advisory Board, and had previously served on several nongovernmental organization structures.

WORAJIT SETTHAPUN is the Founder and currently the Dean of the Asian Development College for Community Economy and Technology (adiCET), Chiang Mai Rajabhat University. adiCET was established to facilitate sustainable development of the local community. Dr. Setthapun established and managed the Chiang Mai World Green City (CMGC) as the living laboratory for renewable energy and green technologies developed from more than 70 sustainable energy/environment projects. CMGC focuses on the implementation of Community Power for small rural communities. The aim is to develop an affordable/appropriate sustainable energy system to enhance the livelihood and occupation of the community. Dr. Setthapun is the head of the Graduate Program in Community Energy and Environment and oversees the Renewable Energy Research and Training Center in CMGC. Dr. Setthapun has created short course and training programs that trained more than 5,000 participants on community sustainable development, renewable energy, energy and environmental conservation, and the sufficiency economy concept. Dr. Setthapun was the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations)-U.S. Science and Technology Fellow and worked at the Ministry of Energy, Thailand’s Decentralized Community Power Project. In addition, Dr. Setthapun is the recipient of the 2016 ASEAN-US Women in Science Award for thematic area of sustainable energy.

MARC A. WEISS is Chairman and CEO of Global Urban Development (GUD), an international policy organization and professional network of more than 700 leaders and experts 60 countries. He is a Lead Partner of the UN-Habitat World Urban Campaign, Board Member of IHC Global, and International Visiting Professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) in Porto Alegre, Brazil, where he coordinates the Porto Alegre Sustainable Innovation Zone (ZISPOA). He previously served as Public Policy Scholar and Editor of Global Outlook at the Smithsonian Institution’s Wilson Center; Coordinator of the 1998 Strategic Economic Development Plan for Washington, DC, and Chairman of the NoMa Metro Station Corporation; Special Assistant to the Secretary

of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and HUD Liaison to the President’s Council on Sustainable Development in the Clinton Administration; Associate Professor and Director of the Real Estate Development Research Center, Acting Director of the Ph.D. Program in Urban Planning, and Adjunct Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University; and Deputy Director of the California Commission on Industrial Innovation. He is author or co-author of many books, articles, and reports, including The Rise of the Community Builders and Real Estate Development Principles and Process. He has been a senior adviser on metropolitan economic strategy, sustainable innovation, and inclusive prosperity for cities, counties, regions, and states/provinces throughout the world, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Germany, India, Italy, Morocco, Panama, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, UK, United States, and Virgin Islands. He earned an MCP and Ph.D. in city and regional planning from the University of California, Berkeley and a B.A. with honors in political science from Stanford University. He also attended the London School of Economics.

Panel IV: Localization of the Sustainable Development Goals and Indigenous Knowledge Networks

CELESTE CONNORS is the Executive Director of Hawai‘i Green Growth. Ms. Connors has 20 years of experience working at the intersection of economic, environment, energy, and international development policy. Before joining Hawai‘i Green Growth, she was CEO and co-Founder of cdots development LLC, which works to build resilient infrastructure systems and services in vulnerable communities. Ms. Connors previously served as the Director for Environment and Climate Change at the National Security Council and National Economic Council in the White House where she helped shape the Administration’s climate and energy policies, including the SDGs. Prior to joining the White House, Ms. Connors served as a diplomat in Saudi Arabia, Greece, and Germany. She also held positions at the U.S. Mission to the UN, served as the Climate and Energy Advisor to the Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, and worked for the City of New York. Ms. Connors is a senior adjunct fellow at the East-West Center and was a faculty member at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in the Energy, Resources and Environment Program. She holds an M.Sc. in development studies from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies and a B.A. in international relations from Tufts University. Ms. Connors has served on numerous boards including her current service on Hawaiian Electric Industries, the Global Island Partnership, and the Institute for Sustainability and Resilience at the University of Hawaii and Icebreaker One. She previously served on the Board of America’s Service Commissions and the IUCN World Conservation Congress National Host Committee, and was a Term Member on the Council on Foreign Relations.

ASHISH KOTHARI is the founder of Kalpavriksh, an Indian nonprofit organization working on environmental and social issues at local, national, and global levels. A graduate in sociology, Mr. Kothari has taught environment at the Indian Institute of Public Administration in the 1990s and has been guest faculty at several universities, institutes, and colleges. He has served on the Board of Directors of Greenpeace International and Greenpeace India. Mr. Kothari has served on the Indian Government’s Environmental Appraisal Committee on River Valley Projects and Expert Committees to formulate India’s Biological Diversity Act and National Wildlife Action Plan. He coordinated India’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan process and was co-coordinator of the Activist-Academic Co-Generation of Knowledge on Environmental Justice (www.acknowlej.org) global project. Mr. Kothari has been active with a number of people’s movements, including Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save Narmada Movement) and Beej Bachao Andolan (Save the Seeds Movement). He helps coordinate the Vikalp Sangam (Alternatives Confluence, www.vikalpsangam.org) process in India and the Global Tapestry of Alternatives (https://globaltapestryofalternatives.org). He helps run the website and associated list of Radical Ecological Democracy (www.radicalecologicaldemocracy.org). Mr. Kothari is the author or editor of more than 30 books (including Churning the Earth: Making of Global India; Alternative Futures: India Unshackled; and Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary) and more than 400 articles.

ANTHONY PIPA is a senior fellow in the Center for Sustainable Development, housed in the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings. He studies place-based policies to improve social progress in the United States and globally, including through use of the SDGs at the local level. He is also considering the future of U.S. multilateral aid and the applicability of lessons from international development to improving rural development in the United States. Mr. Pipa has more than 25 years of executive experience in the philanthropic and public sectors addressing poverty and advancing inclusive economic development. During the Obama administration, he served as Chief Strategy Officer at the U.S. Agency for International Development and held multiple senior policy positions at the Agency. He served as U.S. Special Coordinator for the Post-2015 Agenda at the Department of State, leading the U.S. delegation at the UN to negotiate and adopt the SDGs. Prior to his government service, he directed the nongovernmental organization Leaders Forum at Harvard University and was the founding CEO of the Warner Foundation, a family foundation in North Carolina focused on improving economic opportunity and race relations. He helped launch Foundation for Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and has played a principal role in the start-up of several philanthropic ventures focused on addressing poverty and improving distressed communities. He serves on the Board of Directors of StriveTogether and the Advisory Council of the Center for Disaster Philanthropy. He has published articles, book chapters, and opinion pieces on local implementation of the SDGs, the effectiveness of place-based policies,

multilateral aid, philanthropic effectiveness, financial innovations, and policies to strengthen resilience and prosperity. He attended Stanford University, graduated from Duke University, and earned an M.P.A. at the Harvard Kennedy School.

EMILIA SÁIZ is Secretary General of United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG). Ms. Sáiz is a jurist by profession and has devoted her professional life to promoting the role of local governments in development as well as fostering relations between cities and their associations worldwide. She started her journey as local government international advocate in the founding organization of UCLG, IULA (International Union of Local Authorities) in 1997. She has led programs dedicated to institutional capacity building and decentralized cooperation. She has actively promoted women empowerment, social inclusion, and international partnerships. She played a critical role in setting up the Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments and has followed and represented local and regional governments in iconic international processes such as the Rio and Beijing + 20 as well the Climate Agreement, the SDGs, and Hábitat III. She has further been deeply involved in the institutional development of UCLG into a network of networks. During her work for the World Organization she was appointed to numerous panels both in her personal and professional capacity. Ms. Sáiz has also been involved in Cities Alliance, the General Alliance of Partners, and the Cities Programme of the Global Compact.

INFORMATION GATHERING WORKSHOP 2: GLOBAL STRATEGIES

Panel I: Science and Technology Cooperation (STI Forum Side Event)

JEAN-PAUL ADAM is the Director for Technology, Climate Change and Natural Resources Management in the UN Economic Commission for Africa (since January 2020). He previously served in several Cabinet positions in the Government of Seychelles including Minister of Finance, Trade and the Blue Economy (2015–2016) where he negotiated a debt for climate change adaptation swap in 2015, which placed 30 percent of Seychelles oceanic space under protection, and launched the process for Seychelles to become the first issuer of a Blue Bond. He also served as Seychelles’ Minister of Foreign Affairs (2010–1015) and Minister of Health (2016–2019).

NIKI FRANTZESKAKI is a Chair Professor of Regional and Metropolitan Governance and Planning, Section Spatial Planning, Geosciences Faculty, Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Her expertise is on urban transitions and their governance and planning, with a focus on sustainability, resilience, livability, and more specifically strengthening people-nature interactions in the urban environment. She has a rich international research experience with a portfolio of ongoing projects in Australia, Canada, and the United States. She has been a Highly Cited Researcher awardee from Clarivate Analytics in 2020 and 2021,

putting her in the top 1 percent of researchers globally in the cross-field of social sciences and ecology. From 2019 to 2021, she was a research professor and Director of the Centre for Urban Transitions in Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. From 2010 to 2019, she was an associate professor at the Dutch Research Institute for Transitions with Erasmus University Rotterdam. She has published nearly 100 peer-reviewed articles and released four books on urban sustainability transitions in 2017, 2018, and 2020. She has also edited 18 special issues in top-ranked journals on sustainability, sustainability transitions, and urban governance.

JAN MARCO MÜLLER is Science & Technology Advisor in the Strategic Policy Planning Division of the European External Action Service. Previously, he was Head of Directorate Office/Coordinator for Science to Policy and Science Diplomacy, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. He was also the Policy Officer for International Relations in the Joint Research Centre, and before that Assistant to the EU Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor Dame Anne Glover. In that role he managed Professor Glover’s office, assisted her in her daily tasks, and coordinated her relations with internal and external stakeholders. Professor Glover, who previously served as Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA) to the Scottish Government, reported directly to the Commission President and had the mandate to provide independent expert advice on any aspect of science, technology, and innovation. Before his assignment to the CSA’s Office, Dr Müller worked for three years as Assistant to the Director-General of the Joint Research Centre, the European Commission’s in-house science service. Previous roles include Head of Business Development & Public Relations of the UK Natural Environment Research Council’s Centre for Ecology & Hydrology; Programme and Communications Manager of the European Commission’s Institute for Environment and Sustainability in Ispra (Italy); Assistant to the Scientific Director of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Leipzig (Germany); and Secretary of the Partnership for European Environmental Research. He also served for four years on the Scientific Advisory Board of the French national environmental research centre CEMAGREF (now IRSTEA). Holding a Ph.D. in geography, Dr. Müller has often worked with Latin American countries, in particular Colombia. He speaks six languages and has a keen interest in developing the science-policy interface.

ATSUSHI SUNAMI is the President of The Sasakawa Peace Foundation, as well as the Ocean Policy Research Institute of The Sasakawa Peace Foundation. He is also Director of the SciREX center and Executive Advisor to the President at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies and Guest Professor at the Research Organization for Nano & Life Innovation at Waseda University. He is currently serving as a member of the Basic Policy Group under the Committee on National Space Policy in the Cabinet Office, and as Chair of the Space Utilization Promotion Round-table under the Minister for Space Policy in the Cabinet Office.

In addition, he is a member of the Innovation Strategy for Security and Safety at the Cabinet Office and on the Advisory Board for the Promotion of Science and Technology Diplomacy in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan. He holds a B.S.F.S. from Georgetown University and an M.I.A. and Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University.

KLAUS TILMES is a Senior Policy Adviser and former World Bank Director with more than 30 years of international experience in development policy, strategy development at the global, country, and sectoral levels, and program implementation. Since leaving the World Bank, Mr. Tilmes has provided policy advice to international organization, governments, and private-sector companies on economic trends, human development, data policies, and technology strategies. As senior expert, he works closely with the African Center for Economic Transformation and the UN organizations on science, technology, and innovation. At the World Bank, Mr. Tilmes worked most recently with the Office of the President to develop the institution’s strategy on emerging technologies and scaling adoption through financial assistance, policy advice, and public-private partnerships. He served as Director of the Trade and Competitiveness Global Practice, overseeing operations across Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and North Africa and leading global expert teams on trade competition policy, innovation, and entrepreneurship. During his tenure at the World Bank, Mr. Tilmes also held positions as Operation and Strategy Director for Finance and Private Sector Development; Knowledge Strategy Advisor; and Manager at the Independent Evaluation Group. He earned an M.P.A. in public administration from Harvard University as a McCloy Scholar and a master in economics from the University of Mannheim.

Panel II: Decarbonization

STEPHANIE ARCUSA is a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Negative Carbon Emissions at Arizona State University. She received a bachelor’s degree in earth sciences from University College Cork, Ireland, a master’s degree in climate science from the University of Bern, Switzerland, and a doctorate in climate and environmental change from Northern Arizona University, USA. As a paleoclimatologist, Dr. Arcusa reconstructed changes in the environment (e.g., wildfire, floods, dust) as it responds to climatic changes (e.g., temperature, precipitation) through time. In this work, Dr. Arcusa also saw the fingerprint of human activities on the climate and the environment, which led her to decide to transition her career to help stop the change in climate occurring today due to human activities. Her work now consists of developing ways to halt climate change. Over her academic training, Dr. Arcusa has led or been part of various projects that further emission reduction at the local, city, and higher education levels. She is exploring three related ideas to closing the carbon loop and supporting the development of a new carbon economy. First, she is developing a framework for the certification of

carbon sequestration by exploring what certificates are, how they work, and how they can guarantee safe, equitable, and successful sequestration. As part of the work, Dr. Arcusa is developing ways to include carbon-intensive sectors of the economy into the framework so that they can also transition to a circular carbon economy. Finally, Dr. Arcusa is taking part in an effort led by the Los Alamos National Laboratory to plan the decarbonization of the intermountain west region of the United States through a place-based approach focusing on hydrogen, biomass, and carbon capture technologies.

PRATEEK BUMB co-founded Carbon Clean with Aniruddha Sharma in 2009. Mr. Bumb is the principal innovator of carbon capture technologies. He is responsible for developing and delivering Carbon Clean’s technology roadmap and leading its project engineering team. He is also a member of the board. His expertise involves innovation and implementation of carbon capture technology from idea to commercial stage. To date, he has international patents on the carbon capture process and solvents and has published papers at several international conferences and in journals on carbon capture and storage technology. Mr. Bumb is skilled in areas such as gas, sustainable development, environmental issues, the Clean Development Mechanism, and environmental awareness. He is a strong entrepreneurship professional and graduated from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.

ERIN BURNS is the Executive Director of Carbon180, a climate nongovernmental organization focused on the full range of carbon removal solutions. There she leads the organization in working with policy makers, entrepreneurs, and scientists to reach a just and equitable economy that removes more carbon than it emits. Previously, she worked in the Senate where she handled energy, environment, labor, and agricultural issues, including staffing for the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Public Lands Subcommittee. She also worked at Third Way, a DC-based think tank, managing carbon capture and removal, innovation, and other clean energy policy development and advocacy. A native of southern West Virginia, throughout her career she has worked on issues related to coal worker and coal community transitions. She holds a degree in cultural anthropology from Carnegie Mellon University.

KATHLEEN DRAPER is a member of the International Biochair Initiative (IBI) Board and Chair of IBI’s Information Hub. She is also the U.S. Director of the Ithaka Institute for Carbon Intelligence. The Institute is an open source network focusing on beneficial carbon sequestration strategies, which simultaneously provide economic development opportunities both in the developed and developing world. She is an editor and writer for The Biochar Journal, sponsored by the Ithaka Institute. Ms. Draper also works with various universities and individuals on projects that are investigating the use of biochar in cement and other building and packaging products to develop products with lower embodied carbon that can

be made from locally available organic waste. She has written extensively about various topics related to biochar and is a co-author of the book Terra Preta: How the World’s Most Fertile Soil Can Help Reverse Climate Change and Reduce World Hunger.

Panel III: Science and Peace

APARNA BASNYAT is Senior Research and Policy Advisor, SDG16 at the UN Development Programme (UNDP). Ms. Basnyat has more than 15 years of experience working on rule of law, human rights, and governance policy and programming at the country, regional, and global levels. She has supported UNDP country offices in the Asia Pacific and the Arab States regions, most recently as the Policy and Programme Specialist with the Rule of Law, Security and Human Rights Team in the Crisis Bureau where she focused on engagement on access to justice and SDG 16. She has advised on country programming on rule of law across different development settings, supported inter-agency cooperation and partnerships with civil society on access to justice, and led research and policy development on justice and human rights. Ms. Basnyat holds a masters in development studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science and an undergraduate degree in international relations from Tufts University.

JANNIE LILJA is Director of Studies, Peace and Development at Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Until recently she served as a senior fragility specialist with the World Bank’s Fragility Conflict Violence Group. Prior to joining the World Bank she was a Swedish diplomat and researcher with the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University. Her areas of expertise cover peacebuilding, war and peace dynamics, negotiations, and development in conflict settings. She has published several articles and book chapters on these topics. Dr. Lilja has contributed to the development of peacebuilding policy, including SDG 16, in her former capacity as lead on security and development in the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. She has also served as Swedish Delegate to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Dr. Lilja received a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in international economics and business from the Stockholm School of Economics, a M.Sc. in development studies from the London School of Economics, and a Ph.D. in peace and conflict research from Uppsala University.

RACHEL LOCKE is Director of the Violence, Inequality and Power Lab at the Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice (IPJ), University of San Diego. Ms. Locke has extensive experience delivering evidence-based violence prevention solutions to some of the most challenging contexts while simultaneously advancing policy for peace. Prior to joining IPJ, Ms. Locke was Head of Research for violence prevention with the Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation. In this capacity,

Ms. Locke led coalition building and evidence curation with the UN, bilateral governments, the African Union, civil society, and others to explore the challenge of delivering the 2030 Agenda targets for peaceful societies (SDG 16.1). Earlier in her career, Ms. Locke served as Senior Policy Advisor with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) where she developed and represented agency-wide policy on issues concerning conflict, violence, and fragility. She also led USAID research and policy on crime, conflict, and fragility and worked extensively on program design, implementation, and evaluation primarily in Africa. After leaving USAID, Ms. Locke launched a new area of work for the National Network for Safe Communities at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, bridging effective violence reduction approaches from the United States to municipalities globally. Among other initiatives, Ms. Locke launched a three-year effort across two states and five municipalities in Mexico at a time of exceptionally high violence. Ms. Locke holds a master’s in international affairs from Columbia University Graduate School of International and Public Affairs. She has also published a variety of articles and other works focusing on violence prevention, humanitarian aid, conflict, and transnational organized crime.

ROMAN SŁOWIŃSKI is a Professor and Founding Chair of the Laboratory of Intelligent Decision Support Systems at Poznan University of Technology, Poland and Vice President of the Polish Academy of Sciences, elected for the term 2019–2022. Dr. Słowinński is a member of Academia Europaea and a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the International Rough Set Society, the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences, and the International Federation for Information Processing. In his research, he combines Operational Research and Artificial Intelligence for Decision Aiding. He is a recipient of the EURO Gold Medal by the European Association of Operational Research Societies (1991), and Doctor HC of Polytechnic Faculty of Mons (Belgium, 2000), University Paris Dauphine (France, 2001), and Technical University of Crete (Greece, 2008). In 2005 he received the Annual Prize of the Foundation for Polish Science—the highest scientific honor awarded in Poland. Since 1999, he has been the principal editor of the European Journal of Operational Research (Elsevier), a premier journal in operational research.

Panel IV: Financing for Sustainable Development

ADAM ROY GORDON is Engagement Director for Global Compact Network USA and in this role leads the work of the UN Global Compact in the United States, including operations, participant management, and programming. He is a contributor to The Atlantic and was named to the Environment + Energy Leader 100 in 2019. Previously, Mr. Gordon worked at CDP, supporting the integration of climate change, water, and deforestation disclosure into corporate performance. He was an EDF Climate Corps Fellow at Colgate-Palmolive Company

and has diverse experience in sustainability that ranges from advising the government of Montenegro on green building policy to founding New York City’s first commercial composting waste hauler. He holds a B.A. from Oberlin College and an M.S. in sustainability management from Columbia University.

MARIANNA KOVAL is the Director of the Invest NYC SDG Initiative at the New York University’s (NYU’s) Stern Center for Sustainable Business, where she manages a team that is engaging the private sector to drive financing toward creating a more sustainable, inclusive, and resilient New York City (NYC). Together, using the UN SDGs as a guiding framework, the team is developing investable projects to advance NYC’s sustainability goals in waste, food and health, climate resilience, renewable energy, the built environment, and sustainable mobility. A lawyer, with more than 30 years of experience working in environmental sustainability, public policy, and government in NYC, Ms. Koval has successfully taken on complex multi-stakeholder projects and difficult policy challenges, and brought conflicting interests together to create concrete projects. She served as the senior advisor to the Commissioner of NYC Environmental Protection, building green infrastructure policy and partnerships in a $2.4 billion stormwater management program. She created the first NRDC-DEP partnership to develop a private market for green infrastructure, a project that she later managed from the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business, which produced an influential report, Catalyzing Green Infrastructure on Private Property: Recommendations for a Green, Equitable, and Sustainable New York City. Ms. Koval was President of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy for more than a decade, where she helped develop the vision, attract the initial $280 million in funding, and construction of this major city park. She holds an M.P.A. from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, a J.D. from Fordham University Law School, and an A.B. from Princeton University.

LAUREN MUUSSE co-leads the World Benchmarking Alliance’s (WBA’s) investor engagement strategy. She connects investors and investor-focused platforms to the work of the WBA. This expands to developing new modes of collaboration with other financial institutions and ESG (environmental, social, and governance) service providers. She sees these actors as key catalysts for transformation across the SDGs. She is particularly interested in systems thinking and connecting the dots across transformation areas to the work of the financial industry. Ms. Muuse also contributes to thinking and collaboration via different work streams within the WBA on the topic of human rights. She previously lead the human rights work at ING Bank that focused on the bank’s own work and also broader engagement and collaboration in order to affect systems change on human rights due diligence. She holds an M.A. in political science and indigenous studies and a B.A. in native studies from the University of Alberta. She strives to bring what she has humbly learned about decolonisation to all her work.

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