ACTION ON CLIMATE - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Associate
• Associate at Croatan Institute

Anna Aspenson is an Associate at Croatan Institute, where her work focuses on place-based agricultural solutions to rebuilding healthy ecosystems and communities. Before joining Croatan Institute, Aspenson worked as a program associate for Food System Policy at Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, where she authored, "‘True' Costs For Food System Reform: An Overview Of True Cost Accounting Literature And Initiatives" and co-authored, "Essential and in Crisis: A Review of the Public Health Threats Facing Farmworkers in the US." Her work has also focused on agricultural research and development with ICARDA (CGIAR), as well as project management for community-driven food security initiatives in the highlands of Guatemala. Aspenson holds an M.P.H. from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a B.A. from American University. She is based in Baltimore, Maryland. Education M.P.H., Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health B.A., American University

Job Titles:

• Operations Manager

Job Titles:

• Analyst

Job Titles:

• Executive Assistant
• Executive Assistant at Croatan Institute

Beth Belford is the Executive Assistant at Croatan Institute. She has extensive experience working with nonprofit organizations in both administrative and program management roles. Beth has a wide-ranging background, but the common thread throughout is a passion for creating stronger communities through service and relationship building. Beth is in the process of completing her Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership with an Ethics concentration. She is particularly interested in applying adaptive leadership theory to better facilitate social change. Beth grew up in Charlotte, NC, but the Triangle has been her home since 2015. In her free time, she loves to go on fun adventures with her two kids and their rescue dog, read all the books she can get her hands on, and explore new restaurants and breweries with friends. She also serves on the membership committee of her synagogue. Education M.A., Claremont Lincoln University B.S., Liberty University

Job Titles:

• Senior Fellow
• Senior Fellow at Croatan Institute

Bill Harrington is a Senior Fellow at Croatan Institute. His work centers on boosting the sustainability of the world financial system with the dual aims of rationalizing economic decision-making and avoiding bailouts. He focuses on governance decisions in the financial sector that establish the capitalization and regulation of complex finance, particularly derivative contracts and structured finance products. Bill has evaluated products in the international financial markets since 1987, most recently as a research journalist at Debtwire ABS and before that as a senior vice president and derivatives analyst at Moody's Investors Service (Moody's). He also structured derivative contracts that referenced currencies and global interest rates at Merrill Lynch and analyzed the trading patterns of these indices as an economist at The WEFA Group. Since 2011, Bill has worked to rectify the under-capitalization of the types of complex finance that started and fueled the financial crisis. He has submitted technical comments to the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, US and European regulators, to US and UK legislative committees, and to rating agencies such as Fitch Ratings, Moody's, and S&P Global. Bill also provided insights regarding Moody's rating practices to the US state attorneys general who settled with the company in early 2017. Bill has self-financed this advocacy and conducts it entirely in the public domain. He regularly speaks to the press, and his work has been profiled in the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Guardian, Bloomberg, Business Insider, ProPublica, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and on the BBC and American Public Media's Marketplace. He places all work on government and other websites and actively engages regulators, market practitioners, journalists, and other parties in on-the-record dialog. Additionally, Bill serves on the Experts Board of Wikirating. Bill was born and raised in the historically significant mill city of Lowell, Massachusetts, a cradle of the US Industrial Revolution and home to many of his family. Their deep Lowell roots extend to the 1857 arrival of John and Margaret Harrington from Ireland. Six of Bill's maternal great, great grandparents also immigrated directly to Lowell from Quebec in the 1860's, from Ireland in 1870, and from England in 1871. More recently, Bill's maternal and paternal grandparents lived a few houses apart on the same street between 1944 and 1965. This 160-year history of Lowell life animates Bill's fascination with the interplay of economic cycles and human decision making. Bill and his partner John live in New York City. Bill is an avid, lefthanded tennis player. Education M.B.A., Concentration in Finance, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania B.A., Economics, University of Pennsylvania

Job Titles:

• Co - Founder
• Fellow

Job Titles:

• Senior Fellow

Job Titles:

• Senior Fellow
• Senior Fellow at Croatan Institute

Elizabeth Umlas is a senior fellow at Croatan Institute. A political scientist by training, she is an independent researcher and consultant with over 20 years of experience in the field of business and human rights. Liz's projects are international in scope and her clients have included UN organizations, international NGOs and academic institutions in Europe. She is currently senior advisor on capital stewardship to a global union federation in Switzerland. In her work with global unions, she has spearheaded investor engagement as a key leverage point in changing corporate behavior in relation to workers' fundamental rights. Liz is a dual national (American and Swiss) and has been based in Switzerland since 2004. In addition to working with Croatan Institute, Umlas teaches business and human rights at Oxford University and the University of Fribourg. From 2001 to 2007, she was senior research analyst for human rights at KLD Research & Analytics, a leading socially responsible investment (SRI) research firm in Boston. Her work there involved overseeing KLD's human rights research. Prior to KLD, she was manager of policy research at Oxfam America and before that, a program officer and consultant for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Her recent research examines the "B Corporation" (benefit corporation) and business and human rights movements, the scope for collaboration between the two and the implications for holding corporations accountable for their impacts on human rights. Liz is a member of the international advisory board of the NGO Media Matters for Women, a co-founder of Sustainable Finance Geneva and a member of the Amnesty Business Group of Switzerland. Education M.A., Animal Law & Society, Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona Ph.D., Political Science, Yale University M.A., Political Science, Yale University B.A., Harvard University languages Spanish, French

Job Titles:

• Associate
• Associate at Croatan Institute

Jaime Silverstein is an Associate at Croatan Institute. She also sits on the board of directors for Metta Earth Institute. Previously, she has worked as a farm business advisor for NOFA-VT; crop R&D specialist for Freight Farms, a Boston-based urban agriculture start-up; program coordinator for Slow Money Boston; and senior research fellow at the Sustainable Endowments Institute, where she led research on responsible investing practices at colleges and universities. She holds a B.S. in Business Administration from Boston University and is currently pursuing an MBA from the University of Maine. Silverstein has collaborated on various sponsored research projects addressing finance and sustainability, including "Soil Wealth" (2019) and "Institutional Pathways to Fossil-Free Investing" (2013). She has contributed to outreach and research, surveying institutional investors and money managers for the US SIF Report on US Sustainable, Responsible and Impact Investing Trends. Silverstein is a Kripalu-certified yoga teacher. She enjoys hiking, frequenting local farmers markets, and studying herbalism. She lives in Kittery, Maine. Education B.S., Business Administration, Boston University Concentration in Finance and International Management and Minor in Environmental Analysis and Policy Study Abroad: London, England, Boston University

Job Titles:

• Analyst
• Analyst at Croatan Institute

James Smith is an Analyst at Croatan Institute where his work touches on the intersection of finance, sustainability, and social justice. Prior to joining the Institute, James worked in the Office of Research and Development at the EPA where he helped communicate EPA research to policymakers and public audiences. At EPA, he wrote public-facing articles, and assisted with the research planning process of the Agency by coordinating alignment of the upcoming research with pressing issues such as PFAS exposure, children's environmental health, and climate change. While attending UNC Asheville before the EPA, James worked with the fossil fuel divestment campaign which successfully petitioned to divest a portion of the university's endowment from holdings in fossil fuels and other ESG related concerns. He has worked closely with numerous organizations on environmental issues including the Sierra Club, Intentional Endowments Network, Divest-Invest, and the EIRIS Foundation. In his free time, he enjoys playing basketball, fly fishing, backpacking, and cooking. James holds a B.S. in Chemistry and a B.S. in Environmental Communications from the University of North Carolina at Asheville and currently lives in Durham, North Carolina. Education B.S. Chemistry and Environmental Communication, University of North Carolina at Ashevile

Job Titles:

• Fellow
• Fellow at Croatan Institute

John Fenderson is a Fellow at Croatan Institute. He has a keen interest in market based behavior change especially as it relates to social impact and environmental sustainability, and has worked with landowners in the southeast U.S. to help them create wealth through responsible stewardship of their natural assets - principally forestland. He is currently serving as a part time consultant/managing partner with Hatchie River Co., LLC as he transitions back to middle Tennessee from Little Rock, Arkansas. In Little Rock, he served as a Specialty Asset Manager for the Timberland Investment Group at U.S. Trust - a subsidiary of Bank of America, having transferred over from prior service as a financial advisor at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He has over 25 years experience in forestry and the environmental arena working in such places as the Sierra Mountains in California, as well as on the Tongass National Forest in Alaska - in addition to working for environmental organizations in the southeastern U.S. John currently serves on the boards of the Tennessee Environmental Council, the Forest Stewards Guild, and the Forest Stewardship Council - U.S. John was previously the Senior Manager of Forestry at the National Wildlife Federation, and prior to that he was the Southeastern Regional Director for the National Network of Forest Practitioners. As the Environmental Affairs/Public Outreach Coordinator for the Tennessee Division of Forestry, he co-authored papers on Carbon Sequestration Principles for the Southeast and Valuing a Forested Viewshed. In the late Eighties, he worked for Greenpeace, while in the mid Nineties he worked with the Nature Conservancy, and the US Forest Service in California and Alaska. He graduated from Tennessee State University with a Bachelor of Natural Sciences. From the University of Tennessee, he obtained his Masters of Science in Forest Economics and Policy. He also attended Northwestern University and currently has primary interests in Environmental and Natural Resource Policy, Conservation/Impact Finance, and market based payments for Ecosystem Services. John is an avid Sailor - having worked at a boat yard in Maine, outdoorsman, and wooden boat builder. His most memorable experience is during a Field study in Ecuador while documenting Indigenous use of Plant medicines in the Amazon watershed. He has a beautiful daughter, Ella Claire. Education M.A., Forest Economics and Policy, University of Tennessee B.S., Natural Sciences, Tennessee State University

Job Titles:

• President
• Senior Fellow
• President of Croatan Institute

Joshua Humphreys is the inaugural President of Croatan Institute. He also serves as Board Chair and Senior Fellow of the Institute, as well as Senior Strategist of the Institute's Organic Agriculture Revitalization Strategy (OARS). An historian by training, Dr. Humphreys is a leading analyst of the social and environmental consequences of finance and an outspoken advocate for social equity, ecological resilience, and regenerative rural development. Born in the Texas hill country, Dr. Humphreys grew up downeast on the coastal plain of North Carolina. He graduated from the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham and went to study in the School of Forest Resources and the College of Engineering at North Carolina State University, where he hoped to apply his interests in environmental chemistry and natural resources to the development of sustainable paper products. After studying abroad at Cambridge University, however, he became disillusioned with the narrowly technical nature of his studies and the dominating influence that the pulp and paper industry was having on research and teaching at his public, land-grant university. He turned to the interdisciplinary study of history and the social sciences and went on to do graduate work in modern history at New York University. While conducting doctoral research at NYU, he spent several years in Paris as a Fulbright Scholar at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and a foreign resident fellow at the Ecole Normale Supérieure. He also was a visiting research associate at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. Since completing his doctorate, Dr. Humphreys has taught at Harvard and Princeton and in the Bard Prison Initiative. He has also served as an associate fellow at the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis, a scholar-in-residence at the Rockefeller University, an affiliate of the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, an associate of the Gunzburg Center at Harvard, an Aspen Environment Forum Scholar, and a fellow at Tellus Institute. In addition to his research and teaching, Dr. Humphreys has also advised numerous investors, businesses, foundations, non-profits, cooperatives, policymakers, and multilateral organizations on complex issues in social and environmental finance. His insights on trends in sustainable finance, impact investing, place-based economic development, food systems, and regenerative agriculture have been widely published and regularly cited in the press, most recently in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Financial Times, Forbes, Fortune, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and on National Public Radio. He frequently speaks to the public and the press and has delivered talks to audiences at institutions such as Brown, Duke, Penn, Stanford, Tufts, the University of Chicago, UNC, UVA, Yale, and the Library of Congress, among many others. He is currently Vice Chair of the Green Rural Redevelopment Organization (GRRO) and has served on the Advisory Board of the Dwight Hall SRI Fund at Yale University, the Value Chain Working Group of the Just Foods Collaborative, and the Board of Advisors of the Coalition for Responsible Investment at Harvard. He spends his spare time involved in historic preservation, horticulture, and environmental stewardship efforts, restoring landscapes and homes in accord with their setting and doing what he can to protect and enjoy the land, woods, and waters of Appalachia, the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay, and the Carolina piedmont and coastal plain. He currently lives on an old farmstead in Oaks, North Carolina, where he also operates Lilymont Terraculture, a small-scale regenerative agroforestry farm. With his neighbors, he helped co-found the Historic Oaks Stewardship Alliance (HOSTA), a rural community preservation group. Education Ph.D., History and French Studies, New York University Istel, Fribourg and Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellow, 2005 Dean's Dissertation Award for best doctoral thesis in the social sciences B.A., summa cum laude, History, North Carolina State University

Job Titles:

• Adjunct Professor
• Senior Associate

Lauren Manning, Esq., LL.M., is an attorney, law professor, and farmer with a dedicated passion for all things farming. Before joining Croatan Institute, Lauren was a venture capital investor with food and ag-focused VC firm AgFunder where she focused on deal flow and due diligence. Lauren began with AgFunder in 2015 as part of AgFunderNews media and research team reporting on issues involving finance, agriculture, climate change, and more. From 2019 to 2021, Lauren supported the Sacred Cow documentary and book project discussing the nutritional, environmental, and ethical case for (better) meat production. At the University of Arkansas School of Law, Lauren serves as an adjunct professor across multiple departments teaching courses on farm animal welfare, food safety, farm succession planning, agricultural cooperatives and local food systems, and more. Earlier in her career, Lauren was a trial attorney in California litigating a broad range of civil matters. During law school, she clerked for the Honorable Justice Joyce L. Kennard and completed a comparative legal systems tutorial at Oxford University in England. Lauren owns a small farm in Northwest Arkansas where she raises cattle, sheep, and goats. She is a partner with Ozark Pasture Beef, a direct-to-consumer grass-finished and pasture-based livestock partnership selling beef and lamb. In her spare time, you will usually find Lauren on a horse. Education LL.M., University of Arkansas School of Law

Job Titles:

• Fellow
• Fellow at Croatan Institute

Matt Aitken is a Fellow at Croatan Institute. A renewable energy physicist by training, Dr. Aitken leads data science initiatives at the Institute, including the development of RAISER: Research, Analytics, and Insights for Social and Environmental Returns. Prior to joining the Institute, he was the President and Executive Director of Greener Change, a nonprofit organization working to provide public access to open data on corporate sustainability. Previously, he served as an ORISE Research Fellow at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where he used the MARKet ALlocation (MARKAL) model to carry out economic analysis of the U.S. energy system. Dr. Aitken received a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Colorado, where his research on applications of lidar and computational fluid dynamics to wind energy garnered multiple awards from the American Meteorological Society and the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute. While in Boulder he also served as a Research Assistant at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). He holds a B.S. in physics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a M.S. in aerospace engineering from North Carolina State University, where he was a Dean's Fellow. While at NCSU, he also served as a Research Assistant at the NASA Langley Research Center. In addition to an unusual obsession with reading books and The Atlantic, Dr. Aitken enjoys spending time with his family, doing yoga, and swimming. He has also volunteered with Code the Dream, teaching young people from underserved communities how to program and develop software. He lives in Durham, North Carolina. Education Ph.D., Physics, University of Colorado M.S., Aerospace Engineering, North Carolina State University B.S., Physics, University of North Carolina

Job Titles:

• Director
• Senior Fellow

Sharlene Brown is Senior Fellow at Croatan Institute and director of the Institute's initiative on Racial Equity, Economics, Finance, and Sustainability (REEFS). Ms. Brown was previously the executive director of the Partnership for Responsible Financial Inclusion (PRFI), where she managed the strategic priorities of the member organizations and coordinated its working groups. Prior to that, she served as national director of Oikocredit-USA, where she raised investment capital and provided development education on microfinance and social performance to investors with more than US$35 million in assets. Ms. Brown also worked with the Grameen Foundation, a member of the Partnership for Responsible Financial Inclusion, as a senior program officer for their Social Performance Management Center, where she oversaw projects for microfinance institutions in sub-Saharan Africa and Middle- East/North Africa. She has also worked in the socially responsible investment marketplace as a business development manager for Domini Social Investments, and as research associate for the Social Investment Forum. Ms. Brown's immigrant roots inspire her to be of service to others. She has served on the Board of Directors of Women Advancing Microfinance (WAM) International, a global network that supports women working in microfinance and microenterprise development through education and training. Currently, Ms. Brown volunteers as a financial coach to low-income individuals, striving to improve their financial well-being through programs sponsored by Children's First Institute and United Way's Financial Stability Initiative. Ms. Brown shares what drives her passion for financial inclusion and coaching in the podcast She's Got Drive. Ms. Brown resides in North Port, Florida. Education MBA, University of Phoenix, AZ, 2008. B.A., Economics & African Studies, Wellesley College, 1999. Departmental Honors Certificate, Digital Money, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, 2017. Certificate, Negotiation Techniques, Harvard University, 2013. Certificate, Immersion Spanish, University of Havana, 2005.