CORNELL UNIVERSITY - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Senior Manager, Strategic Partnerships at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability
Alan Martinez is Senior Manager, Strategic Partnerships at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability where he focuses on building and managing partnerships that connect the expertise and research capacity at Cornell with sustainability partners in nonprofit, government and private sector organizations.
His experience includes management roles in financial services, impact investing, consulting and strategic partnerships. Prior to joining the center, Alan was part of the leadership team for a fintech startup focused on financial inclusion. He led partnerships with organizations such as the World Bank, Mastercard and FICO to expand access to finance for more than one million entrepreneurs across the globe.
Alan earned a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Texas and a Master's degree in Public Policy from Harvard University.
Job Titles:
- Kirkland & Ellis LLP, P.C., Partner
Job Titles:
- Retired CEO of Florida Power
Armando Olivera '72 is the retired CEO of Florida Power and Light (FPL), one of the largest investor-owned electric utilities in the United States. Mr. Olivera served in a variety of positions with FPL, including Vice President of Constructions Services, Vice President of Distribution and Senior Vice President of System Operations.
After his retirement from FPL in 2012, Mr. Olivera served as senior advisor at Britton Hill Partners, a private equity firm. In 2017, he joined Ridge-Lane LP, a venture development firm, where he is currently a venture partner in the sustainability practice.
Mr. Olivera has served on the board of directors of Nicor Inc, AGL Resources and is currently serving on the boards of Con Ed, Fluor Corp, and Lennar.
Mr. Olivera has served on Cornell's Engineering Advisory Council, University Council, Board of Trustees, (Chair) Student Life Committee of the Board, Executive Committee of the Board, and Presidential Counselor. He currently serves on the Cornell Atkinson Advisor Council.
Job Titles:
- Executive Director of the 2030 Project
- Executive Director, the
- Expert
Ben Furnas '06 is a recognized expert in public policy, infrastructure, sustainability, energy, and municipal government. He serves as executive director of The 2030 Project: A Cornell Climate Initiative.
Furnas previously served 8 years in the New York City Mayor's Office, culminating as Director of the Mayor's Office of Climate and Sustainability. During his time in the Mayor's Office, he worked collaboratively with partners inside and outside government to spearhead nation-leading initiatives to decarbonize the city's buildings, improve street safety, develop renewable energy, expand worker protections, embrace sustainable transportation, reduce the climate impact municipal operations, and advance environmental justice.
Executive Director, The 2030 Project: A Cornell Climate Initiative
Job Titles:
- Director of Student and Postdoctoral Programs at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability
Beth Fox serves as Director of Student and Postdoctoral Programs at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability. In her role, she identifies, recruits, supports, and promotes highly talented emerging scholars to solve the most pressing problems facing our planet. Beth's experience includes developing and leading student and postdoctoral initiatives at Stanford, Duke, and Cornell, as well as field research in Costa Rica, Madagascar, and Indonesia. She earned a B.A. in Anthropology from Columbia University, a M.S. in Environmental Education from Lesley University, and a Ph.D. in Evolutionary Anthropology from Duke University.
Job Titles:
- Environmental Defense Fund, Vice President of Climate - Smart Agriculture
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships
Bruce Bailey is a former Senior Advisor and Program Manager for Smart Buildings at UL (Underwriters Laboratories), where he has also served as the VP of Renewables within the Energy and Power Technologies division. In 2016, UL acquired Bruce's firm-AWS Truepower, LLC-which he founded in the early 1980s. AWS was a global technical and engineering services consultancy that worked for large windfarm and solar project developers, utilities, government agencies, and the investment community. Offices were established on 4 continents. Bruce retired from UL at the end of 2019.
Bruce graduated from Cornell in 1974 with a B.S. degree in Meteorology. As a student, he served on the University Student Senate and as the president of Alpha Zeta fraternity. Since graduation, he has returned to campus on several occasions, giving lectures and serving on the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Advisory Council, which he now chairs. His former firm hosted several Cornell students for work internships.
After leaving Cornell he joined the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center at SUNY Albany where he attained tenure and worked in various applied research roles for 11 years. This was where he developed a passion for renewable energy and its multi-disciplinary nature. While at SUNY Albany, he also worked for 4 years as a weekend TV meteorological at the local ABC affiliate (WTEN). After starting AWS, he earned a doctorate in Engineering Management. He is also certified as a Consulting Meteorologist by the American Meteorological Society.
Bruce has chaired several industry conferences, served on industry association boards and on a school board, and been a US Department of Energy program reviewer. He has authored numerous publications and contributed to two books. He supports clean water programs in underdeveloped countries and the adoption of smart technologies in cities and buildings to achieve sustainability, resilience, and economic goals. He is a life-long tennis player and enjoys golf and reading fiction.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Faculty Director, Cornell Atkinson Scholar, and Senior Faculty Fellow
- Tisch University Professor
Catherine L. Kling is a Tisch University Professor in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management. At Cornell Atkinson, she serves as Faculty Director, Cornell Atkinson Scholar, and leads the Social Cost of Water Pollution working group.
Beyond Cornell, Kling chairs the Water Science and Technology Board of the National Academy of Sciences and has been a member of six National Research Council studies. She is past Director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University, where she also held the President's Chair in Environmental Economics. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2015.
Kling has published nearly 100 refereed journal articles and book chapters, which have received over 8000 (Google Scholar) citations and is the editor of the Review of Environmental Economics and Policy. She specializes in the economic valuation of ecosystem services and integrated assessment modeling for water quality modeling. Her research program has received over $7 million in funding from the National Science Foundation, the US Department of Agriculture, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, the US Environmental Protection Agency, among others.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Faculty Director for Student and Postdoc Programming
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- Strategic Partnerships Relationship Manager
Job Titles:
- Director
- Faculty Director
Cornell Atkinson benefits from the scholarship and experience of faculty from across the university. Their roles at Cornell Atkinson are described within the following categories: Directors, Cornell Atkinson Scholars, and Senior Faculty Fellows.
Cornell Atkinson provides you with the opportunity to connect with passionate experts and innovators, theorists and practitioners, business leaders and philanthropists. Join us in catalyzing extraordinary change.
Job Titles:
- Director
- David Drinkwater '94 Faculty Director
- Named Atkinson Center Faculty Director
Daryl Nydam, the David Drinkwater '94 Faculty Director, is a professor in Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences and serves as director of the Quality Milk Production Services (QMPS) program in the College of Veterinary Medicine. At Cornell Atkinson, Nydam serves as David Drinkwater Faculty Director and leads the Advancing One Health working group.
His research interests are at the intersection of production animal agriculture and public health at the population level - with an emphasis on dairy cattle. His ongoing projects are in the areas of transition cow health and performance, calf infectious diseases (especially zoonoses), and milk quality. He teaches a variety of bovine herd health and epidemiology classes as well as provides consulting and clinical service for the dairy industry.
Job Titles:
- & Company, Founder
- Founder of Atkinson & Company
David Atkinson is the founder of Atkinson & Company in Princeton, New Jersey. He retired in 1992 as general partner of Miller, Anderson & Sherrerd, a Philadelphia-based investment counseling firm. He held a number of previous positions in the financial industry, including vice president in the research department of Morgan Stanley, cofounder of Franklin Capital Investors, and manager of the Scudder Development Fund at Scudder, Stevens & Clark.
Atkinson was an officer in the U.S. Navy for two years, after graduating with a BS from Cornell in 1960. He earned an MBA in 1964 from University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. Atkinson has been an important adviser to Cornell University. As a member of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Advisory Council, he chaired the Environmental Sustainability and Development Task Force that broadened Cornell's efforts in sustainability. A life member of the Cornell University Council, he was recently named a presidential councilor, the highest honor the university bestows.
A prolific investor with professional and personal interests in energy and the environment, Atkinson made a major contribution to sustainability when, in 2007, he provided seed money to create Cornell's Center for a Sustainable Future, now the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability. His support has had a galvanizing impact at Cornell, funding teams of researchers from across the campus and advancing solutions in such diverse areas as wind energy, food systems, human health and the environment, and the economic consequences of climate change.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Faculty Director
Job Titles:
- Director
- Leader
- Director of Cornell University 's Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability
David M. Lodge is the Francis J. DiSalvo director of Cornell University's Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability. He is an internationally recognized environmental scientist, with expertise in environmental risk assessment, freshwater and marine coastal ecology, ecosystem services, bioeconomics, and invasive species (including from ships' ballast and biofouling). His research has improved ecological forecasting to better inform environmental risk assessment, natural resource management, and policy development.
Lodge is a leader in the development and application of environmental DNA (eDNA), a transformative technological tool for discovering unrecognized biodiversity, censusing aquatic biodiversity, and improving the management of imperiled and invasive species. Lodge has a long history of collaborating with engineers, economists, historians, theologians, and philosophers and has partnered with non-profit organizations and corporations to bring his scientific work to the public policy arena.
He is past president of the Ecological Society of America, and former senior science advisor in the US Department of State's Office of Polar Affairs. On numerous occasions, he has testified before the U.S. Congress and served as an expert witness in federal court. He served as the first chair of the U.S. government's national Invasive Species Advisory Committee, led research on freshwater biodiversity as part of the United Nations' Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, and served on the scientific advisory boards for NOAA and the International Joint Commission.
He is a faculty member in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University.
His CV is here.
Job Titles:
- Financial Operations Manager / Mark a.B.
- Financial Operations Manager at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability
Donna Jenney serves as the Financial Operations Manager at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability. As a member of the operations team, she is responsible for overseeing all of Cornell Atkinson's financial activity. Before joining Cornell Atkinson in 2021, Donna served as the Senior Financial Analyst and University Budget Officer in the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation (OVPRI). She has more than thirty years of experience working at Cornell University in the finance sector. She earned an Associate's, Business Administration Degree from Tompkins Cortland Community College. Outside of the office Donna enjoys helping her husband on their organic dairy farm and relaxing at their camp on Song Lake.
Job Titles:
- Project and Administrative Manager
Job Titles:
- SVP
- Senior Legal and Business Executive
Eve Saltman is a senior legal and business executive and veteran board advisor widely respected as a highly collaborative, innovative leader. In addition to her role as Chief Legal Officer and Secretary, Eve drives GoPro's partnership strategy for growth and expansion, along with M&A strategy as Senior Vice President of Corporate and Business Development and is a member of the senior leadership team's Strategy Council. She is the executive sponsor of GoPro's SHERO employee resource group for women and is a recognized mentor and leader of highly engaged and high-performing teams. She also oversees government relations for GoPro, ensuring the company's trade strategy flexes to meet business needs. Eve partners closely with the Board of GoPro, Inc., providing guidance across corporate governance, executive compensation, leadership succession, and long-term strategy oversight. She also serves as a board member to privately held Talentsky, Inc., and non-profit The Lexicon of Sustainability. In addition, she served on the Investment Committee of the Triphammer Fund of the Alumni Venture Group from 2020 through 2022. In 2021, Eve was named one of the "Top 100 Women Leaders in Consumer Products of 2021" by Women We Admire and one of the Most Influential Women in Business by the San Francisco Business Times.
Eve earned a Juris Doctor, cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center and a BA in History, magna cum laude with Distinction in all subjects, from Cornell University, where she was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Kappa Phi honorary societies.
Job Titles:
- Executive Director of the Center for International Development
Fatema Z. Sumar is the Executive Director of the Center for International Development at Harvard University. She has a distinguished career as a practitioner in the US government and civil society.
Fatema most recently served as a presidential appointee as the Vice President of Compact Operations at the US Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). In this role, she oversaw the agency's compacts to reduce poverty through economic growth globally. She managed MCC's technical and regional divisions working on infrastructure, the environment and climate change, the private sector, gender and social inclusion, human and community development, land and agriculture, procurement, financial management, strategic partnerships, and contracts and grant management. She was previously MCC's Deputy Vice President for Europe, Asia, the Pacific, and Latin America.
Fatema also served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia at the US Department of State where she led efforts to expand regional economic and energy connectivity and as a Presidential Management Fellow (PMF). In the US Congress, she worked for three Senators including as a Senior Professional Staff Member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee focused on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the broader region.
In civil society, Fatema was the Vice President of Global Programs at Oxfam America where she oversaw regional development and humanitarian response to fight the injustice of poverty. Early in her career, she also worked at the American Civil Liberties Union.
Fatema is the author of the book, The Development Diplomat: Working Across Borders, Boardrooms, and Bureaucracies to End Poverty. She sits on Advisory Boards for Princeton, Cornell, and Indiana universities and on the Advisory Council for Muslim Americans in Public Service. She has been published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, The New Republic, The Hill, and other outlets. She is a frequent guest speaker and has testified before the US House of Representatives and US Senate.
Fatema graduated with a Master of Public Affairs from Princeton University's School of Public and International Affairs, where she received the prestigious Stokes Award, and a Bachelor of Arts in Government from Cornell University. She studied abroad at the American University in Cairo. She has an honorary doctorate from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.
Job Titles:
- President of Environmental Defense Fund
Fred Krupp is the president of Environmental Defense Fund, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group. Prior to joining Environmental Defense Fund, Krupp spent several years in private law practice in New Haven, Connecticut, at Cooper, Whitney, Cochran & Krupp and Albis & Krupp. During that time, he was founder and general counsel for the Connecticut Fund for the Environment, a leading state environmental group. Krupp has written a book with journalist Miriam Horn, called Earth: The Sequel. It highlights innovators and the technology they are creating to fight global warming.
Since he became president of Environmental Defense Fund, Krupp has been influential in developing many innovative market-based solutions, including the acid rain reduction plan in the 1990 Clean Air Act and the U.S. proposal to achieve least-cost greenhouse gas reductions in the Kyoto Protocol. He serves on the board of the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, the John F. Kennedy School of Government Environment Council, and the Leadership Council of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. He also served on the President's Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations during two presidential administrations. He received the 1999 Keystone Leadership in Environment Award and the 2002 Champion Award from the Women's Council on Energy and the Environment.
Krupp is a graduate of Yale University, with a law degree from the University of Michigan, and has taught environmental law at both schools.
Job Titles:
- Associate at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability
- Project Associate, Strategic Partnerships
Gail Phillips serves as a Program Associate at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability. As a member of the Strategic Partnerships team, her work supports the advancement of the center's strategic plan by engaging Cornell's faculty and bring their knowledge into action. Before joining Cornell Atkinson in 2020, Phillips worked as a Program Manager with different NGOs, between Chile, Nepal and the US. Gail earned a Bachelor Degree in Social Sciences and a Graduate Degree in Sociology at Universidad Católica de Chile.
Job Titles:
- Ecologist
- Professor of Practice
- Senior Faculty Fellow
Professor of Practice: Department of Natural Resources and the Environment
Gary M. Tabor is an ecologist and wildlife veterinarian (BSc Cornell - Ecology and Systematics; VMD UPenn - Wildlife Veterinary Medicine; MES Yale - Conservation Biology). He is a Professor of Practice in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment. He is also the Founder and President of the Center for Large Landscape Conservation - a hub of science, policy, and practice that advances ecological connectivity conservation. Gary is Chair of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas' Connectivity Conservation Specialist Group which connects 1300 scientists across 155 countries. Gary has worked on behalf of large landscape conservation internationally for over 40 years on every continent except Antarctica including 12 years as a conservation funder for Wilburforce, Kendall, Dodge, and Kann Rasmussen Foundations.
Gary's conservation achievements include the establishment of Kibale National Park in Uganda; the establishment of the World Bank's Mountain Gorilla Conservation Trust in Uganda; co-founding the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative in US and Canada; pioneering the field of Conservation Medicine; co-founding Patagonia Company's Freedom to Roam wildlife corridor campaign; co-founding the Heart of the Rockies land trust collaborative; co-founding the Network for Landscape Conservation and co-founding the Australia Environmental Grantmakers Network.
He has several academic advisory and board affiliations: Board of Advisors of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin Madison, Board of Advisors for the Salazar Center for North American Conservation at Colorado State University, and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Queensland, Australia. He is a member of the Conservation Committee of the National Aquarium in Baltimore and serves on the board of Bush Heritage Australia's US Board - a land trust that manages 1% of all lands in Australia.
Job Titles:
- Associate Director
- Associate Director of International Programs
- Associate Director, MPH Program Associate Director, CVM International Programs
- Professor of Practice
- Senior Faculty Fellow
Gen Meredith is Associate Director of International Programs and Master of Public Health and Professor of Practice in the College of Veterinary Medicine. Her work has centered primarily on institutional capacity development and growth, specifically related to integrated disease surveillance and response systems, the routine collection and use of data, and effective public health leadership and management infrastructure to support population health access and accountability. Gen is a graduate of McGill University's Faculty of Medicine (Occupational Therapy) and the University of Massachusetts' School of Public Health (Master of Public Health) and came to Cornell to help design and lead the Master of Public Health program. Prior to this, Gen spent eight years leading large international development projects with a focus on national public health systems development in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, and four years doing the same with U.S. states.
Job Titles:
- Cadmus in 1995 As an Associate
- President and CEO of the Cadmus Group
- the Cadmus Group, President and CEO
Ian Kline serves as president and CEO of The Cadmus Group (Cadmus), a strategic and technical consultancy serving clients in the areas of energy, the natural and built environments, transportation, climate change, security and resilience, and international development. Cadmus' more than 500 consultants serve government, commercial, and nongovernmental organizations around the world.
Under Ian's leadership, the firm has experienced significant growth organically and through acquisition and has diversified its capabilities. Ian has also led the firm's geographic expansion from an east coast-based consultancy with offices in Boston and Washington, DC, to a firm with multiple offices serving clients across the U.S, Germany, and Korea.
Ian joined Cadmus in 1995 as an associate. He was named president in 2005 and CEO in 2007. He has an extensive background in performing regulatory and policy analyses for many public, private, and non-profit organizations and he played a leading role in developing and implementing major public health and environmental protection programs at the national and state levels. He has also served as a senior technical advisor on the firm's work in the areas of climate change and sustainability.
Ian participates on the Global Adaptation and Resilience Investment Working Group (GARI), a private sector working group focused on climate adaptation and resilience in conjunction with the UN Secretary General's Climate Resilience Initiative. He serves on the Advisory Council of the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future at Cornell University and the Advisory Board of the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management. He also serves on the Board of DC SCORES, an organization that uses soccer, poetry, and service-learning to give kids the confidence and skills to succeed on the playing field, in the classroom, and in life. Ian is Chairman of the Board of The Nature Generation, a nonprofit organization that works to inspire environmental stewardship in children and young adults through literature and learning.
Ian holds an M.P.P. in environmental policy and management from the University of Southern California and an A.B. from Cornell University. He also is a graduate of Harvard Business School's comprehensive executive leadership program.
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- Visiting Senior Fellow ( Former )
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- KPF Associates, Architect & Principal
Job Titles:
- Director of Strategic Communications
Job Titles:
- Director
- Kathy Dwyer Marble and Curt Marble Faculty Director
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- H.I.G Capital, Managing Dir. & Global Head of ESG
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- TBGD Partners, Founder and Managing Partner
Job Titles:
- Visiting Senior Fellow ( Former )
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- Research & Program Administrator
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- Visiting Senior Fellow ( Current )
Job Titles:
- Director
- Kathy Dwyer Marble and Curt Marble Faculty Director
The Cornell Atkinson Postdoctoral Fellowship funds highly motivated recent PhDs to conduct projects under the mentorship of a Cornell faculty host and an advisor from an external partner organization. Approximately four fellows are selected each year for two-year appointments.
In October 2010, sustainability research at Cornell was given a permanent home in the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability.
As the son of a New Jersey poultry farmer and graduate of Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Dave Atkinson recognized the importance of food production to addressing sustainability. Alongside Cornell's academic leaders at the time, he recognized the folly of trying to "pick out" any one issue-in this case, agriculture-to solve such a complex problem.
The Cornell Atkinson Advisory Council provides support and guidance to the Center's leadership on issues central to the strategic mission. The board meets twice a year to review Center progress.
The Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability is the hub of collaborative sustainability research at Cornell University, forging vital connections among researchers, students, staff, and external partners. The center's funding and programming accelerate groundbreaking research within and across all of Cornell's colleges and schools. In turn, the center is the university's home to bold ideas and powerful new models that ensure people and the planet not only survive, but thrive.
Job Titles:
- Aristeia Capital, L.L.C., Managing Partner, Co - Founder, & CRO