UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS - Key Persons

Adele Simmons

Job Titles:

Member of the Board
Co - Founder of the Energy Foundation
President of Global Philanthropy Partnership

Adele Simmons is President of Global Philanthropy Partnership, which promotes global giving and strengthens the infrastructure that assists global donors. GPP is focusing on climate change, global poverty, and security. Adele is a member of the Board of the Synergos Institute and chairs the Synergos Program and Planning Committee. She co-chaired the Task Force that developed a Climate Action Plan for the City of Chicago and is a member of the Green Ribbon Committee that oversees its implementation. She helped found the Urban Sustainability Directors Network that links 120 cities in the U.S. and Canada. Ms. Simmons is currently on the board of the Field Museum, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the Union of Concerned Scientists, The Weil Foundation, Ceres, and The Synergos Institute. She is also on the Advisory Board of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. She has served on a number of Commissions, including: President Bush's Commission on Sustainable Development, the Commission on Global Governance, and the UN High Level Advisory Board on Sustainable Development. Ms. Simmons is a co-founder of the Energy Foundation. She was a member of the Marsh & McLennan Board from 1977-2015. She was President of the MacArthur Foundation between 1989 and 1999, launching their global work on climate change and overseeing grants of over $1.5 billion. The Foundation's international programs focus on the environment, population, international peace and security, understanding inequality within and among nations, and climate change. Before joining the MacArthur Foundation, Simmons was President of Hampshire College, Dean of Students and Assistant Professor of History at Princeton University, Dean of Jackson College at Tufts University, and a member of the Harvard Board of Overseers. She has lived in England, Mauritius, Kenya, and Tunisia.

Andrew Gunther

Job Titles:

Member of the Board

Andrew Gunther has extensive experience in applying science to the development of air, water, and endangered species policy. Dr. Gunther served as Assistant Chief Scientist for the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Restoration Program from 1991 to 2002, and he was the first manager of the State of California's program that monitors for toxic substances in San Francisco Bay. He has published research in the field of ecotoxicology, and was appointed by California Governor Gavin Newsom to serve on the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board and the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission. See full bio.

Andrés Bachelet

ab..@ucsusa.org

Job Titles:

Outreach Coordinator
Bilingual Outreach Coordinator

Andrés Bachelet is a Bilingual Outreach Coordinator with the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. In his role, he works with scientists, advocates, communities, and partners to build impactful campaigns around scientific integrity in government and environmental justice. Prior to joining UCS, he worked with undocumented survivors of domestic violence to get asylum, cultivated and mobilized Virginia-based Latinx and other communities around the 2016 election, and in organizing dentists to advocate within their profession and to the federal administration. He earned a BA in history from Longwood University.

Anne R. Kapuscinski - Chairman

Job Titles:

Chairman of the Board
Director of the Coastal Science

The fourth chair of the Union of Concerned Scientists' Board of Directors and the first woman to hold the position, Anne R. Kapuscinski shares a systems approach to problem-solving with UCS staff scientists and analysts. Dr. Kapuscinski's research addresses sustainability challenges by integrating across ecological, social, and economic domains. Her current research focuses on closing resource loops in ways that support climate change mitigation and adaptation, including projects examining integrated food-energy systems on dairy farms, integrated agriculture-aquaculture, and using microalgae to develop more sustainable feeds for aquaculture, the world's fastest growing food sector. Dr. Kapuscinski has also studied the impacts of technologies-from dams and hatcheries to aquaculture and genetic engineering-on fish conservation. Dr. Kapuscinski prioritizes active participation in the science-policy interface, presently serving on the Science Advisory Team of the California Ocean Protection Council and as chair of a National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine committee on strengthening sustainability in higher education. She has also been a scientific advisor to the US Secretary of Agriculture under three administrations, the US Food and Drug Administration, the World Health Organization, the Global Environment Facility, the European Union Food Safety Agency, and the state of Minnesota. She has served on four US National Academy of Science committees addressing salmon conservation and risk analyses of genetically modified organisms. She previously served on the Board of Trustees of the WorldFish Center of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. Dr. Kapuscinski is inaugural director of the Coastal Science and Policy Program-a graduate program training rising leaders in solving coastal sustainability problems-and a professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Prior to joining the University of California, Santa Cruz, she served as professor of environmental studies and the Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor in Sustainability Science at Dartmouth College, where she established an undergraduate sustainability minor. In addition to her teaching and research, Dr. Kapuscinski is the inaugural editor-in-chief of Sustainability Transitions, a domain of the open-access journal Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene. She also taught and co-founded several interdisciplinary programs at the University of Minnesota and was a professor in its Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Biology. Dr. Kapuscinski was awarded an Honor Award from the US Secretary of Agriculture for environmental protection (1997), a Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation (2001), the Distinguished Service Award from the Society for Conservation Biology (2008), the Rachel Carson Environmental Award from the Natural Products Association (2014), and an Ocean Award in innovation from the Blue Marine Foundation and BOAT International (2019).

Ashley Siefert Nunes

Job Titles:

Media Contact
Climate and Energy Media Manager

Ashley Siefert Nunes works with print and broadcast media to promote local, state, national, and international climate work by UCS, and has been attending the United Nations' international climate change talks since 2015. UCS reports Ms. Siefert Nunes has worked on include: "The US Military on the Front Lines of Rising Seas," "When Rising Seas Hit Home," "Underwater," and "Killer Heat." Before joining UCS in 2014, Ms. Siefert Nunes worked as a legislative aide and communication specialist in the Wisconsin State Legislature. Her past efforts include fielding a high volume of media requests and responding to tens of thousands of phone calls and emails when Wisconsin became embroiled in a battle over the right of workers to negotiate on wages and working conditions, which resulted in large-scale protests and led the Wisconsin State Senate's Democratic Caucus to leave the state for weeks in February and March 2011. Ms. Siefert Nunes earned her J.B.A. in journalism, her B.A. in political science, and certificates in European studies and European Union studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She can be reached at +1 202-331-5666 or asiefert@ucsusa.org.

Astrid Caldas

Job Titles:

Senior Climate Scientist
Senior Climate Scientist for Community Resilience

Astrid Caldas is a senior climate scientist for community resilience with the climate & Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Her work focuses on community resilience, science communication, environmental justice, and equitable climate-related policies with practical implications for nature and society. Before joining UCS, Dr. Caldas was a Science & Technology Policy Fellow at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a climate change and wildlife science fellow at the nonprofit conservation group Defenders of Wildlife, and a research scientist at the University of Maryland. Dr. Caldas has advised or consulted on projects with organizations including the Smithsonian Institution and the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center. She has a lifelong passion for butterflies and moths, which she has studied for many years and likes to use as models to raise awareness of climate and land use changes. Dr. Caldas holds a Ph.D. in ecology from the Universidade Estadual de Campinas in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. In addition to a M.S. in entomology from the Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil, she earned an M.S. in environmental management from the University of Maryland Global Campus. She has brought word of the science behind climate change impacts to town halls, community centers, student panels, retirement homes, faith communities, grassroots groups, rallies, and anything in between. She has been quoted widely, including in The New York Times, People Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today, Huffington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Daily Press, Time Science, CNBC, Gizmodo, and Mashable, and has appeared on numerous NPR stations, TRT World, CBS, NBC, Fox, Univisión, and Telemundo. Her Twitter handle is @climategeek.

Ben Santer

Job Titles:

Member of the Board
Member of "the Three Tenors of Climate Change
Scientist at University of California - Los Angeles

Ben Santer is an atmospheric scientist at University of California-Los Angeles. He studies natural and human "fingerprints" in observed climate records. His early research contributed to the historic 1995 conclusion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate." He served as lead author of a key chapter of that report. Since 1995, Ben has identified human fingerprints in atmospheric temperature and water vapor, ocean heat content, sea surface temperature in hurricane formation regions, and many other climate variables. Ben holds a doctorate in Climatology from the University of East Anglia, England. After completing his Ph.D. in 1987, he spent five years at the Max-Planck Institute for Meteorology in Germany, where he worked on developing and applying climate fingerprint methods. Ben joined Lawrence Livermore in 1992. Ben has received a number of awards for his research. These include a MacArthur Fellowship (1998), membership in the US National Academy of Sciences (2011), and the Procter Prize (2019). The most significant awards are the friendships he has made during his career. In addition to his research, he cares deeply about the communication of climate science to a wide range of audiences. He writes for the Scientific American blog and has appeared on "Late Night with Seth Meyers." Together with Chip Duncan and Dr. Hernando Garzon, Ben is a member of "The Three Tenors of Climate Change." The Tenors are devoted to the task of improving public understanding of the science and impacts of human-caused climate change. In his spare time, Ben is an avid rock-climber and mountaineer.

Betty Ahrens

ba..@ucsusa.org

Job Titles:

Campaign Manager
Campaign Manager for the Food & Environment Program

Betty Ahrens is Campaign Manager for the Food & Environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. In her role, she conceives and implements campaign and outreach activities to advance the program's goal of transforming our food and agricultural system into one that is more equitable and sustainable. She leads the team's outreach activities and advocates for policy changes at the local, state, and national levels. Prior to joining UCS, Betty was vice president for outreach and partnerships at Every Voice, where she drove the organization's efforts to elevate money-in-politics analyses and solutions within the broader progressive and social justice communities. Before that, Betty was the executive director of Iowa Citizen Action Network, where she managed the Iowa Health Care for America Now campaign and directed several successful nonpartisan voter engagement campaigns. Betty has a BS in psychology and a JD from the University of Iowa.

Camara Phyllis Jones

Job Titles:

Member of the Board

Camara Phyllis Jones, MD, MPH, PhD is a family physician, epidemiologist, and past president of the American Public Health Association whose work focuses on naming, measuring, and addressing the impacts of racism on the health and well-being of our nation and the world. Her allegories on "race" and racism are celebrated for illuminating topics that are otherwise difficult for many Americans to understand or discuss: that racism exists, racism is a system, racism saps the strength of the whole society, and we can act to dismantle racism. Dr. Jones taught six years as an assistant professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, developing the school's first course on "Race" and Racism, and served fourteen years as a medical officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), leading the development of the six-question Reactions to "Race" module for use on CDC's surveillance systems. As President of the American Public Health Association (2016), she launched the association on a National Campaign Against Racism that catalyzed the first of what are now 262 declarations by local jurisdictions across 41 US states and the District of Columbia that "Racism is a public health crisis." She has since shared her expertise on "race," racism, and anti-racism in extended residencies as a Radcliffe Fellow, Harvard University (2019-2020), Presidential Visiting Fellow, Yale School of Medicine (2021), Presidential Chair, University of California, San Francisco (2021-2022), and Leverhulme Visiting Professor in Global Health and Social Medicine at King's College London (2022-2023), while continuing as an Adjunct Professor at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University and a Senior Fellow and Adjunct Associate Professor at the Morehouse School of Medicine. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a commissioner on the recently launched O'Neill-Lancet Commission on Racism, Structural Discrimination, and Global Health. Dr. Jones earned her BA in molecular biology from Wellesley College, her MD from the Stanford University School of Medicine, and both her Master of Public Health and her PhD in Epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She also completed residency training in General Preventive Medicine (Johns Hopkins) and in Family Medicine (Montefiore Medical Center).

Charlie Hoffs

Job Titles:

Sustainable Energy Fellow

Charlie Hoffs served as a 2022 UCS Summer Schneider Fellow in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She worked with the UCS Climate and Energy program to research and write about the lifecycle of renewable energy technologies including solar panels, wind turbines, and energy storage batteries. Charlie earned her BS in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University in 2022, and is currently pursuing an MS degree in Community Health and Prevention Research at Stanford. Alongside clean energy and environmental justice, Charlie is passionate about food justice, agricultural sustainability, and the social safety net. In April 2020, she co-founded and continues to co-lead unBox, a youth-led organization working to unite and empower young people to fight US food insecurity.

Chris Bliss

Job Titles:

Web / Creative Director

Christopher Williams

Job Titles:

Research Director

Colin Byers

Job Titles:

Senior Campaign Coordinator

Daniel Barad

Job Titles:

Western States Policy Manager

Daniel Barad is Western States Policy Manager for the Union of Concerned Scientists. In his role, he advocates for science-backed climate solutions in California, Oregon, and Washington. Prior to joining UCS, Daniel worked on California state policy in various roles at Sierra Club California, including as an associate director, focusing on industrial decarbonizing and the Sierra Club's 30x30 campaign, and as a policy advocate leading the organization's state energy, transportation, climate, and forest advocacy programs. Daniel earned a bachelor's degree in environmental studies and political science from Gonzaga University.

Deanna Brenon

Job Titles:

Development Associate - Events and Major Gifts

Debra Holtz

Job Titles:

for Media

For media inquiries about UCS work in the western United States, please email WesternStatesMedia@ucsusa.org.

DeShawn L. Blanding

Job Titles:

Senior Washington Representative
Senior Washington Representative / Media Contact

Don Anair

Job Titles:

Research Director, Clean Transportation Program

Dr. Andrea Basche

Job Titles:

Kendall Science Fellow

Dr. Andrea Basche, Kendall Science Fellow in Food & Environment, joined UCS in September 2015. Her research focused on the potential for agroecological farming systems to reduce the risk and costs of increasing drought. In addition to her work on the benefits of ecologically-based farm practices, she helped further UCS research into the links between agriculture and climate.