Gretchen Goldman (2025): Gretchen Goldman is the president and CEO of the Union of Concerned Scientists. She is an environmental engineer with deep expertise at the nexus of science and policy on topics including federal scientific integrity, climate science and emissions reductions, air pollution exposure and health effects, and environmental justice and science in federal decision-making. Previously, Goldman served in the White House as the assistant director for environmental science, engineering, policy, and justice in the Climate and Environment division of the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Adrienne Hollis (2025): Adrienne Hollis, PhD, JD, is the Vice President of Environmental Justice, Health, and Community Resilience and Revitalization for the National Wildlife Federation. In that role, she leads the environmental justice team to advance environmental and climate justice policy and programs while examining the related health concerns posed.

Vernice Miller-Travis (2024): Vernice has vast experience as a civil rights and environmental policy analyst and advocate; consultant for federal and state agencies, foundations and nonprofits; environmental program manager and foundation program officer. She was a contributing author to the landmark report “Toxic Waste and Race in the United States.”

George McGraw (2024): George McGraw founded Dig Deep, a nonprofit that helps vulnerable communities in the US to build and manage their own water systems. DigDeep has brought running water and working toilets to tens of thousands of the most difficult-to-reach Americans and leads the nation on water access research and policy innovation.

Vicki Patton (2023): Vickie serves as Environmental Defense Fund’s General Counsel and leads its U.S. Legal and Regulatory Program. For over thirty years, she has worked with partners to secure landmark national and state protections addressing climate and air pollution, participated in numerous successful climate and clean air cases to protect human health and the environment, and testified before congressional and state legislative committees.

Shalanda Baker (2023): Shalanda H. Baker is the University of Michigan’s first vice provost for sustainability and climate action. She joined the university after serving as the Director of the Office of Energy Justice and Equity at the U.S. Department of Energy. Prior to her appointment, she was a Professor of Law, Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University. She was the co-founder and co-director of the Initiative for Energy Justice, which provides technical law and policy support to communities on the front lines of climate change.

Catherine Colman Flowers (2022): Catherine Coleman Flowers is an environmental and climate justice activist bringing attention to the largely invisible problem of inadequate waste and water sanitation infrastructure in rural communities in the United States. She has served as the Vice Chair of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council and the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force on Climate Change.

Paul Polman (2022): Paul Polman is the former CEO of Univelever and in 2010, Polman introduced the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, which attempted to grow the company while reducing its environmental footprint. Polman helped restore credibility to the idea of stakeholder capitalism. He insisted that corporations must serve employees, consumers, suppliers, communities, and the environment rather than focus only on investor returns. After leaving Unilever, Polman co-founded Imagine, an organization that works with senior executives to accelerate progress toward the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Peggy Shepard (2021): Peggy Shepard is co-founder and executive director of WE ACT for Environmental Justice and has a long history of organizing and engaging Northern Manhattan residents in community-based planning and campaigns to address environmental protection and environmental health policy locally and nationally. She served as the first co-chair of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council and was the first female chair of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She currently serves as chair of the New York City Environmental Justice Advisory Board as well as on the Executive Committee of the National Black Environmental Justice Network and the Board of Advisors of the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health.

Monica Ellis (2020): A sustainable development leader, Monica has worked throughout the world on a range of natural resource and economic development issues, focusing particularly on clean water, climate, technology, health, and economic empowerment issues. She specializes in developing high impact partnerships with leading companies, government agencies, civil society, and philanthropists that result in resilient communities.

Frank Loy (2020): Frank E. Loy is the former Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs. He served as the lead US climate negotiator for three years.

Kevin Fay (2019): Kevin J. Fay, Vice-Chairman & CEO of Alcalde and Fay, is an internationally recognized specialist on environmental and energy issues with particular emphasis on governmental policies involving the atmosphere and climate. Currently, he serves as Executive Director of the International Climate Change Partnership, a coalition of companies and trade associations working to develop international policies on the global climate change issue.

Linda Fisher (2019): Linda Fisher is the former vice president of DuPont Safety, Health & Environment. She had responsibility for advancing DuPont's progress in achieving sustainable growth; DuPont safety, health and environmental programs; the company's global product stewardship; and regulatory affairs program and corporate philanthropy.

Will Baker (2018): Will Baker served as President of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) from 1982 to 2021, leading the largest nonprofit conservation organization dedicated solely to preserving, protecting, and restoring the Chesapeake Bay. Will and CBF helped push through a series of laws — mainly in Maryland and Virginia— to protect wetlands and forests, require farmers to limit fertilizer use and curb waterfront development. They sued polluting industries and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to enforce the Clean Water Act, and taught legions of youngsters and adults about the Bay. He retired in 2021.

Mamie Parker (2018): Dr. Parker made history serving as the first African American FWS Regional Director of the 13 Northeastern states after working in the Great Lakes and Big Rivers regions and in the southeastern United States. While serving as board chair of Virginia Game and Inland Fisheries Commission, the board passed a diversity resolution that’s become a model for other states, changed the board name from “game” to wildlife, and protected migratory birds threatened by major bridge construction. Instead of “rubber-stamping” a project that would have displaced many birds (allowed under the weakening of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act), the Department drafted regulations to protect migratory birds across Virginia.

Ben Henneke (2017): Mr. Ben Henneke is the President of Clean Air Action Corporation and has successfully created new methods of improving environmental performance at reduced costs through voluntary, market-based and innovative approaches. Clean Air Action Corporation develops regional environmental programs and creates the necessary infrastructure to manufacture and market clean air emission credits.

 

Vanessa Henneke (2017): Mrs Henneke is co-founder of TIST, The International Small Group and Tree Planting Program, and has worked on all aspects of the program since its inception. She served as the first Chairman of the Institute for Environmental Innovation (I4EI) and is currently Executive Director of I4EI. She also currently serves as a senior advisor, seminar leader and trainer with a focus on encouraging and empowering the women of TIST.

Claire Barnett (2017): Claire Barnett is the founder of the Healthy Schools Network to protect children’s environmental health and learning. In 2025, Barnett received the Mount Holyoke College Alum Association Achievement Award for instituting sweeping policy changes in New York and nationally.

Bob Perciasepe (2016): Bob Perciasepe is a Senior Adviser to the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. has been an environmental policy leader in and outside government for more than 40 years, most recently as Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from 2009 to 2014, during which time the EPA set stricter auto emissions and mileage standards, and developed carbon emissions standards for power plants.

Mindy Lubber (2016): Mindy Lubber is the CEO and President of the sustainability nonprofit Ceres. She regularly speaks to high-level global and national policymakers on the need for stronger climate policies that accelerate the transition to a more just and resilient economy.

Fred Krupp (2015): Fredd Krupp is the President of the Environmental Defense Fund, which he guided for four decades, overseeing its growth from a small nonprofit with a budget of $3 million to one of the world’s most influential environmental organizations, with an annual budget of more than $300 million and 1,000 employees. As a leading voice on climate change, energy and corporate sustainability, Krupp appeared on the TED stage in 2018 to announce plans to launch MethaneSAT, a satellite that today measures and maps planet-warming methane pollution from the oil and gas industry worldwide. Now orbiting the Earth, this satellite is opening a new era of climate action — and accountability for corporate and national commitments.

Ben Grumbles (2015): Ben Grumbles has been the Executive Director of the Environmental Council of the States since 2022 and served as Secretary of the Environment for Maryland. Ben has also served as President of the US Water Alliance, Director of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, and U.S. EPA Assistant Administrator for Water and Acting Associate Administerator for Congressional and Intergovernmental Relations.

Nsedu Obot Witherspoon (2014): Nsedu Obot Witherspoon serves as the Executive Director for the Children’s Environmental Health Network (CEHN). She is a leader in the field of children’s environmental health, serving as a member of the Institute of Medicine’s Environmental Health Sciences Roundtable, and Co-Chair of the Leadership Council for the National Conversation on Public Health and Chemical Exposures.

Daniel C. Esty (2014): Dan Esty is the Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy at Yale Law School. Esty has written or edited 14 books and dozens of articles on climate change, environmental protection, and sustainability, and he held several leadership roles at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from 1989-93 including service on the U.S. delegation that negotiated the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change. From 2011-14, Esty served as Commissioner of Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. He recently concluded two years of public leave from Yale — during which time he worked at the World Trade Organization helping WTO Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala develop a sustainability strategy for the global trading system.

Jeffrey Leonard (2013, 1954–2018) was a prominent American businessman, author, and environmental leader best known as the President and CEO of the Global Environment Fund (GEF), a private equity firm founded in 1990 dedicated exclusively to investments in the energy and environment sectors. He was dedicated by a mission to deploy capital to advance resource and energy efficiency, promote renewable energy, and support sustainable natural resource management worldwide.

Deerin Babb-Brott (2013): Deerin Babb-Brott is an ocean policy expert and former director of the White House National Ocean Council. Babb-Brott has been instrumental in shaping national ocean policy, including the implementation of the U.S. National Ocean Policy and the advancement of marine spatial planning.

2024 Scholars

Aidan Black MPA 2026

Check out Aidan Black's acceptance video here!

Lily Kincannon MPP 2025

Check out Lily Kincannon's acceptance video here!

2023 Scholars

Lindsay Selfridge MPP 2024

Carsen Lennon MPP 2024

2022 Scholars

Taylor Reed, SPA/MPA

Taylor Reed is a Master of Public Administration (MPA) candidate in the School of Public Affairs at American University. She was born and raised in Manteca, California and was conferred her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Women’s Studies at San Diego State University in 2021. During her undergraduate studies, she received a Fulbright United Kingdom Summer Institute award to study International Politics at Aberystwyth University in Wales. While at Aberystwyth University, she explored a sustainable energy research institution which sparked her interest in the intersection of environmental policy and public health.

Currently, Taylor is a Legislative Fellow for a California Member of the House of Representatives with a policy portfolio in drought relief, wildfires, air quality, and energy. In this role, she has assisted with writing legislation and working with federal agencies to implement scientifically based and innovative solutions to poor air quality, land subsidence, and high gasoline costs that constituents in California’s Central Valley have been experiencing. As a result
of her experience in environmental policymaking, she plans to become a Congressional legislative assistant with an environmental policy and public health portfolio after graduation.

Check out Taylor Reed's acceptance video here!

Stephanie Strickland, SPA/MPP

Stephanie Strickland is a student in the Master of Public Policy (MPP) program with a concentration in Science, Technology and the Environment. She is originally from Jacksonville, Florida and attended Florida State University for a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish & Italian with minors in Portuguese and Environmental Science and Policy Management. Having a parent who worked in the Florida Park Service, she grew up on the beach and spent much time kayaking the rivers of North and Central Florida.

She moved to the DC area in 2018 to work in environmental nonprofits to assist with the climate change risk Florida was already facing with flooding and higher storm intensity. After gaining experience in many different areas of nonprofit work she decided to return to school to pursue a Masters in Public
Policy in order to help create tangible change in climate change policy in the United States and in cooperation with other nations in a think tank or policy driven nonprofit. Working on international policy would tie her passion for language and culture and her drive to fight climate change.

Check out Stephanie Strickland's acceptance video here!

Cam Wejnert Depue

Chris Douglass

Carrie Cook

Julia Singer

Sabina Blanco Vecchi MPP

Caroline Nickerson MPP

Jake Assael MPA

Samantha Pedreiro MPA

Nick Nayak

Lisa Flores

Maria Manuella Athayde MPA

Maggie McCarey MPA

Jennifer Hatch MPA

Amy Purpura MPP

Kavita Mak MPP

Jennifer Hernandez MPP

Kristina Bell

Samuel Cramer

Zachary Rybarczyk