(in alphabetical order)

Rosina Marie Bierbaum

Rosina Marie Bierbaum received her Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolution from the State University of New York, Stony Brook, in 1985. She joined the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment as Dean in October 2001. Prior to joining SNRE, Bierbaum was acting director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) for President Clinton. She joined OSTP in November 1993 as a Senior Policy Analyst and served as Assistant Director for Environment before being confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Associate Director. As the Administration's senior scientific advisor on environmental research and development, Bierbaum provided scientific input and guidance on a wide range of national and international environmental issues. These included global change, air and water quality, endangered species, biodiversity, ecosystem management, endocrine disruptors, environmental monitoring, natural hazards, and energy research and development.

 

James Campbell

Jim Campbell works as a communication planning and production specialist for both non-profit and for-profit enterprises helping organizations to tell their stories in ways that strike a “responsive chord” with their chosen audiences. He has designed communication plans, training packages, and corporate meeting content for many Fortune 500 companies including AT&T, American Express, Dun & Bradstreet, and IBM; as well as for non-profit organizations, including several parts of the University of Maine System. He has won numerous national and international industry awards for audio and video writing, editing, and producing. He currently produces a weekly radio feature on digital technology entitled “Notes from the Electronic Cottage,” and a monthly program, “Conversations on Science and Society,” both on Community Radio Station WERU-FM in eastern Maine.

 

Charles Colgan

Charlie Colgan teaches economics, policy analysis, economic development, and courses in analytic methods, including forecasting and survey research, in the Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine (USM). He is chair of the Ph.D. Program in Public Policy and Associate Director of the Center for Business and Economic Research. Colgan also currently holds positions as a Research Fellow at the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics and Chief Economist for the National Ocean Economics Program. His research focuses on the interaction of regional economies and the environment in coastal areas of the U.S. and on issues of growth and development in Maine and New England. Colgan is Chair of the State of Maine Consensus Economic Forecasting Commission. Prior to coming to USM, he served 12 years in the Maine State Planning Office, including positions as Maine State Economist and Special Assistant to the Governor for International Trade.

 

Victor Lechtenberg

Victor Lechtenberg became Vice Provost for Engagement at Purdue University in July 2004. Previously he served there as Dean of Agriculture for 10 years. Prior to becoming dean he served administratively as Executive Associate Dean of Agriculture and as Associate Director of Agricultural Research. Lechtenberg has been an active leader on the state and national scene with respect to research and technology policy and an advocate for technology related economic growth in the food, agriculture, and natural resource sectors. He is past chairman of the National Agricultural Research, Extension, Education, and Economics Advisory Board. He has served as President of Crop Science Society of America and is a Fellow of the American Society of Agronomy and Crop Science Society of America. He advises USDA and Congress on funding for Agricultural Research, Extension, and Teaching. He is past President of the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST).

 

Chellie Pingree

Chellie Pingree has been the president and CEO of Common Cause since March 2003. Prior to leading Common Cause, Pingree served for eight years in the Maine Senate, with the last four years as majority leader. She was also a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in 2002. In the Maine Legislature, Pingree was known for successful legislative battles regarding health care, economic development, and the environment. In 1998, Pingree was an international election monitor for the White House in Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia. Pingree hails from North Haven, Maine, an island of 350 where she ran a farm and wool knitting business that supplied knitting kits, pattern books, and yarn to 1,200 stores nationwide. She was active in rural economic development issues, and helped to create an economic development corporation supporting small business creation and peer lending in Maine.

 

Bob Steneck

Bob Steneck received his Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolution from The Johns Hopkins University in 1982 while he was working at the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of Natural History. Since 1982, Steneck has been on the faculty of the University of Maine where he is now Professor of Oceanography, Marine Biology and Marine Policy in the School of Marine Sciences.  He is a marine ecologist who studies kelp forest ecosystems in North America and coral reefs of the Caribbean and Indo Pacific. Steneck has studied predator/prey interactions, herbivory, and community structure in both recent and paleontological systems in the Gulf of Maine, Pacific Northwest, Alaska's Aleutian Islands, throughout the Caribbean, Brazil, Chile, South Africa, Great Barrier Reef, Papua New Guinea, Guam, and Palau. His current research is to understand and improve health of marine ecosystems in the Caribbean and North Atlantic.

 

Colin Woodard

Award-winning journalist Colin Woodard writes for The Christian Science Monitor and The Chronicle of Higher Education . A native of Maine , he has reported from more than 40 foreign countries and six continents. He is the author of The LobsterCoast: Rebels, Rusticators, and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier (Viking Press, 2004), a cultural history of coastal Maine ; and Ocean’s End: Travels Through Endangered Seas, (Basic Books, 2000), a narrative, nonfiction account of the deterioration of the world's oceans. Woodard has been awarded numerous fellowships, including a Pew Fellowship in International Journalism at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and a policy fellowship at the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe in Budapest, a 2004 Jane Bagley Lehman Award for Public Advocacy, and journalism fellowships from the German Marshall Fund of the U.S., the Institute for International Education, and the U.S. Antarctic Program. He is a graduate of Tufts University and the University of Chicago.

 

Tom Zinnen

Tom Zinnen is a biotechnology policy and outreach specialist with the University of Wisconsin Biotechnology Center and UW-Extension. He also serves as a Food Science Communicator for the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), a professional organization with 28,000 members. He provides materials and training on the technical and social impacts of biotechnology. Zinnen studied biology at UW-Platteville, plant pathology at the University of Illinois , and received a PhD for work in plant virology at UW-Madison in 1985. After a year as a post doc at Agrigenetics in Madison , Zinnen taught and did research at the Plant Molecular Biology Center of Northern Illinois University at DeKalb. In 1991 he took his present position at the University of Wisconsin-Madison/Extension.  From September 2000 through August 2001 he served as IFT’s Congressional Science Fellow with the House Committee on Agriculture in Washington DC .  In addition to his outreach work, Zinnen convenes the UW-Madison Science Alliance that organizes the annual Science Expeditions event on campus each April.