Keynote Speakers
Max Boykoff
Professor, Unversity of Colorado – Boulder
Max is a Professor and Chair in the Environmental Studies department at the University of Colorado Boulder in the United States (USA). He is also a Fellow in the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. Max has ongoing research interests in science and environmental communications, science-policy interactions, political economy, business and the environment (with negotiations, marketing and advertising concentrations). He has experience working in several country contexts, and is a co-author and editor of seven books and edited volumes, along with many articles, reports and book chapters. Max also leads the Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO) while he co-Directs Inside the Greenhouse. Max earned a PhD in Environmental Studies at the University of California Santa Cruz, an MBA from the University of Colorado Boulder, and a BS in Psychology from The Ohio State University.
Joanna Carey
Associate Professor of Earth Science, Babson College
Dr. Joanna Carey is an Associate Professor of Earth & Environmental Science in the Mathematics, Analytics, Science, and Technology Division at Babson College. She teaches courses focused on climate change, oceanography, and the intersection of natural science with business and society. Her research focuses on answering fundamental questions regarding aquatic biogeochemical processes in the context of rapid global change. Her research findings have been published in Science, Nature, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, among other outlets. Dr. Carey holds a Ph.D. in Earth Science from Boston University (2013), an M.S. in Environmental Science from Yale University (2007), and her B.S. in Environmental Policy & Planning from Virginia Tech (2005). Before joining Babson in 2017, Dr. Carey completed several post-doctoral fellowships, including an NSF Earth Science Fellowship and a USGS Powell Center Fellowship, both hosted at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA.
Mikaela Loach
Author and Climate Justice Organiser,
AWETHU School of Organising
Mikaela Loach is an acclaimed author, climate justice organizer, and speaker, recognized as one of the most influential women in the UK climate movement by Forbes, Global Citizen, and BBC Woman’s Hour. Prospect magazine has described her as one of the “World’s Top Thinkers” in 2024. It’s no surprise that her impactful climate activism has garnered an online community of over 280,000 combined followers.
Mikaela’s work is deeply rooted in community organizing. Her activism includes organizing with grassroots climate movements such as Stop Cambo, Fossil Free Books, Resist Glencore, and The UK Black Eco Feminist Collective, conducting at international climate justice camps and at local schools – one of which even named a classroom after her – and delivering keynote speeches at various events, ranging from community gatherings to large institutions and appearances on national TV and in the press. She is launching the AWETHU School of Organising later this year.
Mikaela has boldly challenged powerful entities, calling out billionaires at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s annual event, taking the UK government to court in the landmark “Paid To Pollute” case in 2021, and challenging Shell’s CEO and board at their AGM for their human rights abuses to people of the Niger Delta in Nigeria.
Mikaela is the best-selling author of “It’s Not That Radical: Climate Action To Transform Our World,” a compelling call for climate justice published in April 2023 by Dorling Kindersley, a division of Penguin Random House. Her debut book won the Non-fiction Author of the Year award in Bookshop.org’s Indie Champion Awards. Additionally, she co-hosts The YIKES Podcast and is a former medical student.
Her dedication to her values is evident in her collaborations with brands and organizations such as Armed Angels, LUSH, Greenpeace, and eBay.
Session Speakers
Mandy Bratton
Executive Director, University of California – San Diego Center for Global Sustainable Development
Dr. Mandy Bratton is the Founding Executive Director of the Center for Global Sustainable Development and a Founding Director of the Changemaker Institute at the University of California San Diego. The Center for Global Sustainable Development houses the award-winning Global TIES and Global Changemaker Scholars programs, which inspire students to collaborate with communities to co-create innovative solutions to urgent problems aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The Changemaker Institute serves as the nucleus of UC San Diego’s ecosystem for changemaking and changemaker education and provides a supportive infrastructure for interdisciplinary, cross-campus collaboration in research, education, community engagement, and advocacy.
Dr. Bratton earned her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin and previously served as a senior faculty member in Psychology and Human Development and Interim Associate Dean at Prescott College for the Liberal Arts, the Environment, and Social Justice. Additionally, she holds a Public Leadership Credential from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
With a passion for global education, Dr. Bratton has sailed around the world three times with the Semester at Sea Global Studies Program. She is a president emeritus of its alumni association and serves as an advisory member of its Board of Trustees. She holds a faculty appointment as a Continuing Lecturer. Her primary interests as a scholar, teacher, practitioner, and global citizen include sustainable development, gender, leadership, ethics, and advancing social and environmental justice.
Courtney Giordano
Senior Director, Strategic Global Initiatives, University of California – San Diego
Courtney Giordano is Senior Director of Strategic Global Initiatives, providing leadership for international partnership and program development, external engagement supporting campus internationalization efforts, strategic communication for Global Initiatives and the Study Abroad office.
Courtney’s career in international affairs spans 20 years, where she is known for developing multi-constituent, broad regional engagement strategies. Courtney has developed collaborative and dual degree programs with partners in Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea, and Latin America, and is working with partners in Singapore and India to develop multilateral endeavors.
Courtney Co-Chaired UC San Diego’s participation in the American Council on Education’s Internationalization Laboratory where she authored the final report that serves as the foundation of the working Strategic Internationalization Plan for the university.
Courtney began her career in Washington, D.C. administering professional exchange programs under the auspices of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the United States Department of State. She is a graduate from UC San Diego, where she earned bachelor’s degree in political science and history and received a master’s degree in history from San Diego State University.
Margarita Jover
Professor, Tulane School of Architecture & the Built Environment
Margarita Jover received a Master of Architecture degree from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in 1995. Together with Iñaki Alday, she founded the internationally awarded firm aldayjover architecture and landscape in 1996 in Barcelona, Spain. The multidisciplinary, research-based practice focuses on innovation and is particularly renowned for its leadership in a new approach to the relationship between cities and rivers, in which the natural dynamics of flooding become part of the public space.
She has taught at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, the University of Navarra, the University of Vic-Central University of Catalonia and the University of Virginia. At the University of Virginia, she was Research Faculty (2012-15), first Professor of Practice of the School of Architecture (2015-17) and tenured Associate Professor (2017-18).
Jover is co-author of the book Ecologies of Prosperity (ORO Editors, 2018) and The Water Park (ACTAR, 2008). She has been a juror for several honor awards, including the FAD Architecture Prize and Miesvan der Rohe European Union Prize for Architecture (2015), and for international competitions including the Glories Square in Barcelona and the Hainan Eco-Island in China. Both in academic research and in practice, Jover promotes a broader understanding of architecture that aims to mitigate and reverse socioecological crises. Her academic research line discusses the reform of the current model of progress by promoting a specific socioecological urbanism.
Lenah Kedikaetswe
Enterprise Development Manager, Conservation International Botswana
An accomplished enterprise development professional, Lenah has extensive experience working with emerging and established entrepreneurs, rural livelihoods, and nature-positive enterprises across Africa. She excels in designing and implementing comprehensive support programs that enhance business innovation and resilience. In her current role, she is dedicated to supporting communities that depend on natural ecosystems for their livelihoods, focusing on balancing rural economic development with ecosystem protection through nature-positive activities.
Lenah’s expertise includes developing and facilitating training materials for both academic and professional programs, as well as providing expert advisory and mentorship on the intricacies of the startup and small business environment. In her previous profession, she developed and executed marketing and communication strategies for government and corporates. She holds an MSc in Management and Entrepreneurship (University of Sussex), is a Certified Expert in Climate Adaptation Finance (Frankfurt School of Finance & Management) and a BA in Mass Communication (Curtin University).
Mathilde Marengo
IAAC Head of Studies / Master in City & Technology Co-Director, Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia
Mathilde Marengo is an Australian – French – Italian PhD Architect whose research focuses on the Contemporary Urban Phenomenon, its integration with technology, and its implications on the future of our planet.
Within today’s critical environmental, social and economic framework, she investigates the responsibility of designers in answering these challenges through circular and metabolic design.
She is Head of Studies, Co-director of the Master in City & Technology, Faculty and PhD Supervisor at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia. Mathilde develops her research at IAAC’s Advanced Architecture Group (AAG), an interdisciplinary research group investigating emerging technologies of information, interaction and manufacturing for the design and transformation of the cities, buildings and public spaces. Within this context, she investigates, designs and experiments with innovative educational formats based on holistic, multi-disciplinary and multi-scalar design approaches, oriented towards materialization, within the AAG agenda of redefining the paradigm of design education in the Information and Experience Age.
Laura McKinney
Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of Environmental Studies, Tulane University
Laura McKinney is an Associate Professor of Sociology, Director of Environmental Studies, and Director of Urban Studies at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her research focus lies at the intersection of international development, gender, and the environment. She received the Morton-Deutsch Award from the International Society for Justice Research in 2015. In 2022, she was awarded the Barbara E. Moley Teaching Award. Her work has been published in Social Forces, Social Problems, Social Science Research, Environmental Sociology, and Agriculture and Human Values, among other outlets.
Pedro Mateus das Neves
Professor, Global Solutions 4U
Pedro Mateus ds Neves has a degree in mining engineering from the University of Porto, Private Equity & Venture Capital from Harvard Business School, and a PhD in Development Studies from the University of Lisboa with the research question: “SDGs Why? and For Whom? How to Implement Partnerships to Achieve the SDGs?”. His research areas are Development Policies and Institutional Innovation, focusing on Sustainable Development and SDGs Implementation. Has published work in English, Portuguese, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Ukrainian, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese.
He is a visiting professor and researcher at Toyo University, Tokyo; Tsinghua University in Beijing and Shenzhen; Geneva University; ParisTech in Paris; IESE Business School in Barcelona; ESAI; University of Lisbon; Universidade Católica Portuguesa; Universidade Nova, National School of Public Administration in Luanda.
In 2010, he founded and became CEO of Global Solutions 4U, a consulting firm specializing in Sustainable Development and SDG Implementation. He has originated and managed more than €10 billion in investment projects in more than 250 cities and 85 countries on six continents.
Nompilo Ndlovu
Center Director, CIEE Cape Town
Dr Ndlovu is an oral historian whose Ph.D. (Historical Studies) focused on mass violence, memory as well as local transitional justice initiatives in post-colonial Zimbabwe. She earned MSocSci and BSocSci [Hons] degrees in Social Development and a BSocSci (Gender) from the University of Cape Town in South Africa. She also fulfilled an Executive Masters at the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations. In addition, Nompilo is an alumnus of the African Leadership Centre where she completed the Peace and Security Fellowship for African Women (2011/2012) and fulfilled a secondment at the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) representing the East Africa/Horn of Africa region – amongst other factors – addressing climate related conflict. She currently serves as the Cape Town Centre Director for the Global Institute – Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE).
Dr Ndlovu has over 10 years’ experience working as a practitioner mostly within the disciplines of Gender, Development and Security throughout the African Continent. Her research expertise interconnects socio-economic-political relations (with a focus on exclusion and marginalisation), sustainability, conflict, trauma and justice, as well as leadership, using qualitative methods such as life-histories and vernacular archives.
Ndlovu has policy and research affiliations with a variety of institutions such as the South African Commission for Gender Equality; the Women’s Funding Network (Bridge Builders); the Geneva Centre for Security Policy; the International Oral History Association, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change; the ODI; the African Union and the United Nations (Peace and Security apparatus’).
Zein Nsheiwat
Center Director, CIEE Amman
Zein Nsheiwat has been working in the field of study abroad and cross-cultural education since 2007 and completed a MBA in 2022 at TAGUCI in Amman, Jordan. She has worked in a variety of capacities; the latest being the Resident Director of Earlham College Middle East Study Abroad Program/Jordan, during which she was teaching a course on water and environmental challenges in Jordan and the Middle East including a course on Earlham College campus.
Zein holds a M.Sc. in Environmental Studies from the joint program between the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies and Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. She has participated in and presented at many international conferences such as the United Nations Conference to Combat Desertification.
Zein has also published articles on water reuse in Jordan and lead exposure in industrial ‘hot spots’ in Jordan and Israel. In addition to professional activities, Zein is interested in water management, environmental justice and environmental education.
Thais Oso
Regional Director South Pacific Rim, CIEE
Thais began her professional journey as a psychologist, dedicating her early career to making a difference in the challenging environments of Brazil’s favelas. Her unwavering commitment to positive change led her to Australia 20 years ago, where she has since evolved into an educator, business leader, and inspirational speaker.
Thais is currently serving as the Regional Director of Operations – South Pacific Rim for CIEE, overseeing educational initiatives across Australia, New Zealand, and Taiwan. In this role, she fosters global perspectives and enhances the student experience throughout the region. Her mission to effect positive change remains as strong as ever, believing that shaping individuals through education contributes to the collective power needed to make a better world.
From her childhood dream of changing the world to her present-day role as a Regional Director, Thais continues to embody the spirit of transformation through education, embracing the belief that together, we can make the world a better place.”
Quinton Redcliffe
Director for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, CIEE
Quinton’s experience spans 25 years within International Education. Quinton progressed from a Homestay and Volunteer Coordinator at School for International Training (SIT) to the Manager of International Students at University of Cape Town (UCT). He moved on to become the Centre Director for the Council on International Education Exchange (CIEE) Cape Town Study Center.
He is now the Director for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the (CIEE). His career is marked by a commitment to intercultural competence building, inclusion and belonging, underscored by his role in developing staff and students through facilitated training programs. Quinton has taught classes in Intercultural Communications and Leadership, Community Partnerships, Conflict Resolutions Skills and A Season of Protest in the US and in South Africa.
Lastly, Quinton contributes to CIEE’s global staff training and mentorship programs. His work fosters a strong empathetic community of care at CIEE. Quinton makes every effort to ensure that CIEE is continuing to be a place that strives to make all feel welcomed and have a sense of belonging.
Brandi J. Robinson
Associate Teaching Professor, Penn State University
Brandi Robinson is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering at Penn State University. Her background is in geography with an emphasis on local scale solutions to climate challenges.
She teaches in the fully online Energy and Sustainability Policy bachelor’s program, working with returning adult learners. Brandi co-directs Penn State’s Local Climate Action Program which partners students with local governments to conduct greenhouse gas emissions and draft climate action plans.
Brandi has served as the Chair of her region’s Technical Advisory Group which supported the development and now implementation of a regional climate action and adaptation plan.
While her teaching is largely for online students studying from a distance, she works to provide these students with engaged scholarship experiences to support immersive learning and professional networking in their current communities through both the LCAP program and the ESP capstone course.
Marc Teng
Center Director, CIEE Singapore
Marc Teng is the CIEE Center Director for Singapore. He has over 15 years of strategic management and teaching experience in the education sector. He was previously the Head of Department for two education travel agencies and a high school educator with the Ministry of Education teaching History and Critical Thinking. Marc has also presented at various academic conferences on experiential travel, gamification and the evolving education system in Singapore.
Dan Waite
Executive Director, Rutgers Global-Study Abroad
Dan Waite is a scholar-practitioner and the Executive Director of the Rutgers Global – Center for Global Education and Rutgers Global – Study Abroad, which serves all campuses of Rutgers University, the State University of New Jersey. In this role, Dan leads strategic initiatives which seek to ensure that all Rutgers students have access to opportunities for global learning including international study, internships, service, and research. The Center has developed an award-winning portfolio of access-focused programming including Access the World, Passport to the World, and the Global Learning Staff Fellows Initiative.
Dan has 25 years of experience in international higher education, working at the intersection of a passion for experiential learning pedagogies and for creating transformative spaces where learning and community-building thrive across boundaries of difference. He has created study abroad programs in the Caribbean, Ghana, South Africa, China, and South Korea. Dan’s current research is focused on the history of black student-activists who studied abroad in 19th-century Europe and how a re-examination of the field’s roots might inform a contemporary reimagining of the education abroad field. His Global Learning Labs model of programming is designed to allow students and faculty to collaborate with peers around the world on ongoing research projects (Labs) that address grand global challenges.
Dan earned a Ph.D. in Social Sciences and Comparative Education at the University of California, Los Angeles, where his research focused on the sociology of higher education and emerging models of experiential learning. His master’s degree in Administration, Planning, and Social Policy at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education and Luce Foundation funded research explored the historic development of area studies programming in U.S. higher education. Dan has also studied and conducted research abroad in his home country of Antigua & Barbuda, as well as South Korea, and China.
Dane Ward
Assistant Professor and Director of GIS Programs & University Cartographer, Monmouth University
Dane Ward is an assistant professor and director of GIS Programs at Monmouth University. Dane has a wide range of research experiences broadly rooted in environmental science, sustainability, and conservation biology where he utilizes various methods including spatial analytics and field data collection to develop meaningful conservation methods for species of conservation interest. Dane’s research also focuses on urban landscapes and stressful ecosystems where he is intrigued by factors driving biodiversity, ecological stability, function, and resilience. Current projects include coastal wetland and shoreline restoration in New Jersey’s Barnegat Bay (USA).
Dane partners with colleagues to examine the interactions between urban environments and human communities’ public health outcomes including mental health, nutrition, and access to green spaces. While Dane maintains a diverse suite of research interests he is strongly committed to building access, engagement, and diversity among students to international educational opportunities in applied research via community-engaged science.
Sacoby Wilson
Professor and Director, CEEJH, University of Maryland
Dr. Sacoby Wilson is a professor with the Department of Global Environmental and Occupational Health (GEOH)(formerly known as the Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health), School of Public Health, University of Maryland-College Park. He has 25 years of experience as an environmental health scientist in the areas of exposure science, environmental justice, environmental health disparities, community-engaged research including community-based participatory research (CBPR), community science, and community-owned and managed research (COMR), and air quality studies including building hyperlocal air quality monitoring networks, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) including developing environmental justice screening and mapping (EJSM) tools, built environment, climate change, industrial animal production, climate change, community resiliency, and sustainability. He works primarily in partnership with community-based organizations to study and address environmental justice and health issues and translate research into action.