David Hughes earned in PhD in Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley in 1999. Before and during graduate school, he worked on development and conservation projects for NGOs in Zimbabwe, the World Bank, and the government of Mozambique. Since joining the faculty at Rutgers-the State University of New Jersey, Hughes has grappled with the ways in which people exploit each other while exploiting nature, ecosystems, and, indeed, the entire biosphere. He has written two ethnographies of settler colonialism and land reform in Southern Africa: From Enslavement to Environmentalism (University of Washington Press, 2007) and Whiteness in Zimbabwe (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). Then, Hughes turned his attention energy and the climate crisis in other parts of the world. In Trinidad and Tobago, he carried out ethnography on petroleum geologists, publishing Energy without Conscience (Duke University Press, 2017). Now, he studies renewables and the possibilities for energy democracy. His book on wind power in Spain – Who Owns the Wind? – just came out with Verso Press. As a scholar-activist, Hughes has served as president and chief negotiator of the AAUP-AFT, the faculty labor union. He is currently the union’s climate justice chair and a member of the Climate Justice Task Force of the American Federation of Teachers.

Natasha N. Iskander, Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Public Service, conducts research on the relationship between migration and economic development. She looks at the ways that immigration and the movement of people across borders can provide the basis for the creation of new knowledge and of new pathways for political change. She has published widely on these questions, looking specifically at immigration, skill, economic development, and worker rights.

Anoop Jain is currently a postdoctoral research fellow in the Global Health & Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His research focuses on elucidating the social determinants of maternal and child health in India. Anoop is also the founding director of Sanitation and Health Rights in India (SHRI), an organization the improves access to sanitation in rural and last mile communities throughout India.

Everywhere She Maps Regional Ambassador.

Gloria J. Jeff, AICP is an experienced transportation executive, professional and urban planner. She is co - chair of the TRB Committee on Transportation Equity. She is currently serving as MnDOT Metro District’s Livability Director. She previously served as the Project Director – Rethinking I – 94. She has also served as: Acting Administrator, Deputy Administrator, and Associate Administrator for Policy - Federal Highway Administration; Department Director, Deputy Director for Planning and Division Administrator - Michigan Department of Transportation; General Manager Los Angeles Department of Transportation; and Vice President, District Transportation Planning Manager – Parsons Brinkerhoff. Gloria has represented and lead United States Government delegations in international settings, on transportation issues in the Asian Pacific region and the Permanent International Association of Road Congresses. Ms. Jeff holds a BSE and MSE in Civil Engineering and a Master of Urban Planning from the University of Michigan. She also has an honorary doctorate from Bennett College. She is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners, American Planning Association, and the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials. Ms. Jeff is co-chair of the TRB Committee on Transportation and Equity. She is an active member of the Transportation Research Board committees on Transportation History, Public Involvement, Community Impacts, and Gender Transportation Issues.

Clinton leads Esri’s efforts to help users apply GIS as a framework for Racial Equity & Social Justice and leads the NorthStar of GIS, a community organization advancing racial justice, equity, and belonging for Black people in GIS.

Ibipo Johnston-Anumonwo is Professor of Geography at State University of New York at Cortland, and a 2018-19 Carnegie African Diaspora Fellow. She is a recipient of the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship, and the American Association of Geographers Distinguished Teaching Honors. She has been part of the AP Human Geography leadership team and serves on the editorial boards of African Geographical Review, Journal of Geography, The Geography Teacher and WAGADU: Journal of Transnational Women's and Gender Studies. She has authored numerous refereed journal articles and book chapters, co-edited four books on issues of social justice and African studies and is co-editor of Global Perspectives on Gender and Space (Routledge). Ibipo earned her bachelor's degree in Education from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, master's degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and PhD in Geography from Clark University. Apart from her extensively cited research on employment accessibility constraints for women of color in US cities, her chapter on Gender and Development in the widely read Geography of Africa textbook is one of her most influential contributions.

Demetrice “Dee” Jordan is a Dean’s Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She has a dual-doctorate in Geography and Environmental Science and Policy from Michigan State University. Dee’s research focuses on the ecological and environmental determinants of disease risk for vector-borne parasitic illnesses, infectious diseases, and Neglected Tropical Diseases of sub-Saharan Africa. Dee is a recipient of an NIH Loan Repayment Program (LRP) award for health disparities research from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. She is a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) consultant and has developed innovative programs and curricula to promote the principles of DEI in academic and non-profit settings. Dee is the Founder of the Advancing Geography Through Diversity Program (AGTDP) at Michigan State University, which seeks to address the underrepresentation of African American, Latinx American, and Native American in US geography doctoral programs. She developed the Celebrating Black Geographers anthology hosted online by the American Geographical Society.

Gavin Bridge is Professor of Economic Geography at Durham University and a Fellow of the Durham Energy Institute. His research addresses questions of property, access, and control associated with emergent geographies of resource production and consumption, including the political ecologies of resource scarcity and security. Recent work includes research on raw material production networks associated with old and new carbon economies; and a continuing interest in how the materiality of resources shapes their appropriation and capitalisation. He is the author of Oil (Polity, 2017) with P. Le Billon; co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Political Ecology (2015) with T. Perreault and J. McCarthy; and co-author of Energy and Society: A Critical Perspective (Routledge, 2018) with S. Barr, S. Bouzarovski, M. Bradshaw, E. Brown, H. Bulkeley, and G. Walker.

Nick Kelly is a researcher and advocate working on public policy and housing policy, with a particular focus on fair housing and urban politics. In his research, he develops and evaluates new policy tools to address racial inequality in housing.

Nick received my PhD in Public Policy and Urban Planning from the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. He currently serves as a Senior Fellow at the Boston Housing Authority as well as a consultant and advocate on housing issues in Greater Boston and around the country.

Prior to MIT, Nick studied at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs where he received a Master in Public Affairs. He also worked at the New York City Economic Development Corporation, as an aide for Senators Charles Schumer and Elizabeth Warren, and at the National Economic Council at the White House.

Erin Kenney is a senior associate at Mass Economics and data-Fab. Erin is experienced in data analysis and methods using statistical software and conducting analyses at geographic scales ranging from individual neighborhoods to thousands of counties nationwide. Recent work includes the development of new economic data and suppression-resolving estimation methods, which underpin core data-Fab product offerings and support Mass Economics’ myriad consulting work. She is also leading the creation of a nationwide county-level database with over 3,000 variables to create an economic typology of U.S. counties and assess the drivers of health outcomes. At Mass Economics, Erin has contributed to the development of industry-cluster strategies for economic development plans in St. Louis and Memphis, supported the development of a report on the role of corporate anchors in community and economic development, modeled the jobs impact of green stormwater infrastructure policies in Detroit, and assisted in the development of an economic and fiscal impact model for a proposed greenway in St. Louis. Previously, Erin worked as a policy analyst at the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning. She holds a master’s degree in city planning and bachelor’s degree in math from MIT.

Elizabeth Kneebone is the Research Director for the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley. In that role, she provides strategic leadership in designing, managing, and implementing the Center’s research portfolio and agenda. Elizabeth’s research expertise includes the geography of poverty in the United States, and how the built environment, housing, and land use policies shape access to economic opportunity.

Before joining the Center, Elizabeth was a Fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program, where she led the program’s work on urban and suburban poverty and co-authored the book Confronting Suburban Poverty in America. She remains affiliated with Brookings as a Non-Resident Senior Fellow.

Chrystal Kornegay currently serves as Executive Director of MassHousing which lends over $1 billion annually to produce and preserve affordable rental housing and create homeownership opportunities for low- and moderate-income borrowers. Under Chrystal’s leadership, MassHousing launched a highly successful Down Payment Assistance program; secured over $80 million to expand its Workforce Housing initiative; and developed a nationally recognized program for homeownership production in communities of color.

Before joining MassHousing, Chrystal served as the Baker-Polito Administration’s Undersecretary for Housing and Community Development where she successfully advocated to increase state capital dollars for affordable housing by almost 18%; partnered to increase rental subsidies for low income families by 42%; and collaborated to dramatically reduce the number of homeless families in motels.

Prior to her work as Undersecretary, Chrystal was President and Chief Executive Officer at Urban Edge, one of New England’s largest community development corporations. She is credited with leading the organization’s financial transformation, resulting in a $3 million increase in the Agency’s net asset position.

Chrystal serves on the boards of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority, the National Housing Trust, the National Council of State Housing Agencies (NCSHA) and is a member of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston’s Advisory Committee. Chrystal holds a Master’s in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.A. from Hunter College.

Megan leads Headwaters Economics' research in demographic change, public lands, economic development, and outdoor recreation. She is an economist, and uses economic and demographic analysis to better understand the issues communities face. She holds a Ph.D. and Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Colorado and a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Williams College.

Robin Leichenko is Professor of Geography at Rutgers University and co-Director of the Rutgers Climate Institute. Her current research explores the economic and equity impacts of climate change in New York and New Jersey. Leichenko was co-chair of the Community Equity Working Group of the Third New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC), and she is currently serving as co-chair of the Fourth NPCC. Leichenko has authored or co-authored three books and more than 70 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. Her book, Environmental Change and Globalization: Double Exposures, co-authored with Karen O'Brien (2008, Oxford University Press), won the Meridian Book Award for Outstanding Scholarly Contribution from the American Association of Geographers. Her latest book is titled Climate and Society: Transforming the Future (Polity Press, 2019) and is also co-authored with Karen O'Brien.

John Lettieri is Co-Founder, President and CEO of the Economic Innovation Group (EIG), a bipartisan research and public policy organization whose mission is to advance solutions that empower entrepreneurs and investors to forge a more dynamic American economy. John's career in public policy has included time in both the public and private sectors working with a diverse set of policymakers, entrepreneurs, investors, and global business leaders. Prior to EIG, John was the Vice President of Public Policy and Government Affairs for a leading business association, the Organization for International Investment (OFII), where he led the organization's state and federal policy work on such issues as tax reform, trade, investment promotion, and manufacturing. Before joining OFII, John was Director of Public and Government Affairs for a global aerospace manufacturer. He previously served as a foreign policy aide to former U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel, who was then a senior member of the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John is a graduate of Wake Forest University where he studied political science and global commerce.