Frances Beinecke, Executive Director, Natural Resources Defense Council

Don Chen, Executive Director, Smart Growth America

William Cronon, Frederick Jackson Turner Professor of History, Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Christopher Elliman, Chief Executive Officer, Open Space Institute

Gordon A. Enk, Principal, Partners for Strategic Change

Timothy Fields, Jr., Vice President, DC Operations, Tetra Tech EM, Inc.

Michel Gelobter, Executive Director, Redefining Progress

Charles Halpern, Chair, Center for Contemplative Mind in Society; and Chair, Demos: A Network for Ideas and Action

Wes Jackson, President, The Land Institute

Cathy Koshland, Professor in Engineering, Energy and Resources, and Public Health, University of California, Berkeley

Fred Krupp, Executive Director, Environmental Defense

Penn Loh, Executive Director, Alternatives for Community and Environment

Jonathan Lash, President, World Resources Institute

Peter Lehner, Chief of the Environmental Protection Bureau , New York Attorney General's Office

David Orr, Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics, and Chair, Environmental Studies Program, Oberlin College

Peggy Shepard, Executive Director, West Harlem Environmental Action, Inc

James Gustave Speth, Dean, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies

Suggest a potential candidate for the ELP Advisory Committee!

Frances G. Beinecke is executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), which uses law and science to advance environmental protection in the U.S. and abroad. Ms. Beinecke has been involved with NRDC since 1973, first as an intern, as a resource specialist with the Coastal/Marine program, as the associate director from 1990 to 1998, and now as Executive Director. She has managed NRDC's programs, restructuring and strategic planning process over the last decade. Ms. Beinecke also serves on many boards, including the Yale Corporation, World Resources Institute, and Ethical Culture Fieldston Schools. She has also served as the Board chair of the Wilderness Society and the Adirondack Council.

Don Chen is executive director of Smart Growth America, a nationwide coalition of roughly fifty organizations promoting a better way to grow; one that protects open space and farmland, revitalizes neighborhoods, keeps housing affordable, provides better transportation choices and makes communities more livable. Don has authored many articles and publications including "The Science of Smart Growth" (Scientific American, December 2000), Greetings from Smart Growth America, and Once There Were Greenfields (with Kaid Benfield and Matt Raimi, Natural Resources Defense Council, 1999). He currently co-chairs the Board of the Environmental Leadership Program, serves on the Board of West Harlem Environmental Action, is vice chair of the Congress for the New Urbanism's Transportation Task Force and is an associate member of the Northeast Environmental Justice Network. Prior to Smart Growth America, he was research director at the Surface Transportation Policy Project and was a researcher at the Rocky Mountain Institute and the World Resources Institute.

William Cronon is the Frederick Jackson Turner professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.  He specializes in environmental history and the history of the American West.  Professor Cronon is the author of Nature’s Metropolis (1991) and Changes in the Land (1983).  He edited Uncommon Ground (1995) and co-edited, with George Miles and Jay Gitlin, Under an Open Sky (1992).  Professor Cronon has received a MacArthur Fellowship, Rhodes Scholarship, Bancroft Prize, and the Francis Parkman Prize.  He is currently a director of the Wilderness Society.  He has also served as a director of the Connecticut Fund for the Environment.  At the University of Wisconsin, Professor Cronon heads the L&S Honors Program, Pathways to Excellence Project, and Chadbourne Residential College.

Christopher Elliman is president of the Open Space Institute and past chairman of the Wilderness Society. Mr. Elliman serves on the boards of many corporate, nonprofit, and philanthropic organizations, including the New York League of Conservation Voters, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Adirondack Council, and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.

Gordon Enk is a principal of Partners for Strategic Change (PSC), a consulting organization focused on facilitating a process of effective strategic change by working in partnership with the management teams of client companies and organizations; PSC has a commitment to promote a Sustainable Enterprise focus. Before joining PSC, Mr. Enk served as the Vice President of Strategy and Venture Development at Industra, Inc., and as the Vice President of Strategic Services of H.A. Simons, Ltd. Mr. Enk also served as Director of New Product Development and New Ventures with International Paper Co. and as Director of Economic and Environmental Studies at the Institute of Man and Science. He started his own consulting firm, Gordon A. Enk Associates, and has held professorships at the Schools of Business at the Universities of Michigan, North Carolina and Washington, as well as Michigan's School of Natural Resources, and he served as an adjunct professor at Empire State College. Additionally, Mr. Enk is the Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Center for Sustainable Enterprise at the University of North Carolina and serves on the Board of the Corporate Environmental Management Program at the University of Michigan. Mr. Enk is the author of several books, peer-reviewed articles and numerous technical reports.

Tim Fields is Vice President of DC Operations for Tetra Tech EM, Inc. Previously, Tim was senior vice president at The Marasco Newton Group, Ltd., a firm that provides information management and technology consulting with a focus on environmental and transportation programs. Before Marasco Newton, he was assistant administrator for U.S. EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response (OSWER), a position for which he was nominated by former President Clinton in 1998. At EPA, Mr. Fields was responsible for the national oversight and management of the Superfund, Brownfields, Hazardous and Solid Waste Management, Underground Storage Tanks, Chemical Emergency Preparedness and Prevention, Technology Innovation, Oil Spills Cleanup, and Federal Facilities Site Remediation Programs. Prior to his appointment as assistant administrator for OSWER, Mr. Fields served as Director of EPA's Superfund Revitalization Office, Deputy Director of EPA's Office of Emergency and Remedial Response, Director of EPA's Emergency Response Division, and Deputy Director of the Hazardous Site Control Division (EPA's Superfund Remedial Program). Mr. Fields has received four Presidential Rank Awards, an EPA Silver Medal, three EPA Bronze Medals, and several other awards for outstanding executive performance.

Michel Gelobter is executive director of Redefining Progress, an organization that works with a broad array of partners to shift the economy and public policy towards sustainability. Previously, Dr. Gelobter was a professor in the Graduate Department of Public Administration at Rutgers University, and founded and ran Community/Academic Partnerships for the Environment, a regional research entity spanning New Jersey, New York, and Puerto Rico. Prior to that, Dr. Gelobter started the Environmental Policy Program at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. From 1990 to 1992, Dr. Gelobter was Director of Environmental Quality for the City of New York, and an Assistant Commissioner for its Department of Environmental Protection. Gelobter was a Congressional Black Caucus Fellow and served with the U.S. House of Representatives' Energy and Commerce Committee from 1988-89. Dr. Gelobter presently serves on the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council, the Clean Air Act Federal Advisory Committee, and the Board of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Charles Halpern is chair of the boards of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society and Demos: A Network for Ideas and Action. From 1989-2000, he was the founding president of the Nathan Cummings Foundation. Mr. Halpern was the Founding Dean of the City University of New York Law School at Queens College, a public interest law school with a unique curriculum. Previously, he was a professor at Stanford and Georgetown Law Schools, and was the co-founder of the Center for Law and Social Policy (1969), which undertook important cases in the emerging field of environmental law, including challenges to the domestic use of DDT and the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Also, he was co-founder of the Mental Health Law Project (now the Bazelon Center for Law and Mental Health) (1971), and the Council for Public Interest Law (now the Alliance for Justice) (1976).

Wes Jackson is president of The Land Institute, an innovative research and educational organization dedicated to the search for principles of ecological agriculture. By studying and mimicking the functions of natural systems, The Land Institute seeks to develop agricultural practices that are productive over the long term, economical, and ecologically responsible. Dr. Jackson is the author of numerous papers and books, including Rooted in the Land: Essays on Community and Place (co-edited with William Vitek, 1996); Becoming Native to This Place (1994); Altars of Unhewn Stone (1987); Meeting the Expectations of the Land (edited with Wendell Berry and Bruce Colman, 1984); and, New Roots for Agriculture (1980). Dr. Jackson is a recipient of a Pew Fellow's Award in Conservation and the Environment (1990) and a MacArthur Fellowship (1992).

Cathy Koshland is the Wood-Calvert Professor in Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and Professor in Energy and Resources and in Public Health (Environmental Health Sciences). She teaches engineering, energy and environmental health, emphasizing mechanistic approaches as well as a systems perspective, and researches the intersection of energy, air pollution and environmental (human) health. Prof. Koshland also is a director and Secretary of the Combustion Institute, and serves on the editorial board of Combustion, Science and Technology. She has been a member of the Integrated Human Exposure Committee of the EPA's Science Advisory Board since 2001. Prof. Koshland is Associate Director of the UC Berkeley Superfund Basic Research Program, and Director of Health Effects of Modern Technologies, the Berkeley component of the UC Toxic Substances Research and Teaching Program. She has served on numerous committees at Berkeley, including the Berkeley Campus Strategic Planning Committee from 2000-2002.

Fred Krupp is executive director of Environmental Defense, a national organization that links science, economics and law to create innovative solutions to U.S. and international environmental problems. A member of the President's Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations, Mr. Krupp also serves on the boards of the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment and the National Environmental Education and Training Foundation. He has also been a member of the President's Council on Sustainable Development, National Commission on Superfund, and the President's Commission on Environmental Quality. Prior to joining Environmental Defense, Mr. Krupp spent several years in private law practice in New Haven, during which time he helped found the Connecticut Fund for the Environment.

Jonathan Lash is president of the World Resources Institute (WRI), a position that he has held since 1993.  In addition to his stewardship of WRI, Mr. Lash serves on various national and international committees, including the President's Council on Sustainable Development (co-chair); the Earth Council (U.S. Representative); the Tata Energy and Resources Institute (Advisory Board); the Keidanren Committee on Nature Conservation (International Advisor); the Earth Times newspaper (Advisory Council); and the Dow Chemical Company (Corporate Environmental Advisory Council).  He is also a board member of the Institute for Sustainable Communities and the Keystone Center.  Mr. Lash formerly chaired the National Commission on Superfund, directed the Environmental Law Center at Vermont Law School, and served as Vermont’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and as head of the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources.

Peter Lehner has been the Chief of the Environmental Protection Bureau of the NY Attorney General's Office since 1999. Previously, Mr. Lehner spent five years at the Natural Resources Defense Council, where he was senior attorney and director of the Clean Water Project. From 1985 to 1994, he worked with the New York City Law Department in the Affirmative Litigation and Environmental Law Divisions. He also currently teaches environmental law at Columbia Law School.

Penn Loh is executive director of Alternatives for Community & Environment, a community-based environmental justice law and education center that provides legal and technical assistance, educational programs, and organizing support to groups in low income and people of color neighborhoods throughout greater Boston. Formerly, Penn served as research associate at the Pacific Institute, where he directed a project on California water transfers and developed a new program, Community Strategies for Sustainability and Environmental Justice. Penn co-authored the Pacific Institute's report California Water 2020: A Sustainable Vision.

David Orr currently chairs the Environmental Studies Program at Oberlin College.  He is the author of Earth in Mind (1994), Ecological Literacy (1992) and more than ninety articles.  He is also the co-editor of The Campus and Environmental Responsibility, (with David Eagan, 1992), and The Global Predicament, (with Marvin Soroos, 1979).  Professor Orr is the Education Editor for Conservation Biology and a member of the editorial advisory board of Orion Nature Quarterly.  He is a Trustee of the Educational Foundation of America, the Annenberg Rural Challenge, and the JED Fund.  Professor Orr was awarded a National Conservation Achievement Award by the National Wildlife Federation in 1993, a Lyndhurst Prize in 1992, the Benton Box Award from Clemson University for his work in Environmental Education (1995), and an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Arkansas College in 1990.

Peggy Shepard co-founded the nonprofit West Harlem Environmental Action, Inc. (WE ACT) in 1988 to address environmental quality and justice issues in predominantly African-American and Latino communities in New York City. Ms. Shepard serves on the board of numerous organizations and institutions, including the NIEHS Center for Environmental Health in Harlem at the Columbia University School of Public Health, Bellevue Occupational and Environmental Medicine Clinic, and the North River/ West Harlem Environmental Benefits Program. In addition, Ms. Shepard is a member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's National Environmental Justice Advisory Council and is on the board of the New York League of Conservation Voters. In 1998, she received the Susan B. Anthony Award of the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW). She was also awarded the Life of the City Award from New York Woman magazine and was chosen as one of the People Who Make a Difference by National Wildlife magazine.

James Gustave Speth recently gave up his position as administrator of the United Nations Development Program to become the new dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Mr. Speth founded the World Resources Institute in 1982 and served as its president until 1993. Mr. Speth also previously served as Chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. He has worked as a Senior Attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which he helped found in 1970; law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black; and a professor of environmental and constitutional law at the Georgetown University Law Center.  Among his recent writings are “A Post-Rio Compact,” which appeared in the fall 1992 issue of Foreign Policy.  Mr. Speth is the recipient of a Rhodes Scholarship and has an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Clark University.