North America

 

Hon. Sharon E. Burke
Ecospherics

Honorable Sharon E. Burke is the Founder and President of Ecospherics, a research and advisory firm working towards better governance and sustainability strategies for energy insecurity, water stress, mineral exploitation, biodiversity loss, climate change, and human security. Previously, she directed the Resource Security Group at New America, a non-partisan, non-profit think tank in Washington, DC. She has served in a number of senior positions in the U.S. government, including s the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Operational Energy from 2010 to 2014. Her work with non-governmental organizations includes a stint as the Vice President of the Center for a New American Security and an Advocacy Director at Amnesty International USA. Burke blogs, tweets, publishes, and serves on a number of advisory boards, including for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Geoff Dabelko
Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs, Ohio University & Woodrow Wilson Center

Geoff Dabelko is Professor and Associate Dean in the Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs at Ohio University and is senior advisor to the Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP) at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center. From 1997-2012, Geoff served as ECSP director, working with policymakers, practitioners, and scholars grappling with the complex connections among environment, climate, development, conflict, and security. His current research focuses on environmental peacebuilding and the conflict potential of climate change mitigation and adaptation. He was a Lead Author of the "Human Security" chapter in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 5th Assessment and is a member of the UN Environment Programme's Expert Advisory Group on Environment, Conflict, and Peacebuilding. He co-edited with Ken Conca Environmental Peacemaking and Green Planet Blues: Critical Perspectives on Global Environmental Politics.

© UNU-CPR

Adam Day
UNU-CPR

Adam Day is the Director of Programmes at the UN University Centre for Policy Research. Prior to UNU, he served for a decade in UN peace operations, including in Darfur, the Middle East, and as the Senior Political Advisor to the UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He currently oversees research programming on conflict prevention, peace operations, climate-security, and rule of law. He is the lead author of Conflict Prevention in an Era of Climate Change: Adapting the UN to Climate-Security Risks, and co-author of What can the UN Security Council do on Climate and Security? Adam is an adjunct associate professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. He holds Masters degrees from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Brown University, a juris doctorate from UC Berkeley School of Law, and a PhD from King’s College London.

CSEN publications:

© Wilson Center

Marisol Maddox
Polar Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Marisol Maddox is an Arctic analyst at the Polar Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. Her research considers the security implications of an opening Arctic with a focus on emerging actorless threats, such as climate change and biodiversity loss, and the ways they influence security strategy, geopolitical dynamics, and the broader threat environment. Maddox spent over a decade studying ecology, organic regenerative agriculture, and resilient systems, and now combines that background with the security field to foster policies that focus on long-term stability. Maddox is additionally a non-resident research fellow at the Center for Climate & Security, a member of the 2021 cohort of the Newport Arctic Scholars Initiative at the U.S. Naval War College, and a member of the NextGen Foreign Policy Initiative of Foreign Policy for America. She is the author of the CSEN Risk Brief on the Arctic and discussed the findings in the Climate Diplomac Podcast "What happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic" as well as in another podcast episode "Climate Security around the world: examples of locally informed Solutions".

CSEN publications:

Podcasts: