Expert Voices on Food, Water, and Climate Change
Here’s a list of experts available for comment along with their contact details.
The following experts on various food- and water-related subjects are available for comment/interview by media. Thanks to CCNow institutional partners at the Scholars Strategy Network, Boston University, MontClair State University, and the Cornell Alliance for Science.
Note that this is a living document, please do let us know if you know of any more experts who should be added to this list by emailing us at editors@coveringclimatenow.org.
Marc F. Bellemare, professor of applied economics, University of Minnesota
Bellemare is an economist whose research focuses on international development, agriculture, and food policy. He has also presented his research on food prices to the Committee on Assessing the Impacts of Climate Change on Social and Political Stresses of the National Research Council.
Subjects: Sustainable farming, climate change induced crop failure, indigenous farming practices, diets and food culture, farming subsidies, global food systems and supply chains
Contact: marc.bellemare@gmail.com; 651-999-9472
Location: Minnesota, USA
Michael Haedicke, associate professor of sociology, University of Maine
Haedicke’s research focuses on food systems, labor issues, and environmental sustainability. Overarching themes in Haedicke’s writings include the tensions between alternative and mainstream agriculture, the experiences of farmworkers and other vulnerable laborers in food systems, and the challenges of climate change adaptation.
Subjects: Farming subsidies, migrant farm labor and the H2-A visa program, inequalities in agriculture
Contact: michael.haedicke@maine.edu; 734-255-5463
Location: Maine, USA
Magaly Koch, research associate professor, Boston University
Koch is a geologist and expert in groundwater resources and environmental change of arid lands. She studies the human impact in environmental changes, flash floods, and specializes in the application of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems.
Subjects: Geology and hydrology of arid lands, coastal environmental change, natural hazards
Contact: mkoch@bu.edu; 617-353-7302
Location: Massachusetts, USA
Pankaj Lal, associate professor of earth and environmental studies, Montclair State University & director of the Clean Energy and Sustainability Analytics Center
Lal is an expert on climate change, environmental politics and policy, resource management and conservation, and economic modeling. His ongoing research projects involve aspects of clean energy, water, natural resources, and economies that collectively impact communities around the world.
Subjects: Climate change, environmental politics, environmental policy, energy geography
Contact: lalp@montclair.edu; 540-449-9153
Location: New Jersey, USA
Michael Leviton, chef, author, and educator, Boston University
Leviton is an early proponent of sustainable food systems and eight-time James Beard Foundation Award nominee. As a founder of Region Foodworks and through his work with Marlo Marketing, Leviton is now expanding his reach by focusing his time on projects and partnerships that demonstrate the promise of broadening food systems sustainability.
Subjects: Food systems sustainability, fisheries
Contact: foodwine@bu.edu; 617-758-4444
Location: Massachusetts, USA
Lindsey Locks, assistant professor, Department of Health Sciences
Locks is an expert in global health who works with NGOs, academic institutions and UN agencies in global health research, programs, and policy.
Subjects: Nutrition, global health, epidemiology
Contact: lmlocks@bu.edu; 617-353-2710
Location: Massachusetts, USA
Mark Lynas, research director, Cornell Alliance for Science
Lynas is the author of several books on the environment, including High Tide, Six Degrees, The God Species, Nuclear 2.0, and Seeds of Science. Lynas was also climate change advisor to President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives between 2009 and 2011.
Subjects: Environmentalism, climate change, GMO’s, biotechnology, nuclear power
Contact: marklynas36@gmail.com
Location: New York, USA
Anthony Moffa, associate professor of law, University of Maine
Moffa’s research and writing focuses on the legal tools available to combat the policy challenge of global climate change, drawing on the fields of environmental law, administrative law, criminal law, property law, and international law.
Subjects: Sustainable farming practices, ocean acidification and impact on fisheries, climate change induced crop failure, farming subsidies
Contact: anthony.moffa@maine.edu; 609-238-5184
Location: Maine, USA
Sarah Phillips, associate professor of history, Boston University
Phillips combines the study of politics and public policy with histories of environmental and agricultural change.
Subjects: Environmental history, antebellum reform, transatlantic agricultural developments, the interwar economy, state-level conservation and environmental policy
Contact: sarahphi@bu.edu; 617-353-9914
Location: Massachusetts, USA
Adam Sheingate, professor of political science, Johns Hopkins University
Sheingate teaches courses on American politics and institutions, including a popular seminar on the politics of food. He is the author of the Rise of the Agricultural Welfare State: Institutions and Interest Group Power in the United States, France, and Japan, as well as journal articles and book chapters on American political development, historical institutionalism, and comparative public policy.
Subject: Farming subsidies
Contact: adam.sheingate@jhu.edu
Location: Maryland, USA
Priya Shukla, PhD student in ecology, University of California-Davis
Shukla’s research focuses on the effects of climate change on the coastal ocean, including coastal habitats and marine aquaculture.
Subject: Ocean acidification and impact on fisheries
Contact: pshukla@ucdavis.edu; 530-219-1525
Location: California, USA
Benjamin Siegel, associate professor of history, Boston University
Siegel is a historian whose transnational archival work places South Asia at the center of global economic, environmental, and political transformations. His first book, Hungry Nation: Food, Famine, and the Making of Modern India, interrogated the ways in which questions of food and scarcity structured Indian citizens’ understanding of welfare and citizenship since independence
Subjects: Modern South Asia, environmental history, agricultural history, history of medicine and the body
Contact: siegelb@bu.edu; 617-353-8316
Location: Massachusetts, USA