Core Faculty & Staff

Dr. Eban Goodstein

Director, Bard Center for Environmental Policy;
Director, The National Teach-In

B.A., Williams College; Ph.D., University of Michigan. Prior to Directing the Bard Center for Environmental Policy, Goodstein had a 20-year career as a Professor of Economics at Lewis & Clark and Skidmore Colleges. From 2006-2009, Goodstein led the National teach-In on Global Warming Solutions, coordinating educational events at over 2500 colleges, universities, high schools and other institutions across the country. Goodstein is the author of a college textbook, Economics and the Environment, (John Wiley and Sons: 2007) now in its fifth edition, as well as The Trade-off Myth: Fact and Fiction about Jobs and the Environment. (Island Press: 1999). His most recent book is Fighting for Love in the Century of Extinction: How Passion and Politics Can Stop Global Warming (University Press of New England: 2007). Articles by Goodstein have appeared in among other outlets, The Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Land Economics, Ecological Economics, and Environmental Management. His research has been featured in The New York Times, Scientific American, Time, Chemical and Engineering News, The Economist, USA Today, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. He serves on the editorial board of Sustainability: The Journal of Record, and Environment, Workplace and Employment, is on the Steering Committee of Economics for Equity & the Environment, and is a Member Scholar at the Center for Progressive Reform.

Jennifer G. Phillips

Assistant Professor
Bard Center for Environmental Policy

B.S., Hunter College; M.S., Ph.D. in Soil, Crop, and Atmosphere Science, Cornell University. International Research Institute for Climate Prediction, Columbia University. Previous to joining BCEP, she was a researcher at the International Research Institute for Climate Prediction, Columbia University, and NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Expertise in the impact of climate change and variability on farming systems, communication and perception of climate information for farm management, and sustainable farming systems. After eight years of research in eastern and southern Africa, she worked with farmers in eastern New York State on climate risk management, adaptation to climate change, and sustainability in the face of extreme climate events. Current interests include pasture-based livestock systems, carbon storage and management in agroecosystems, and rhizosphere processes. Articles in Agricultural Systems, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, Climatology, and International Journal of Climatology; and several book chapters.

Mara A. Ranville

Assistant Professor
Bard Center for Environmental Policy

B.A., Macalester College (cum laude); Ph.D., University of California, Santa Cruz. Research interests focus on the biogeochemical cycling of contaminants in the environment, and include examining industrial emissions to the atmosphere and aquatic systems, the policy implications of crossborder transport of pollution, and environmental problems associated with economic geology. Recent fieldwork includes participation in a UNESCO-sponsored contaminant survey of the North Pacific Ocean, annual water-quality cruises in San Francisco Bay, and investigations of acid mine drainage in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Governmental experience includes work with the U.S. Geological Survey and Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Five years of teaching and mentoring at the University of California, Santa Cruz in the environmental toxicology and earth science departments. Articles in Applied Geochemistry, G-cubed (Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems), and Marine Chemistry. Member, American Geophysical Union and Northern California Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. Member, BCEP Graduate Committee.

Monique Segarra

Visiting Faculty
Bard Center for Environmental Policy

B.A., Brandeis University; M.I.A., School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University; Ph.D., Columbia University. Areas of interest include politics of sustainable development, participatory environmental management, international environmental regimes, transboundary citizen networks, and policy analysis. Current research focuses on the role of international organizations in shaping domestic environmental policy in Latin America. Completing a yearlong project examining several cases of transnational policy making in Ecuador including a World Bank/Global Environment Facility project to promote a new system of participatory management in the Biodiversity and Protected Areas Program (SNAP); the struggle by local communities and their transnational allies to prevent mining in the midst of a cloud-forest preserve; and the mobilization of a national indigenous movement around "ethno-environmentalism." In addition to research and teaching, she has worked with a range of international development and research institutions including the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program, and the Council on Foreign Relations and the Social Science Research Council. Member, BCEP Graduate Committee.

Gautam Sethi

Assistant Professor
Bard Center for Environmental Policy

B.A., University of Delhi; M.A., Delhi School of Economics; M. Phil., Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, master's thesis on the conflicts between utilitarianism and libertarianism; Fellow, University of Texas, Austin; Ph. D., University of California, Berkeley (Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award). Research interests include natural resources and environmental economics, applied microeconomics, game theory, philosophy of economics, and history of economic thought. Worked in India on energy-economy-environment linkages and associated policy issues. Doctoral work focused on fishery management under uncertainty. Designed and taught a Rethinking Economics course at the University of California, Berkeley. Author, working papers of climate change policy impacts at Redefining Progress, San Francisco, and a companion volume to Jeffrey Perloff's Microeconomics; article in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. Presented research talks at academic institutions (Binghamton University, University of California-Santa Barbara), research institutes (Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, Tata Energy Research Institute, India), policy forums (OECD workshop, Oaxaca, Mexico), and numerous professional society meetings. Currently working on issues related to wind energy, payments for ecosystem services, sustainable livelihoods, and education policy. Member, BCEP Graduate Committee.

Victor M. Tafur

Senior Attorney, Riverkeeper;
Adjunct Faculty, Pace Law School; and
Visiting Faculty, Bard Center for Environmental Policy
Bard Center for Environmental Policy

J.D., Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Bogota, Colombia); LL.M. and S.J.D. in Environmental Law, Pace University. Adjunct professor of energy, natural resources, and climate change law at Pace Law School, and former staff attorney for the Pace Law School's Energy Project. Currently senior attorney, and formerly staff attorney, for Riverkeeper. Previously served as deputy director of the Program for Alternative Development for the presidency of Colombia, and in private practice. Admitted to the bar of New York State and Colombia. Contributing editor to a recent book by the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law, through Cambridge University Press. Articles in the Pace Environmental Law Review and Environmental Law Reporter.

Mark G. Becker

Associate Director for Geospatial Applications, CEISIN, Earth Institute Columbia University; and
Visiting Faculty, Bard Center for Environmental Policy

B.A., William Paterson University; M.A., Hunter College. Mr. Becker is the Associate Director of the Geospatial Applications Division for the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) of Columbia University's Earth Institute. In this role he is responsible for the development of geographic information systems (GIS) applications for education, disaster mitigation, and public health research and overseeing project budgets and managing CIESIN's staff of GIS and remote-sensing specialists. Past projects include an online education course in environmental sustainability, development of an online mapping application for monitoring and evaluating AIDS clinics in Africa, GIS assistance to Bogazici University in Turkey for earthquake mitigation, and GIS activities for Metropolitan East Coast Climate Assessment. Mr. Becker also holds an appointment as adjunct professor at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and is an authorized ESRI instructor conducting GIS training seminars for students and professors throughout the New York metropolitan area. Since 2000, Mr. Becker has served as a Trustee on the Meadowlands Conservation Trust. He is the founder of NorthStar Mapping, a GIS and global positioning systems consulting group assisting local government and educators and Co-Director since 1988 of Bergen SWAN, a community-based watershed association.

Eleanor J. Sterling

Director, Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, American Museum of Natural History;
Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology, Columbia University; and
Visiting Faculty, Bard Center for Environmental Policy

B.A., Yale College; Ph.D., Yale University. Director, Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, American Museum of Natural History. Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology, Columbia University. Developed the Network of Conservation Educators and Practitioners, targeting conservation biology educators in developing countries, including Bolivia, Vietnam, Mexico, and Madagascar. Member, board of governors, Society for Conservation Biology. Member, board of directors and Management Committee, Center for Environmental Research and Conservation. Fieldwork includes studying distribution patterns of biodiversity in tropical regions as well as sea turtle feeding ecology in the central Pacific. Considered world authority on the aye-aye, a nocturnal lemur found only in Madagascar. Author, Vietnam: A Natural History (Yale University Press, 2006).

Molly Williams '08

Admissions Coordinator — Responsible for Admissions, Marketing and Program Recruitment

B.S., Smith College; M.S., Environmental Policy, Bard College. Current interests include local environmental initiatives, land use planning and biodiversity conservation.

Josephine French

- Program Administrator and Assistant to the Director, Responsible for Office Management, Student Affairs, Budget and Curriculum Support.