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Faculty & Staff

Office: (845) 758-7067
Email: ebangood@bard.edu

Dr. Eban Goodstein

Director, Bard Center for Environmental Policy

B.A. (Geology) Williams College; Ph.D. (Economics) University of Michigan. Goodstein directs two national educational initiatives on global warming: C2C and The National Climate Seminar. In recent years, he has coordinated climate education 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: 2010) now in its sixth edition; Fighting for Love in the Century of Extinction: How Passion and Politics Can Stop Global Warming (University Press of New England: 2007); and The Trade-off Myth: Fact and Fiction about Jobs and the Environment. (Island Press: 1999). 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, and is on the Steering Committee of Economics for Equity & the Environment. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Follett Corporation, and is on the advisory committee for Chevrolet's Clean Energy Initiative.

Phone: 845-758-7386
E-mail: sethi@bard.edu

Gautam Sethi

Associate 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.

Phone: 845-758-7845
E-mail: phillips@bard.edu

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. Previous to joining Bard CEP, 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.

Rebecca T. Barnes

Visiting Assistant Professor, Bard Center for Environmental Policy

B.A. Oberlin College; M.S.E.S. in Water Resources, Indiana University, M.P.A. in Environmental Policy & Natural Resource Management, Indiana University, and Ph.D. in Forestry & Environmental Studies, Yale University. Research is focused on the biogeochemistry and ecology of nitrogen and carbon cycling within watersheds as well as the impact of human activities on these cycles. This work has focused on examining the impacts of a variety of global change drivers (atmospheric deposition, land use change, and warming) on these cycles across a range of ecosystems. Recent projects include: linkages between organic matter quality and nitrogen cycling in streams, the effects of warming on nitrogen cycling in the alpine, and impacts of urbanization on the lateral transport of carbon to tropical and subtropical rivers. Articles in Biogeochemistry, Environmental Science & Technology, Chemical Geology, Ecological Applications, and EOS. Personal Website

Phone: 845.758.7869
E-mail: segarra@bard.edu

Monique Segarra

Assistant Professor
Bard Center for Environmental Policy

B.A., Brandeis University in Political Science; M.I.A., School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University; Ph.D., Comparative Politics and Latin America, Columbia University. Areas of interest include sustainable development, international environmental politics and the increasingly contentious politics surrounding natural resource management in Latin America. Current research focuses on the politics of water reform in Oaxaca, Mexico and comparative analysis of human and environmental rights movements challenging mineral and oil policies of states and multinational corporations in Ecuador, Mexico and Chile. She has published articles in journals such as Latin American Politics and Society, The Journal of Contemporary Sociology, and edited and contributed to The New Politics of Inequality in Latin America. She has a forthcoming chapter on human rights and the environment in Latin America in Human Rights: Challenges of the Past/Challenges for the Future. 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.

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, 2001-2010. Chair, Society for Conservation Biology Education Committee, 2005-2010. Member, Board of Directors, 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).

Office: (845) 758-7302
Email: tafur@bard.edu

Victor M. Tafur

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

J.D., Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Bogotá, Colombia); LL.M. and S.J.D. in Environmental Law, Pace University (New York, USA). Energy and environmental law specialist based in New York, U.S.A. Visiting Professor of Environmental Law, Bard College, Center for Environmental Policy. Adjunct Faculty at Pace Law School. Former Senior Attorney for Riverkeeper, Inc. Previously, served as staff attorney for the Pace Law School's Energy and Climate Center and as Deputy Director Alternative Development Program for the Presidency of Colombia. Admitted to the bar of New York State, USA, and Colombia.

Eric G. Keeling

Forest Ecologist, Education Dept. Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies
Visiting Faculty, Bard Center for Environmental Policy

B.S. Conservation & Resource Studies, University of California, Berkeley. Ph.D. Organismal Biology & Ecology, University of Montana. Post-Doctoral Associate, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. Dr. Keeling’s research interests fall into three distinct but related areas: 1) He studies the effects of wildfire and climate on plant biodiversity, the physiology of trees, and the structure of forests. This research has been in old-growth ponderosa pine forests in Montana and Idaho. 2) He is working with collaborators across a network of US sites to assess and improve public environmental literacy in the important topics of carbon cycling and climate change. 3) He is interested in the role of ecological science in the sustainable management of ecosystems, from urban systems to protected wildlands.

Edmond A. Mathez

Curator, American Museum of Natural History
Visiting Faculty, Bard Center for Environmental Policy

B.A. (geology) Franklin and Marshall College; M.S. (geology) University of Arizona; Ph.D. (geology) University of Washington; Curator and Professor, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, American Museum of Natural History. Mathez is an igneous petrology/geochemistry. His research has focused on mafic layered intrusions, behavior of volatiles in igneous systems, thermodynamics of sulfide systems, geochemistry of platinum group elements, and geochemistry of carbon. He has conducted field work in numerous parts of the world, including South Africa, Greenland, Canada, and the American west and taken part in several research cruises in exploration of the ocean basins. He served as chief curator of AMNH’s Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth, a permanent exhibit that opened in 1999 and for which he and his colleagues received the 2002 American Geophysical Union Excellence in Geophysical Education Award. He also co-curated the traveling exhibit Climate Change: The Threat to Life and a New Energy Future, which has and will appear in a number of other national and international venues. He is author of Climate Change: The Science of Global Warming and Our Energy Future (Columbia University Press, 2009) and co-author of The Earth Machine: The Science of a Dynamic Planet (Columbia University Press, 2004). Mathez teaches climate science at the Bard Center for Environmental Policy.

More Information

Office: (845) 758-7348
Email: ramaley@bard.edu

Caroline Ramaley

Academic Support Associate, Bard Center for Environmental Policy

B.A., summa cum laude, Middlebury College; Ph.D., University of Virginia. Teaches graduate students to write clearly, persuasively, and reflectively for academic and lay readers. Taught basic and advanced composition, Shakespeare, and 18th- and 19th-century British literature at University of Virginia. Former assistant to the director of the UVA Science and Engineering Libraries. Currently also affiliated with Bard's Master of Arts in Teaching Program.

Office: (845) 758-7232
Email: eshel@bard.edu

Gidon Eshel

Professor, Bard Center for Environmental Policy
Bard Center Fellow in Environmental Studies

Gidon Eshel Bard Center Fellow in Environmental Science. B.A., Haifa University/Technion, Israel; M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D., Columbia University. Specializes in oceanography, climatology, geophysics. Fellow, Center for Earth and Planetary Physics, Harvard (1996-98); assistant scientist, Physical Oceanography, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (1998–99); assistant professor, Dept. of geophysics, University of Chicago (1999–07); senior Fellow, Center for Environmental Science, the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory (2002–07); principal investigator, Center for Integrating Statistical and Environmental Science, University of Chicago (2001–03). Author, Geophysical Data Analysis (Princeton University Press, 2010) and many papers in Earth Interactions, Monthly Weather Review, Journal of Climate, Nature, Journal of Geophysical Research, Journal of Physical Oceanography, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Environmental Science and technology, Paleoceanography, Journal of Biogeography, Geochemistry, Geophyscs and Geosystems, Water, Air and Soil Pollution, Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Israel Journal of Earth Sciences, Global Biogeochemical Cycles, Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, and PLos Genetics . (2008– ) Bard Center Fellow in Environmental Sciences.

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Phone: 845-758-7321
E-mail: ranville@bard.edu

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, the examination of industrial emissions to the atmosphere and aquatic systems, and the policy implications of crossborder transport of pollution. Recent work includes development of a baseline water-quality study in support of a payment of watershed services scheme in Oaxaca, Mexico, and participation in a UNESCO-sponsored contaminant survey of the North Pacific Ocean. Governmental experience includes work with the U.S. Geological Survey and Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Member, Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences. (2005- ) Assistant Professor of Environmental Science.

Elizabeth Smith

Visiting associate professor of theater, Bard College

Voice and speech consultant for film, television, regional theater, Broadway, and Off-Broadway productions, including As You Like It, Road to Moscow, Henry IV, Engaged, Sight Unseen, and, at Glimmerglass Opera Company, Death in Venice, Patience, and Mines of Sulphur. Trains students in the art of public speaking and the development of an effective, cogent public speaking persona. Has taught at Yale School of Drama, Vassar College, Juilliard School, Fordham University, National Theater Institute, Gaiety School of Acting (Dublin, Ireland), Moscow Art Theatre School, and Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (London). Recipient, John Houseman Award (1996).

Susan Winchell-Sweeney

Course Tutor, Tools For Analysis — Geographic Information Systems(provides instructional support for professor Mark G. Becker and BCEP students)

An archaeologist by education and training, Winchell-Sweeney's area of expertise is the application of geospatial technologies in archaeological research and cartography. She has over a decade of experience providing GIS analysis, GPS and cartographic services for archaeological projects and has worked for private individuals, non-profit organizations, New York State and the federal government.

Winchell-Sweeney is currently a technician in the Department of Anthropology at the New York State Museum.

Phone: 845-758-7085
E-mail: jofrench@bard.edu

Josephine French

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

Phone: 845-758-7071
E-mail: mwilliam@bard.edu

Molly Williams

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.

Dr. Eban Goodstein

Gautam Sethi

Jennifer G. Phillips

Rebecca T. Barnes

Monique Segarra

Mark G. Becker

Eleanor J. Sterling

Victor M. Tafur

Gidon Eshel

Susan Winchell-Sweeney

Josephine French

Molly Williams

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Faculty & Staff

Dr. Eban Goodstein

Director, Bard Center for Environmental Policy

Gautam Sethi

Associate ProfessorBard Center for Environmental Policy

Jennifer G. Phillips

Assistant Professor Bard Center for Environmental Policy

Rebecca T. Barnes

Monique Segarra

Assistant ProfessorBard Center for Environmental Policy

Mark G. Becker

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

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; andVisiting Faculty, Bard Center for Environmental Policy

Victor M. Tafur

Adjunct Faculty, Pace Law School; andVisiting Faculty, Bard Center for Environmental PolicyBard Center for Environmental Policy

Eric G. Keeling

Forest Ecologist, Education Dept. Cary Institute of Ecosystem StudiesVisiting Faculty, Bard Center for Environmental Policy

Edmond A. Mathez

Curator, American Museum of Natural HistoryVisiting Faculty, Bard Center for Environmental Policy

Caroline Ramaley

Academic Support Associate, Bard Center for Environmental Policy

Gidon Eshel

Professor, Bard Center for Environmental PolicyBard Center Fellow in Environmental Studies

Mara A. Ranville

Assistant Professor Bard Center for Environmental Policy

Elizabeth Smith

Visiting associate professor of theater, Bard College

Susan Winchell-Sweeney

Course Tutor, Tools For Analysis — Geographic Information Systems(provides instructional support for professor Mark G. Becker and BCEP students)

Josephine French

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

Molly Williams

Admissions Coordinator — Responsible for Admissions, Marketing and Program Recruitment

Associate Professor
Bard Center for Environmental Policy

Assistant Professor
Bard Center for Environmental Policy

Assistant Professor
Bard Center for Environmental Policy

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

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

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

Forest Ecologist, Education Dept. Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies
Visiting Faculty, Bard Center for Environmental Policy

Curator, American Museum of Natural History
Visiting Faculty, Bard Center for Environmental Policy

Professor, Bard Center for Environmental Policy
Bard Center Fellow in Environmental Studies

Assistant Professor
Bard Center for Environmental Policy