Dr. William Bird, MBE has been creating innovative ways to get people moving since 1996. William is a family GP who founded Intelligent Health to provide ways to integrate physical activity into health and wellbeing. From green gyms and GP training to whole city physical activity strategies William is the expert in the benefits of physical activity and how to get people involved. A member of the Physical Activity Strategy board for Public Health England and an advisor to WHO and the Public Health Wales. He is co-editor of the Oxford Textbook of Nature and Public Health and board member to the Parks Alliance. In 2009 The Independent on Sunday even voted him as one of the top people in the UK to make people happy!

Dr. Jason Vargo came to the University of Wisconsin Nelson Institute Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE) from Atlanta, GA. He is a fellow with SAGE and the Global Health Institute, working with Dr. Jonathan Patz on issues related to urbanization and health. Jason’s work has examined the influences of the built environment on healthy behaviors among residents in Bogotá, Colombia and the US. Most recently, he investigated the potential for urban planning and design to manage

Dr. Michelle Bell investigates how human health is affected by atmospheric systems, including air pollution and weather. Much of this work is based in epidemiology, biostatistics, and environmental engineering. The research is designed to be policy-relevant and contribute to well-informed decision-making to better protect human health. She is a Professor of Environmental Health at the Yale University Studies, with secondary appointments at the Yale School of Public Health, Department of Environmental Health Sciences and the Yale School of Engineering and Applied Science, Environmental Engineering Program. She is the recipient of the Prince Albert II de Monaco / Institut Pasteur Award, Rosenblith New Investigator Award, and the NIH Outstanding New Environmental Scientist (ONES) Award.

Dr. Kristie L. Ebi is a Professor in the Department of Global Health, University of Washington; a Guest Professor at Umea University, Sweden; and Consulting Professor at Stanford University and George Washington University. She conducts research on the impacts of and adaptation to climate change, including on extreme events, thermal stress, foodborne safety and security, waterborne diseases, and vector-borne diseases. Her work focuses on understanding sources of vulnerability and designing adaptation policies and measures to reduce the risks of climate change in a multi-stressor environment. She has worked on assessing vulnerability and implementing adaptation measures in Central America, Europe, Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and the US. She is co-chair with Tom Kram (PBL, The Netherlands) of the International Committee On New Integrated Climate change assessment Scenarios (ICONICS), facilitating development of new climate change scenarios. She was Executive Director of the IPCC Working Group II Technical Support Unit from 2009 -2012. She was a coordinating lead author or lead author for the human health assessment for two US national assessments, the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, and the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development. Dr. Ebi’s scientific training includes an M.S. in toxicology and a Ph.D. and a Masters of Public Health in epidemiology, and postgraduate research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She edited fours books on aspects of climate change and published more than 150 papers.

Dr. Xuhui Lee researches the states and principles that govern the exchanges of radiation, heat, water, and trace gases between vegetation and the atmosphere. His areas of interest include forest meteorology, boundary-layer meteorology, air quality, micrometeorological instrumentation, and remote sensing. His current research projects focus on surface-air exchange in nonideal conditions, the dynamics of air motion in vegetation, forest-water relations using isotopes, carbon sequestration by terrestrial ecosystems, and mercury emission to the atmosphere.

Bradford S. Gentry is the Associate Dean for Professional Practice at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and a Professor in the Practice at the Yale School of Management. He is also the Director of the Center for Business and the Environment, as well as of the Program on Strategies for the Future of Land Conservation. Trained as a biologist and a lawyer, his work focuses on strengthening the links between private investment and improved environmental performance. He has worked on land, water, energy, industrial and other projects in over 40 countries for private (GE, Suez Environnement), public (UNDP, World Bank, Secretariat for the Climate Change Convention) and not-for-profit (Land Trust Alliance, The Trust for Public Land) organizations. His teaching includes multi-disciplinary courses on the management of complex resource systems, including the emerging markets for ecosystem services. He holds a BA from Swarthmore College and a JD from Harvard Law School.

Dr. Gary E. Machlis is Professor of Environmental Sustainability at Clemson University and Former Science Advisor to the Director, U.S. National Park Service (NPS). He was the first scientist appointed to this position within the NPS, and advised the director on a range of science policy issues and programs. Dr. Machlis also served as co-Leader of the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Strategic Sciences Group, which conducts scientific assessments during major environmental crises. Dr. Machlis previously served as Professor of Conservation and Interim Associate Vice President for Research at the University of Idaho, and been a visiting professor at Nanjing Technological College in China and at Yale University. Dr. Machlis received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Washington in Seattle, and his Ph.D. in human ecology from Yale. He has written numerous books and scientific papers on issues of conservation and sustainability, including The State of the World’s Parks (1985), the
first systematic study of threats to protected areas around the world and Warfare Ecology: A New Synthesis for Peace and Security, was published by Springer in 2011. His research has been published in journals as varied as Bioscience, Climatic Change, Conservation Biology, Society and Natural Resources, and Science.

Rue Mapp, a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, was inspired by her study of the artistic representation of the American forests. She is also a successful entrepreneur whose game and hobby store start-up (It’s Your Move) remains an important part of the Oakland community. In 2010, Rue was honored to be invited to the White House to participate in the America’s Great Outdoors Conference where President Obama signed an historic memorandum to help reconnect all Americans to the Great Outdoors, and was invited back to take part in a think-tank to inform the launch of the First Lady’s Let’s Move initiative. She was also appointed program officer at the Stewardship Council’s Foundation for Youth Investment where she served for two years to manage its grantmaking program. Rue was named a Hero in Backpacker Magazine, honored as part of the Root 100 of the top black achievers and influencers for 2012, and received the Josephine and Frank Dunaneck award for her humanitarian efforts.

Catherine Nagel has served as Executive Director of City Parks Alliance since 2004. City Parks Alliance (CPA) is the only independent, nationwide membership organization solely dedicated to urban parks, and is based in Washington, D.C. Since joining CPA in 2004, Catherine has created a national advocacy campaign to increase federal funding for urban parks; developed a suite of community capacity building programs to strengthen local park stewardship; designed a training program on public private partnerships; and established the bi-ennial Greater & Greener international urban parks conference as the premier event for park leaders. CPA also facilitated the Red Fields to Green Fields project, a national research effort with Georgia Tech to convert distressed commercial real estate into productive urban green space. In December 2013 CPA launched a bi-partisan Mayors for Parks coalition to support reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree, Bucknell University; a Master’s degree in Landscape Architecture, University of Pennsylvania School of Design; and completed the Executive Program for Non-Profit Leaders, Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Professor Wargo’s research explores threats to human health posed by environmental hazards, including exposures to pesticides, vehicle emissions, toxins in foods, plastics, flame-retardants, metals, and chemicals released outdoors and indoors.  Current research examines environmental and health challenges associated with the global food system. He authored Green Intelligence winning the Independent Publishers Gold Medal in Environment, Ecology and Nature; Scientific American Favorite Science Book of 2010; and the Connecticut Book Award for Non-Fiction. Our Children’s Toxic Legacy, published by Yale Press won the American Publishers’ Association Prize as the best Book in Political Science. He has testified before U.S. Senate and House Committees recommending legal strategies to protect children from environmental hazards, and has been an advisor to the Senate Committee on Health, the Vice President’s office, several EPA administrators, and the Secretary of Agriculture. He has been a member of EPA’s Scientific Advisory Panel/Board on Pesticides, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s scientific panels, advisor to the U.N.’s World Health Organization, and Food and Agriculture Organization on malaria control, food safety, and pesticide control standards.  His analyses were the basis of two National Academy of Sciences Press books on chemical hazards in food. His course, Environmental Politics and Law and its 24 lecturers are freely accessible in video and translated into 50 languages on the website Open Yale, translated into 50 languages. He chairs the Yale College Environmental Studies Major, and has chaired Yale College’s Curriculum Committee. He received his PhD from Yale. He helped guide faculty searches and curriculum development at Yale-NUS College in Singapore.  

Dr. Mary Northridge, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Health Promotion at the New York University College of Dentistry. She also holds a part-time appointment as a Professor of Clinical Sociomedical Sciences (in Dental Medicine) at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and the College of Dental Medicine. Professor Northridge was re-appointed as editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Public Health for her eighth term in July 2014. She has enduring interests in social and environmental determinants of health, including oral health, and a current focus in the utility of systems science to integrate and sustain holistic health and health care. She is currently funded by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research and the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research of the US National Institutes of Health on a collaborative R01 among researchers and practitioners at the University at Buffalo, Columbia University, and New York University (Lead PI: Northridge), as well as several local participatory projects related to systems science, dissemination and implementation science, and oral public health. Professor Northridge earned a BA in chemistry with a specialty in biochemistry at the University of Virginia, an MPH in environmental health at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey/Rutgers University, and a PhD in epidemiology at Columbia University. Upon the completion of a post-doctoral fellowship in cancer epidemiology at the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute in Piscataway, NJ, Professor Northridge continued her academic career at the Harlem Health Promotion Center of Columbia University, where her research and practice projects addressed the elimination of social disparities in health through community-based participatory research for more than two decades. Professor Northridge is the author of over 170 scientific papers and the co-editor of 2 volumes.