Winter 2006 Speakers


Feb 3, 9:00 pm: Sarah Dotlich – Africa Program Director, at  IDEX will speak and lead a discussion after the film Darwin's Nightmare, nominated for Best Documentary Award, 2006 and winner of over 15 international awards.
Sarah has worked in the bay area non-profit world for over four years. Prior to joining IDEX, she was the Africa Program Coordinator at Global Exchange (GX), where among many activities she coordinated GX's Reality Tours to South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Tanzania. Part of her work there was to support African NGO's and communities through alternative tourism as well as to educate North Americans on African issues. Prior to her work at GX, she traveled to Kenya as a student at the University of Colorado where she received her BA in Cultural Anthropology. Sarah is a member of the Bay Area-based Priority Africa Network and does advocacy and education work for Haiti through the Haiti Action Committee.

Feb 24, 8:30 pm:  Eugene Cordero, Heidi Melander & Michael Murray will speak and lead a discussion after the three short films - Ecological Footprint, Vanishing Ice, Hidden Life of Garbage - on our impact on the environment.

Eugene Cordero is professor in the Meteorology Department at San Jose State University (SJSU).  His research expertise is in global climate change, atmospheric dynamics and the interactions between ozone depletion and tropospheric climate.  Dr. Cordero's current research is supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and NASA.  At present, he is involved in writing the WMO/UNEP 2006 Ozone assessment report, and is a fellow in the Global Studies Institute at SJSU working to improve the environmental literacy of university students.

Heidi Melander is Board President at the Northern California Recycling Association (NCRA).  NCRA is an association of recycling businesses, community groups, municipalities, and individuals committed to promoting, expanding, and institutionalizing recycling and zero waste.  Heidi's day job is as Senior Associate of Sustainability Planning with the consulting firm of HDR/BVA in San Francisco and is working with her colleague with the City of Palo Alto on developing an operations plan to reach Zero Waste.

Michael Murray is Research Associate at  Global Footprints Network and works on the Network’s Footprinting projects for governments, nonprofits and corporations, in addition to supporting the Research & Standards program. He holds a B.A. from Oberlin College in Environmental Studies, bringing experience with data analysis and environmental performance assessment for green buildings and renewable energy technologies.