Judges
Scott Barrett
Lenfest-Earth Institute Professor of Natural Resource Economics, School of International and Public Affairs
Scott Barrett is a leading scholar on transnational and global challenges, ranging from climate change to disease eradication. His research focuses on how institutions like norms, customary law, resolutions, and treaties can be used to promote international cooperation.
He has advised a number of international organizations, including the United Nations, the World Bank, the OECD, the European Commission, and the International Task Force on Global Public Goods. He was previously a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and a member of the Academic Panel to the Department of Environment in the UK.
Barrett previously taught at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC, where he also directed the International Policy program. Before that, he was on the faculty of the London Business School. He has also been a visiting scholar at Yale.
Barrett is a research fellow with the Beijer Institute (Stockholm), CESifo (Munich), and the Kiel Institute of World Economics.
Jason Bordoff
Professor of Professional Practice, School of International and Public Affairs
Director, Center on Global Energy Policy
Jason Bordoff joined the Columbia faculty after serving until January 2013 as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Energy and Climate Change on the Staff of the National Security Council, and, prior to that, holding senior policy positions on the White House’s National Economic Council and Council on Environmental Quality. One of the world’s top energy policy experts, he joined the Administration in April 2009. Bordoff’s research and policy interests lie at the intersection of economics, energy, environment, and national security.
Prior to joining the White House, Bordoff was the Policy Director of the Hamilton Project, an economic policy initiative housed at the Brookings Institution. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the National Petroleum Council, a consultant to the National Intelligence Council, and serves on the board of the New York Energy Forum as well as the Association of Marshall Scholars. During the Clinton Administration, Bordoff served as an advisor to the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department. He was also a consultant with McKinsey & Company, one of the leading global strategy consultancies.
Michael Gerrard
Director, Sabin Center for Climate Change Law
Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice, Columbia Law School
A world-renowned expert, Michael Gerrard has practiced environmental law in New York City since 1979. Formerly the managing partner of the New York office of Arnold & Porter LLP, he has taught environmental law as a member of the adjunct faculties of Columbia and NYU Law Schools and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
Gerrard is the most prolific writer on environmental law in the United States. He has written or edited seven books in the field, two of which were named best law book of the year by the American Association of Publishers–Environmental Law Practice Guide and Brownfields Law and Practice.
Additionally, Gerrard was the chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of Environment, Energy and Resources. He has also chaired the Executive Committee of the New York City Bar Association, and the Environmental Law Section of the New York State Bar Association.
Gerrard has an almost unique ability to bridge the public interest and corporate worlds. His law practice has largely involved helping large corporations and real estate developers comply with, and in many cases surpass, the requirements of the environmental laws. But he is so highly regarded by the environmental community that he was one of the two winners of the 2007 Advocate Award from Environmental Advocates of New York.
Patrick Kinney
Professor of Environmental Health Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health
Director, Columbia Climate and Health Program
Dr. Patrick Kinney’s teaching and research address issues at the intersection of global environmental change, human health, and policy, with an emphasis on the public health impacts of climate change and air pollution. His work in the 1990s on air quality and environmental justice in Northern Manhattan and the South Bronx led to important new insights into the impacts of diesel vehicle emissions on local air quality.
Dr. Kinney has carried out numerous studies examining the human health effects of air pollution, including studies of the effects of ozone and/or particulate matter on lung health and on daily mortality in large cities. More recently, he developed a new interdisciplinary research and teaching program at Columbia examining the potential impacts of climate change on human health.
Dr. Kinney was the first to show that climate change could worsen urban smog problems in the U.S., with attendent adverse health impacts. He also has projected future health impacts related to heat waves in the NYC metropolitan area. In a new research initiative, Dr. Kinney is working with clinicians at Columbia University Medical Center and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital to understand how past and future climate may affect pollen-related allergic airway diseases.
Elliott Sclar
Professor of Urban Planning, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation
Professor of International Affairs, School of International and Public Affairs
Director, Center for Sustainable Urban Development, The Earth Institute
Elliott Sclar is a member of the Advisory Board of the Global Research Network on Human Settlements (HS-NET), UN-HABITAT, and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Urban Management. Sclar was Co-coordinator of the Taskforce on Improving the Lives of Slum Dwellers.
As a professional economist, Professor Sclar has written extensively about the strengths and limitations of markets as mechanisms for effective public policy implementation. Sclar’s book You Don’t Always Get What You Pay For: The Economics of Privatization (2000), a critique of over reliance on market mechanisms, has won two major academic prizes. It is a definitive work in the field.
In recent years Sclar has been a leading figure in a scholarly movement to reconnect the work of population health experts and urban planners in creating healthier cities. One of the main challenges he sees is the need to begin to develop more precise measurements of built environment impacts on population health. In November 2007 he received the Humanitarian of the Year Award from the International Society for Urban Health in recognition of his work in this field.
Sara Tjossem
Senior Lecturer in Discipline of International and Public Affairs
Sara Tjossem is a Senior Lecturer in SIPA’s Master of Public Administration program in Environmental Science and Policy, and the program’s Associate Director of Curriculum. She is also affiliated with the Earth Institute. Her teaching and research interests are on the intersection of science and society, the history of science (particularly biology and ecology in the 20th century), agriculture, marine science, and the development of environmental movements and policy.
Tjossem’s book, The Journey to PICES: Scientific Cooperation in the North Pacific (Alaska Sea Grant Press, 2005) traces the events and explores the impediments to the eventual formation of the North Pacific Marine Science Organization in 1992. PICES is now the premier intergovernmental marine organization for the Pacific Ocean, promoting and coordinating advances in marine science.
Other publications include “Scientific Cooperation in the North Pacific: The PICES Project,” with Warren S. Wooster in Multilateralism and International Ocean-Resources Law (Law of the Sea Institute, 2004) and several reviews of history of science books and articles.