Bronx Environmental Summit 2021

Andrew Revkin

(Moderator)

Andrew Revkin is one of America’s most honored and experienced environmental journalists and the founding director of the new Initiative on Communication and Sustainability at Columbia University's Earth Institute. At Columbia, he is building programs, courses, tools and collaborations bridging communication gaps between science and society to cut climate risk and boost social and environmental resilience.

Revkin has written on climate change for more than 30 years, reporting from the North Pole to the White House, the Amazon rain forest to the Vatican—mostly for The New York Times. He has held positions at National Geographic and Discover Magazine and won the top awards in science journalism multiple times, along with a Guggenheim Fellowship. Revkin has written acclaimed books on the history of humanity’s relationship with weather, the changing Arctic, global warming and the assault on the Amazon rain forest, as well as

three book chapters on science communication. Two very different films have been based on his work: “Rock Star” (Warner Brothers, 2001) and the triple-Golden-Globe-winning 1994 HBO film, “The Burning Season,” based on his biography of slain rain forest defender Chico Mendes. A lifelong musician, he was a frequent accompanist of Pete Seeger and is a performing songwriter.

Sonal Jessel

Sonal Jessel is the director of policy at WE ACT for Environmental Justice. She is responsible for advancing the organization’s policy agenda at the local, state, and national levels, in addition to leading New York City policy initiatives and the Northern Manhattan Climate Action (NMCA) Plan. Prior to joining WE ACT, she conducted research in energy insecurity, housing, and public health at Columbia University, and coordinated clinical trials at Weill Cornell Medicine. With roots in California and Connecticut, Jessel has an MPH in population and family health with a concentration in Climate and Health from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, and a B.A. in organismal biology from Pitzer College, in California. Her interest is focused on the intersection of environmental and social justice, health, and policy.

Robin Leichenko

Robin Leichenko is professor and chair of Rutgers University Department of Geography and codirector of the Rutgers Climate Institute. Her current research explores the economic and equity impacts of climate change in New York and New Jersey. Leichenko was cochair of the Community Equity Working Group of the Third New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC), and she is currently serving as co-chair of the Fourth NPCC.

 Leichenko has authored or co-authored three books and more than 70 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. Her book, Environmental Change and Globalization: Double Exposures (2008, Oxford University Press), won the Meridian Book Award for Outstanding Scholarly Contribution from the American Association of Geographers. Her latest book, Climate and Society: Transforming the Future, was published by Polity Press in 2019. 

J. Marshall Shepherd

Marshall Shepherd is the Georgia Athletic Association Distinguished Professor of Geography and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Georgia and director of its Atmospheric Sciences Program.
Shepherd was the 2013 President of American Meteorological Society (AMS).Prior to academia, he spent 12 years as a scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and was deputy project scientist of the Global Precipitation Measurement Mission. He is the host of The Weather Channel’s Weather Geeks podcast and a contributor to Forbes.
He chairs the NASA Earth Science Advisory Committee and has previously served on NOAA’s Science Advisory Board. His research primarily centers around hydrometeorological extremes, urban climate, and the intersection of weather and society.

Shepherd has received numerous awards including the 2004 White House PECASE Award, the Captain Planet Foundation Protector of the Earth Award, the 2019 AGU Climate Communication Prize, the 2020 Mani L. Bhaumik Award for Public Engagement with Science and the 2018 AMS Helmut Landsberg Award. He received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in meteorology from Florida State University. He has two TEDx talks on climate science and communication that collectively exceed 2 million viewers. He is routinely asked to brief the media, Congress, and the White House on weather-climate-science related topics.

Daniel Zarrilli

As New York City’s Chief Climate Policy Advisor and OneNYC Director, Daniel Zarrilli is preparing America’s largest city for the future and delivering on New York City’s Green New Deal. Under Daniel’s leadership, New York City released its newest long-term strategic plan, OneNYC 2050, which includes bold actions to confront our climate crisis, achieve equity, and strengthen our democracy, demonstrating what a Green New Deal looks like in action. Since 2013, he has positioned New York City as the global leader in the fight against climate change.

Notable successes include launching a comprehensive $20 billion climate adaptation program, aligning the city’s greenhouse gas reductions with the 1.5C target of the Paris Agreement, committing to divest the City’s pension funds from fossil fuel reserve owners and invest billions into climate solutions,

suing fossil fuel companies for the damage caused by climate change, and committing to end the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure serving New York City. Daniel is a licensed Professional Engineer in New York, a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and holds an MS in Civil and Environmental Engineering from MIT and a BS in Civil Engineering from Lehigh University.