3:15–4:30 PM
Symposium: The Sustainability Imperative—Perspectives and a Conversation—Science Center Hall C
Dan Esty ’81 Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection; Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy at Yale University (on Leave), Moderator
Panelists: Amy Edmondson ’81, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management, Harvard Business School, Bob DiMatteo ’81, CEO, MTPV, developing clean energy technology with semiconductor chips, Doug Barasch ’81, editor in chief, OnEarth magazine and OnEarth.org, Publications of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and Susan Israel ’81, principal, studio2sustain; founder, Energy Necklace Education Project.
Science Center Hall C
Panelists Biographies:
Douglas S. Barasch is the editor-in-chief of OnEarth magazine and OnEarth.org, which are published by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Since becoming editor in 2003, the magazine has won numerous awards and distinctions: most recently, OnEarth was a 2011 National Magazine Award finalist for public interest journalism; its articles have been selected for inclusion in the 2011 Best American Science Writing anthology as well as the 2010 edition of The Best American Nature and Science Writing; and OnEarth.org was recently nominated for general excellence by the Online News Association.
Doug was previously a senior editor at Discover magazine and a freelance contributor to numerous publications, including The New York Times Magazine, New York, Elle, and Redbook, where he was a contributing editor. He lives in South Salem, New York, with his wife, Lynne, and 13-year-old son, Nicholas; his daughter, Katie, is a freshman at Colorado College.
You can follow Doug on Twitter: @DougBarasch
You can read OnEarth at: www.onearth.org
Bob DiMatteo is the CEO of MTPV LLC and has spent over 25 years of his career pursuing clean energy technology and innovation. He has become the recognized leader in the emerging micron-gap thermo-photovoltaic (MTPV) field, based on his graduate work at MIT. MTPV is a new means of directly converting heat or sunlight to electricity. On July 4, 2000 Bob was issued the foundational U.S. patent for this new field and has been the inventor or co-inventor of over a dozen other U.S. and international patents, either issued, pending, or disclosed. Starting in 1996, MTPV was under development at Draper Lab where as MTPV Program Manager and Technical Director his team successfully designed, built, and demonstrated the first ever MTPV device. MTPV LLC has now exclusively licensed Draper Lab’s MTPV patents and is productizing and commercializing MTPV. Bob previously worked for MITRE Corp. (where he led work investigating new energy applications of VLSI technology) and prior to that for United Technologies Corp’s Sikorsky Aircraft working in the development of lightweight energy efficient composite materials, for which he was awarded the American Helicopter Society’s Lichten Award. For eight years, Bob ran his first start-up which grew to a $10M company and which became a leader in CSG Corp.’s Energy Crafted Homes Program for New England Electric Utilities.
At MIT, his academic work was in the Electrical Engineering Department (EECS) and the Technology and Policy Program (TPP), focusing on MTPV and financing for emerging energy technologies, concentrating on aggregated securitized mortgage instruments for bond market finance of new photovoltaic production capacity. He was a consultant for the U.S. Department of Energy in Renewable and Solar energy finance and technology.
Bob has published a number of papers on clean energy technology and finance and has been an invited speaker, keynote speaker, and invited contributor to a number of notable clean energy venues. In the mid 90’s he co-authored a paper for the REPP (Renewable Energy Policy Project) on finance strategy for scaling solar photovoltaics to $billion gigawatt scales which, at the time, sounded fanciful to many but has now become a reality.
While at Harvard from 77-81 he researched and studied hybrid vehicles, semiconductors, and photovoltaics with his advisor Professor David Turnbull, world famous semiconductor pioneer. and he cross-registered for a full semester equivalent at MIT for studies including research in microelectronics and microfabrication under Harvard College alum Professor Stephen Senturia. As an undergrad at MIT he also studied modern history and politics under Professor Noam Chomsky. Between 1978 and 1980 he became convinced of the pivotal role of energy in the world and changed his major to Engineering and Applied Sciences after departing the Social Studies Department to pursue his energy technology interests. He has also been a Board of Director member on a number of corporate, educational, and social enterprises. Bob’s academic degrees focused on energy technology innovation.
- MIT – MBA – Sloan School of Management – Sloan Fellows Program
- MIT – MS – Technology and Policy Program
- MIT – MS – Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
- Harvard – AB – Engineering and Applied Sciences
Amy C. Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management. The Novartis Chair was established to enable the study of human interactions that lead to the creation of successful business enterprises for the betterment of society. Edmondson’s research examines the social and psychological dimensions of leadership, learning and innovation in teams and organizations, and has been published in numerous academic and managerial articles. Her emphasis is on teaming – the activities of collaborative work across boundaries – rather than on teamwork in stable team structures. She is currently studying innovation in the context of the built environment, with a particular focus on projects developing eco-districts and sustainable cities.
Professor Edmondson teaches courses on leadership, teams, and organizational learning. She has served on 26 doctoral committees and is the author of more than 25 Harvard Business School case studies, including cases on The Cleveland Clinic, Prudential Financial, YUM brands, IDEO product design, Arup, and NASA’s failed Columbia mission. In 2003, the Academy of Management’s Organizational Behavior Division selected Professor Edmondson for the Cummings Award for outstanding achievement in early mid-career, and in 2000 selected her article, “Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams,” for its annual award for the best published paper in the field. Her article with Anita Tucker, “Why Hospitals Don’t Learn from Failures: Organizational and Psychological Dynamics That Inhibit System Change” received the 2004 Accenture Award for significant contribution to management practice.
Before her academic career, Edmondson was Director of Research at Pecos River Learning Centers, where she worked with founder and CEO Larry Wilson to design and implement organizational change programs in a variety of Fortune 100 companies. In the early 1980s, she worked as Chief Engineer for architect/inventor Buckminster Fuller, and her book, A Fuller Explanation, clarifies Fuller’s mathematical contributions for a non-technical audience.
Edmondson received her PhD in organizational behavior, AM in psychology, and AB in engineering and design, all from Harvard University. She and her husband George Daley have two sons.
Daniel C. Esty is Commissioner of Connecticut’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEEP) on leave from his role as the Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy at Yale University where he holds faculty appointments in both Yale’s Environment and Law Schools and serves as the Director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and the Center for Business & Environment at Yale.
Professor Esty is the author or editor of ten books and numerous articles on environmental policy issues and the relationships between environment and corporate strategy, competitiveness, trade, globalization, governance, and development. His prizewinning 2006 book (co-authored with Andrew Winston), Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage, argues that pollution control and natural resource management have become critical elements of business strategy and fundamental to marketplace success. The recently released sequel, The Green to Gold Business Playbook: How to Implement Sustainability Practices for Bottom-Line Results in Every Business Function, co-authored with P.J. Simmons, explains how companies should fold environmental thinking into their day-to-day business activities. Professor Esty’s career includes serving in a variety of senior positions for the US Environmental Protection Agency, as a Senior Fellow at the Institute for International Economics as well as practicing law in Washington, DC.
Professor Esty received the American Bar Association Award for Distinguished Achievement in Environmental Law and Policy for “pioneering a data-driven approach to environmental decision making” and developing the global Environmental Sustainability Index. Professor Esty served four years as an elected Planning and Zoning Commissioner in his hometown of Cheshire, Connecticut and served on the Board of Directors of The American Farmland Trust, Resources for the Future, and the Connecticut Fund for the Environment. In addition, he served as an energy and environmental policy advisor on the 2008 Obama Presidential campaign and as a member of the Presidential Transition Team. He comments frequently on environment issues on TV, radio, and in publications like The New York Times, The Economist, and The Financial Times. As Chairman of Esty Environmental Partners, a corporate environmental strategy group based in New Haven, CT, he’s advised CEOs across the world and designed strategies for 100+ companies in dozens of industries. Commissioner Esty holds a B.A. from Harvard, an M.A. from Oxford, and a law degree from Yale.
Susan Israel AIA, LEED AP is a principal and founder of studio2sustain and the Energy Necklace Project. Studio2sustain is a mission driven practice which extends beyond strict architectural practice to include consulting on buildings and institutional practices, public art, and education.
The Energy Necklace Project combines art and science in hands-on exercises to teach and inspire sustainability, leadership and environmental stewardship in schools, public workshops and corporate settings.
Prior to founding s2s with Kathryn Duff, Susan practiced as principal of Susan Israel Architects in Newton, MA for over 20 years. She is a LEED Accredited Professional, and has created public art installations for homeless and environmental non-profits. She earned an A.B. from Harvard College, a Master of Architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design, and attended the Museum of Fine Arts School in Boston. Susan lives in Newton, MA and has three children.