Speaker Biographies
November 19, 2003
Sallie Baliunas is an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. She served as deputy director of Mount Wilson Observatory and as senior scientist at the George C. Marshall Institute in Washington, D.C. Her awards include the Newton-Lacy-Pierce Prize of the American Astronomical Society, the Petr Beckmann Award for Scientific Freedom, and the Bok Prize from Harvard University. She has written over 200 scientific articles. In 1991, Discover magazine profiled her as one of America’s outstanding women scientists. Her research interests include solar variability and other factors in climate change, magnetohydrodynamics of the sun and sunlike stars, exoplanets, and the use of laser electro-optics for the correction of turbulence due to the earth’s atmosphere in astronomical images.
Roger Bate is a visiting fellow at AEI. Before coming to AEI, Mr. Bate was director of the International Policy Network from 2001 to 2003, director of the Environmental Unit at the Institute of Economic Affairs from 1993 to 2003, and director of the European Science and Environment Forum from 1995 to 2001. Mr. Bate researches water policy in developing countries; health policy and endemic diseases in developing countries (AIDS and malaria); international environmental and health agreements (industrial chemicals, climate change, and water); the role of aid agencies and NGOs in developing countries; and genetically modified organism and pesticide policy in developing countries. He has written numerous articles and opinion pieces, as well as several books, including Saving Our Streams: The Role of the Anglers Conservation Association in Preventing Pollution in English and Welsh Rivers (2001); Malaria and the DDT Story (2001); and Life’s Adventures: Virtual Risk in a Real World (2000).
Paula J. Dobriansky is the under secretary of State for global affairs. Previously, Ms. Dobriansky served as senior vice president and director of the Washington office of the Council on Foreign Relations. Ms. Dobriansky has also served as senior international affairs and trade adviser at the law firm of Hunton & Williams and as cochair of the International TV Council at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Her government appointments include associate director for policy and programs at the U.S. Information Agency, deputy assistant secretary of State for human rights and humanitarian affairs, deputy head of the U.S. delegation to the 1990 Copenhagen Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), adviser to the U.S. delegation to the 1985 UN Decade for Women conference in Nairobi, Kenya, and director of European and Soviet affairs at the National Security Council at the White House. Ms. Dobriansky has written and lectured widely on foreign affairs, ranging from U.S. human rights policy to East European foreign and defense policies, public diplomacy, democracy promotion strategies, Russia and Ukraine. For three years, she hosted Freedom’s Challenge and cohosted Worldwise, the international affairs programs on National Empowerment Television. Additionally, she has appeared on ABC, CBS, CNN Headline News, CNN & Company, Fox Morning News, John McLaughlin’s One-on-One, The McLaughlin Group, C-SPAN, MSNBC, PBS, National Public Radio, and has testified often before the Senate Foreign Relations and House International Relations committees.
James K. Glassman is a resident fellow at AEI, the host of TechCentralStation.com, and a member of the Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy in the Arab and Muslim World. He also writes a syndicated financial column, which appears on the front page of the Washington Post business section every Sunday and is published in other newspapers, including the New York Daily News and the International Herald Tribune. Mr. Glassman is the author of The Secret Code of the Superior Investor (Crown), which Business Week called the best financial book of the 2002 season and Barron’s selected as one of the year’s ten best. His first book, Dow 36,000 (Times Books), a bestseller coauthored with economist and AEI scholar Kevin A. Hassett, was praised by Newsweek’s Allan Sloan for its "wonderfully clear explanations of financial theory [and] excellent advice on general investing approaches." Mr. Glassman has given frequent congressional testimony, recently on subjects as varied as telecommunications policy, Securities and Exchange Commission regulations, Social Security reform, and personal investing. He is a popular speaker on economic, political, and investing topics.
Arthur Green is the chief geoscientist with ExxonMobil Exploration Company. His assignments have carried him around the world in such activities as a research manager, co-scientist of an oceanographic vessel, well site production geologist, and global explorationist. He has published a number of scientific papers concerning the geologic evolution of sedimentary basins from Europe, South America, Africa, Asia, and the Arctic. Throughout his career, he has served on the advisory boards of numerous U.S. and international government and academic institutions. He has lectured in many countries on topics ranging from oil and gas exploration to the influence of geology on human history, ecology, and economics. He is a certified geologist with the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a fellow of the Geological Society of America, where he presently serving on the governing council. Mr. Green has also contributed to a number of scientific reports of the National Research Council in Washington, D.C.
Mark Z. Jacobson is an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University. The goals of his research are to improve our understanding of physical, chemical, and dynamical processes in the atmosphere through numerical modeling and to improve the simulation of air pollution, weather, and climate. To date, he has published two textbooks, Fundamentals of Atmospheric Modeling and Atmospheric Pollution: History, Science, and Regulation, and more than fifty peer-reviewed journal articles.
David Legates is associate professor in climatology in the Center for Climatic Research at the University of Delaware. In addition to teaching at Louisiana State University, the University of Oklahoma, and the University of Virginia, Mr. Legates has served as chief research scientist in a variety of commercial venues, including the Southern Regional Climate Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and the Center for Computational Geosciences in Norman, Oklahoma. He is the recipient of numerous professional and scientific awards and has authored or coauthored over two hundred articles, monographs, book chapters, proceedings papers, and encyclopedia entries, as well as computer programs and datasets for climate modeling.
William Pizer is a fellow at Resources for the Future. Since August 2002, Mr. Pizer has worked part-time as a senior economist at the National Commission on Energy Policy. From 2001 to 2002, he served as a senior economist at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, where he worked on environmental issues, including globalclimate change. He was a visiting scholar at Stanford University’s Center for Environmental Science and Policy from 2000 to 2001, and taught at Johns Hopkins University from 1997 to 1999. Mr. Pizer’s research seeks to quantify how various features of environmental policy and economic context (including uncertainty, individual and regional variation; technological change; irreversibility; spillovers; voluntary participation; and flexibility) influence a policy’s efficacy. Mr. Pizer has contributed to several books and published numerous journal articles and reports on climate change.
Robert Shackleton has been a principal analyst in the Macroeconomic Analyst Division of the Congressional Budget Office since 1999. Before coming to the CBO, he served as an economist in the Office of Policy Analysis of the Environmental Protection Agency from 1991 to 1999, focusing mainly on climate and energy policy issues.
Thomas C. Schelling is a distinguished professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Affairs. Before coming to the University of Maryland, Mr. Schelling spent twenty years at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he was the Lucius N. Littauer Professor of Political Economy. He has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1991, he was president of the American Economic Association, of which he is a distinguished fellow. He was the recipient of the Frank E. Seidman Distinguished Award in Political Economy and the National Academy of Sciences Award for Behavioral Research Relevant to the Prevention of Nuclear War. He served in the Economic Cooperation Administration in Europe and has held positions in the White House, Yale University, the RAND Corporation, and the Department of Economics and Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. He has written on military strategy and arms control, energy and environmental policy, climate change, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, organized crime, foreign aid and international trade, conflict and bargaining theory, racial segregation and integration, the military draft, health policy, tobacco and drugs policy, and ethical issues in public policy and in business.
Samuel Thernstrom is managing editor of the AEI Press and director of the W. H. Brady Program on Culture and Freedom at AEI. Before coming to AEI, Mr. Thernstrom was director of communications at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. He has also served as chief speechwriter for the U.S. Department of Labor, speechwriter to George E. Pataki, governor of New York, and as a spokesman for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
Margo Thorning is senior vice president and chief economist with the American Council for Capital Formation and director of research for its public policy think tank. Ms. Thorning also serves as the managing director of the International Council for Capital Formation, a new think tank incorporated in Brussels. Previously, she served at the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the Federal Trade Commission. Ms. Thorning is an internationally recognized expert on tax, environmental, and competitiveness issues. She writes and lectures on tax and economic policy, is frequently quoted in publications such as the Financial Times, Suddeutsche Zeitung, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal, and has appeared internationally on public affairs news programs. Ms. Thorning has made presentations on the economic impact of climate change policies at forums worldwide. She has testified as an expert witness on capital formation and environmental issues before various U.S. congressional committees. She also serves on the U.S. Department of Energy’s Electricity Advisory Board’s Subcommittee on Standards of Conduct and Corporate Practices. She is co-editor of numerous books on tax and environmental policy, including The Kyoto Commitments: Can Nations Meet Them With the Help of Technology? and The U.S. Savings Challenge: Policy Options for Productivity and Growth.
Gerd-Rainer Weber is a scientist with the German Coal Mining Association. He is responsible for scientific research, policy analysis, and consultancy in the fields of the environmental impact of coal use, particularly problems related to air pollution and global warming. Mr. Weber is a member of various environmental working groups within German industry and international agencies. He carries out independent research on climate related issues and publishes both in the peer reviewed and in the trade literature. His book, Global Warming: The Rest of the Story (1991), was published in both English and German editions.
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