Our Experts

DR. WILLIAM MOOMAW

William Moomaw is Professor Emeritus, Tufts University and Distinguished Visiting Scientist at Woodwell Climate Research Center. He holds a PhD from MIT and previously taught chemistry and was Director of Environmental Studies at Williams College. He is a physical chemist who helped develop the first ozone layer protection legislation while working for the U.S. Senate, and has been a lead author of five Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Reports including the 2007 report that shared the Nobel Peace Prize. He has published extensively on technical solutions to reduce climate altering emissions. He is currently working internationally and nationally to identify and implement Natural Climate Solutions that accumulate additional atmospheric carbon out of the atmosphere in forests, wetlands, and soils. In 2019, he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for his "contributions to our understanding of climate change and its global impacts and to the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."

Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry, MIT.

B.A. in Chemistry, Williams College

DR. ANDREW PETTIFOR

Andy has significant R&D experience in both government and industry. He spent more than twenty years as an executive in a major aerospace company, where he was responsible for increasing the utilization of millions of dollars of annual company R&D projects by the business units. This included extensive international responsibilities including technology collaborations in Europe and Japan, and establishing a Russian technology discovery and evaluation program after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Previously, he worked for the National Science Foundation for twelve years, including four in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. His interest in environmental science arises from a lifetime as an amateur birdwatcher all over the world, and his move Chapel Hill fifteen years ago, where he has been a member of the local Audubon Society.

Ph.D. in Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University

M.S. in Mechanical Engineering , Northwestern University

B.S. in Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa.

DR. JOHN MICHAEL “MIKE” POWER

A native of Houston, Mike is a graduate of Rice Univ. (BA, BS (Mech. Engr.), NROTC). In 1966, chose a newly created graduate Department at Stanford University called “Engineering & Economic Systems,” and received MS and PhD degrees. He served his active duty as a member the National Security Council Staff, under Dr. Henry Kissinger, working on negotiations between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, related to military forces in Europe. Following the Oil Embargo of 1974, he joined the Federal Energy Administration to create a Policy Office for Energy Conservation. Over the next decade, he broadened his policy focus from encouraging investment in technologies for more efficient use of energy in the U.S. Economy to also promote investments in renewable energy technologies. In 1985, he joined the private sector. He now has over thirty-five years as an emerging technology investor, as a small business founder, and manager.

Ph.D. and M.S. in Engineering & Economic Systems, Stanford University

B..A and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, Rice University

DR. GILBERT RODGERS

Gil is Senior Managing Director of Energyzt, an association of energy experts whose goal is researching and communicating the impacts of integrated energy markets.  In this role, he oversees development of integrated energy market models focusing on insights into the changing dynamics of renewables, fossil fuels, and transportation industries.  He  has more than 40 years of experience in the energy industry and has held senior-level positions both in the private sector and in the U.S. federal government. He was instrumental in setting up the data and analytical functions of the Federal Energy Administration which became DOE. His background in climate science dates back to 2007 when at Global Insight (later became IHS) he developed and managed a group on climate change.  In research conducted while consulting with Energyzt, he addressed green-house-gas emissions and impacts in many studies including proposed electric transmission lines from Canada to the US and state and regional programs to achieve reduction of carbon emissions to meet net zero-emission goals.  As one of the leaders of the Minerva Action Group, he initiated the student exercise estimating the amount of carbon capture by different species, sizes, and ages of trees. Another experiment he formulated and implemented was observing micro-paricles of plastics commonly found in bottled drinking water.

Ph.D. in Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University

M.S. in Electrical Engineering (Solid State Physics), Ohio State University

B.E.E. in Electrical Engineering, Union College

Graduate Certificate in Business Management, Harvard University Extension School

DR. RONALD WHITFIELD - Senior Advisor

Executive Professor of Finance and Founding Director, Business Sustainability Initiative at Northeastern University’s Business School. At Northeastern, he teaches a popular interdisciplinary course on sustainability and authored a book, A Primer on Sustainability in the Business Environment. As a consultant for over 30 years, Dr. Whitfield’s business experience spans the chemical and plastics, energy, pharmaceutical, and automotive industries. He has held senior management positions at several companies, including Data Resources, Inc., Charles River Associates, and IHS Markit. In his consulting work, he has assisted clients by combining a strong background in economic methodologies with creative and practical business strategies to solve a diverse set of economic and environmental industries. Dr. Whitfield’s current research is focused on pathways to decarbonize significant portions of the petrochemical industy – a hard to abate industrial sector – to meet US climate goals.

Ph.D. in Business and Applied Economics, University of Pennsylvania

B.A. in Economics, Tulane University, Louisiana

MR. ROBERT WEST

Bob is the manager of World West Consulting LLC, where he continues his 40+ years of experience in world trade, ocean shipping, ports and related infrastructure, logistics and related supply chain costs. He has studied the feasibility of the forces that affect international trade such as a dry canal across Nicaragua and global slow-steaming by shipping lines. In 2006, he helped to determine the capacity limits of the Panama Canal, which lead to the decision to develop a third set of locks to accommodate much larger vessels. He is currently advising a new U.S. group that has developed a new, efficient way of managing containers in a container yard. He has advised ports on the likely effects of a warming planet on normal port operations including rising sea levels. He has examined ways in which new technologies for port operations can be adapted to solar power.

M.B.A. in International Business and Economics, Columbia University

M.S. in Theoretical Mathematics, University of Michigan

A.B. in Theoretical Mathematics and Music, Harvard University

MR. ROBERT T. LEVERETT

Bob served in the U.S. Air Force as an engineer. Today he is a nationally recognized expert on tree-measuring. As Senior Advisor to the American Forests National Champion Tree Program, he has co-produced their Measuring Guidelines Handbook. Co-discoverer of most of the known old growth forest in Massachusetts, he has co-authored the Sierra Club Guide to Ancient Forests of the Northeast, and Island Press’s Eastern Old-Growth Forests, Prospects for Rediscovery and Recovery. He was a lead organizer for the Ancient Eastern Forest Conference Series at nine universities in the 1990s and early 2000s. Recently, he published a paper in Frontiers with William Moomaw and Susan Masino: Older Eastern White Pine Trees and Stands Sequester Carbon for Many Decades and Maximize Cumulative Carbon. As Chair of the Forest Reserves Science Advisory Committee (Massachusetts DCR) he is currently working with climate scientists to help measure carbon sequestration in the state’s forest reserves. For Northeast Wilderness Trust and also for citizen scientists, he is developing detailed comparisons of tree carbon models to assess their reliability. His research papers are being sent to University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources.

B.S. in Industrial Management, Georgia Institute of Technology

Masters work in Economics, South Dakota State University

Graduate of Army Management Engineering Training Agency

NICOLA IANESELLI

Senior Innovations Project Director

Nicola Ianeselli is a seasoned professional with over a decade of experience in Building Information Modeling (BIM) and global project delivery. His expertise spans team management, client relationships, integrated project delivery (IPD), and project management integration systems (PMIS). Nicola is proficient in incorporating blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning into project workflows, significantly enhancing operational efficiencies. Nicola has successfully led and managed complex projects across various sectors, including ports, marine, international container terminal services, and civil infrastructure. His multilingual proficiency in English, Spanish, Italian, and working knowledge of German has been pivotal in navigating multicultural project environments.

Master of Science (M. Sc) in Civil Engineering, 2014 - University of Trento, Italy

Master of Science (M. Sc) in Architecture, 2014 - University of Trento, Italy

Master in Business Administration, 2021 - International Flex EMBA

Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) and Professional Engineer (PE) - In Progress (Expected June 2024)

Project Management Professional (PMP) - In Progress (Expected June 2024)