John Englander
John Englander, President and Co-founder, is an oceanographer and leading expert on sea level rise. His two highly acclaimed books Moving to Higher Ground (2021) and High Tide On Main Street (2012) clearly explain the science, the impending devastating economic effects and the opportunity to design for a more resilient future.
His presentations about sea level rise have been seen by over a half million people. John has been a leader in the private and non-profit sectors, serving as CEO for The International SeaKeepers and The Cousteau Society. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology (IMarEST) and at the Explorers Club.
Molly Bingham
Molly is the driving force behind Orb. An award-winning documentary filmmaker, photographer and journalist, Molly has covered news and conflicts around the globe. Her work has been featured in leading media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, The Independent, Vanity Fair, and she has appeared on top network and cable television and radio news programs. Named in 2012 by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of “20 Women to Watch,” Molly is at the cutting edge of defining journalism in the digital age, with a unique vision for discovering and covering global stories while making original content accessible and engaging. Molly serves on the board of The Listen Campaign and is on the Journalism Advisory Board of the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting. A graduate of Harvard University, Molly was both a 2004 Nieman and 2011 Suzlberger Fellow.
Dr. Robert Corell
Robert “Bob” Corell, Co-founder, is a globally recognized scientist with expertise on climate change, sea level rise and the polar regions. He is a Principal with the Global Environment and Technology Foundation. He serves as a program leader and scientific advisor to the eight-nation Arctic Council on climate change. For thirteen years Corell was Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF). Corell has served as a senior climate change advisor to the White House for both Republican and Democratic administrations starting with President Reagan. He is an oceanographer and engineer with Ph.D. degrees from MIT, and Case Western Reserve University. Corell also served as Senior Research Fellow in the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He was recognized with the other scientists for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Mark Grosvenor
J. Mark Grosvenor, a Founding Director of the Institute, is a developer of premiere real estate properties across North America. As an avid sailor, yachtsman, and commercial diver he has been very connected to the oceans throughout his entire life. During his prior role as Chairman of the International Seakeepers Society, he met John Englander, deepening his concern about the threat of rising sea level, confirmed by fact-finding visits to Greenland and Antarctica. Mark and his wife Jennifer place a high priority on protecting the ocean environment and preparing for rising sea level, with particular consideration to future generations.
Tim Schweikert
Timothy Schweikert is currently a Senior Advisor for Bloom Energy. In his current role, Tim is focused on bringing Bloom’s Solid Oxide Fuel Cell technology to the marine industry with the objective of significantly reducing greenhouse gases of ocean-going vessels. Tim graduated with a Mechanical Engineering degree from Marquette University in 1984 followed by a Masters in Industrial Engineering from the University of Cincinnati in 1987. Tim began his career with GE Aviation in 1984 where he graduated from GE’s Manufacturing Development Program. Over his 33-year career with GE, Tim held a variety of leadership positions spanning Aviation, Rail Transportation and Marine. Tim was General Manager of GE’s Global Locomotive Operations from 2003-2007, President and CEO of GE Sub Sahara Africa from 2012-2015, and President and CEO of GE Marine Solutions from 2015-2017.
Tim currently resides in Cincinnati with his wife and two daughters.
Dr. Julia Nesheiwat
Dr. Julia Nesheiwat is a recognized expert in energy, environment, climate change, and national security issues as a public servant, academic, former military officer, and US diplomat. She is a Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council and has served as Commissioner on the US Arctic Research Commission reporting to the White House and Congress on domestic and international Arctic issues. She is the Vice President for Policy & Insights at TC Energy focused on decarbonization and clean energy infrastructure development.
Dr. Nesheiwat brings unique experiences having served over twenty years in international energy & environmental diplomacy, climate change issues and national security serving in the Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations. From July 2019 to February 2020, she served as Florida’s first Chief Resilience Officer, launching a new office dedicated to addressing the environmental, physical, and economic impacts of climate change and emergency preparedness for the state.
Board of Trustees (UK)
Dr. Ralph Rayner
Dr. Ralph Rayner is an Associate Fellow in the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and has responsibility for industry outreach for the Integrated Ocean Observing System at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). He serves on the advisory bodies of Plymouth Marine Laboratory and the Schmidt Ocean Institute.
Ralph has an academic background in physical oceanography and conducted his postgraduate research into tidal dynamics of mid-Indian Ocean atolls.
He plays an active part in professional bodies concerned with marine science and technology and is a fellow of the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology, the Society for Underwater Technology, the Marine Technology Society, the Royal Meteorological Society and the Royal Institution.
He is Editor in Chief for the Journal of Operational Oceanography and is responsible for the organization of several major annual ocean science conferences.
Sir David King
Sir David King is a South African-born British chemist, academic, and now head of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group. In his academic career he has served as Professor, Department Chair, President and Chancellor at many prestigious institutions. From 2000 – 2007, he was Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government and Head of the Government Office for Science, and advised the Foreign Secretary for the UK’s climate negotiations.
John Booth
John holds a BSc(Hons) in aquatic biology and is a qualified lawyer in New York, Ontario, and DC. He has 30 years’ experience in international structured finance and has co-founded, grown, and exited three businesses in financial services. John also has over 20 years’ experience as the non-executive chairman and/or director of numerous public and private companies and of environmental charities. He is a part-time lecturer in ESG at the graduate school of business, Kings College, University of London where he completed his master’s in international environmental, finance and tax law 30 years ago.
Team
Dr. Jeff Onsted
Dr. Jeff Onsted has over twenty years of experience in geographic information science, urban and regional analysis, climate adaptation and resilience, and science policy, particularly focused on land use. He is currently a Section Manager for the CA Dept. of Water Resources. More recently he was the Chief Science Adviser and Science Policy Adviser for the CA Department of Conservation. Before this work he was an associate professor at Florida International University (FIU) where he taught environmental science, geography, and GIS classes. He was also a member of the Long-Term Ecological Research program, the FIU Sea Level Solutions Center, the Miami Beach Sea Level Rise Initiative, and the Florida Coastal Resilience and Adaptation Group.
Jeff Peterson
Jeffrey Peterson has over forty years of experience in environmental policy development and program management, including as Coordinator of the Coastal Flood Resilience Project, and on the staff of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency where he co-chaired the EPA Sea Level Rise Workgroup. He is the author of A New Coast: Strategies for Responding to Devastating Storms and Rising Seas (https://islandpress.org/books/new-coast).
Sharon Gray
Sharon is a marine scientist and science communication specialist with expertise in sea level rise. She has spent more than a decade educating and spreading awareness about climate change and sea level rise through writing and developing educational content and curriculum for undergraduate and graduate programs, professional associations, and the general public.
Sharon began her career as a research scientist for government agencies, aquariums, and educational institutions, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Mote Marine Laboratory, Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute (FWRI), Monterey Bay Aquarium, The Florida Aquarium, and the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). She has degrees in biology, chemistry, and psychology from Eckerd College as well as a technical degree in Marine Environmental Technology and advanced SCUBA diving certifications.
Currently, Sharon resides with her family on a catamaran, affording her firsthand exploration of the real-time impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems and coastal communities. She is also writing a book on sea level rise.
Dr. Tim Fox
Dr. Tim Fox is an internationally recognised expert in climate change mitigation and adaptation with specialist knowledge of sea level rise impacts on engineered infrastructure, process engineering based industries and the built environment. He works as an independent consultant operating at the intersection of science-engineering-policy-business-communications. Tim is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), where he chairs the Climate Change Adaptation Working Group and represents the Institution on the UK Infrastructure Operators Adaptation Forum. Dr Fox has authored numerous peer-reviewed papers, research reports, thought leadership reports and policy papers and was lead author of the IMechE’s seminal 2009 report “Climate Change: Adapting to the Inevitable?” as well as the recently published “Rising Seas: The Engineering Challenge” report.
Steve Hall
UK Coordinator
Steve Hall is a UK-based Chartered Marine Scientist, a Fellow of the Institute of Marine Engineering Science & Technology, and a Fellow of the Society for Underwater Technology, where he served as CEO 2017-2020. Steve is former vice chair of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, was tsunami national point of contact for the UK’s overseas territories, and worked 27 years for the UK’s National Oceanography Centre and its predecessor bodies.
Stuart Gold
Stuart is a Commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve and served over twenty years as intelligence professional in the civil service where he supported operations and decisionmakers at the tactical to strategic level. He served as the daily intelligence briefer to senior military officials at the Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff including the Director Joint Staff and Director for Strategy, Plans, and Policy (J5). As a Reserve Navy Intelligence Officer, he has been the Commanding Officer of units supporting Commander Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and Submarine Forces Atlantic. He left civil service and is currently an entrepreneur residing in Atlanta, GA.
Stuart holds a BA in Justice from American University, a Masters in National Security Studies from Georgetown University, and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Technical Advisors
Dr. Jason Box
Jason is a Glaciologist, and has been Professor in Glaciology at The Geologic Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) with over 70 journal articles at GEUS since 2013. Jason has been on 30 Greenland expeditions, spent over a year camping on the ice and has installed and maintained a network of more than 20 automatic weather stations on Greenland’s inland ice.
Dr. Harold Wanless
Harold is professor and chair at the University of Miami in the department of Geological Sciences. Since joining the University of Miami, he and his students have been studying the dynamics and evolution of tropical shallow marine and coastal environments of south Florida and the Bahamas. Especially important to this research has been documenting the influence of changing sea level and catastrophic events, such as hurricanes. They are now using this understanding to better predict the future of coastal environments in the face of global warming and project future rates of sea level rise. In 2016, Dr. Wanless, together with Mayor Phil Stoddard, was named one of Politico’s 50 plus ‘thinkers, doers and visionaries who are transforming American Politics in 2016.’
Dr. Eric J. Rignot
Eric J. Rignot is a Chancellor Professor of Earth system science at the University of California, Irvine, and Senior Research Scientist for the Radar Science and Engineering Section at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He is a principal investigator on several NASA-funded projects to study the mass balance of the Greenland ice sheets and Antarctic ice sheets by using radar interferometry and other methods; the interactions of ice shelves with the ocean; and the dynamic retreat of Patagonian glaciers. In particular, Rignot’s primary research interests are glaciology, climate change, radar remote sensing, ice sheet numerical modeling, interferometric synthetic-aperture radar, radio echo sounding, and ice-ocean interactions. His research group focuses on understanding the interactions of ice and climate, ice sheet mass balance, ice-ocean interactions in Greenland and Antarctica, and current/future contributions of ice sheets to sea level change. In 2007 he contributed to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report WGI (Working Group I) which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with VP Al Gore.
Dr. William Colgan
Dr. William Colgan is an expert in climate and sea-level change. His PhD dissertation from the University of Colorado at Boulder, “Modeling the influence of surface meltwater on the ice dynamics of the Greenland Ice Sheet”, focused understanding the response of the Greenland Ice Sheet to recent climate change. Dr. Colgan has spent over ten years working with both in-situ measurements and satellite observations of Greenland’s ice. His ice-loss estimates directly contributed to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. Dr. Colgan is frequently consulted by the media to provide commentary and context on the impacts and implications of climate change on the Greenland ice sheet. Dr. Colgan is currently affiliated with the Geological Survey of Denmark & Greenland. He has previously worked in university and private-sector settings in Canada and the United States. In addition to being a member of the EU Polar Experts Group, Dr. Colgan also currently sits on the editorial boards of the Journal of Glaciology, Advances in Climate Change Research, and GEUS Bulletin.
Craig McLean
Craig McLean served in NOAA for more than 40 years attaining the rank of Captain in NOAA’s uniformed Commissioned Corps and as a member of the Senior Executive Service. He has worked in marine operations, marine law, and policy leadership positions at, on, and under the sea. At the time of his retirement in 2022 he held three positions: NOAA Assistant Administrator for Research, acting NOAA Chief Scientist, and the US head of delegation to the UN’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, a position in which he served for eleven years. In this role he was instrumental in expanding global ocean mapping and measurements, and in creating the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. Upon his retirement President Biden recognized McLean for his service, leadership, and for promoting scientific integrity. Still active in ocean matters after retirement, McLean is serving as the senior advisor to the president of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He is also an advisor to The Ocean Foundation, the Rising Seas Institute, and The Ocean Race.
Craig is a 2009 Fellow of the Marine Technology Society, a Rutgers University 250th Anniversary Fellow, and a Fellow of The Explorers Club. He is the 2020 recipient of the Compass Distinguished Achievement Award, the 2021 recipient of the Support of Science Award from the Council of Scientific Society Presidents, and a 2022 finalist in both the Service to America Medals sponsored by the Partnership for Public Service, and the John Maddox Prize sponsored by the Journal Nature for “standing up for sound science and evidence in the public interest and showing courage and integrity in the face of challenges and hostility.”