Executive Team

Maria Ivanova

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Director

Maria Ivanova is an international relations and environmental policy scholar specializing in governance and sustainability.

Melissa Goodall

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Advisor

Melissa Goodall is External Advisor for Strategic Planning to the Global Environmental Governance Project. 

Alexander Gritsinin

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 Advisor

Alexander Gritsinin serves as Management and Governance Advisor to the Global Environmental Governance Project. 

Niko Urho

Senior Research Fellow

Niko specializes in global environmental and sustainability governance, in particular, sound management of chemicals and waste, and conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. Nico has vast global environmental policy-making experience while he worked in the Ministry of the Environment of Finland.

Stacy Vandeveer

Senior Research Fellow

Stacy is the Graduate Program Director for the Global Governance and Human Security PhD program at McCormack Graduate School's Department of Conflict Resolution, Human Security, and Global Governance at UMass Boston. 

Beth Kaplin

Senior Research Fellow

Beth Kaplin is a Professor at University of Rwanda & Director of the Center of Excellence in Biodiversity & Natural Resource Management, a research institute contributing science to policy in support of sustainable development in Rwanda and the region. She is also a Research Professor in School for the Environment at UMass Boston. An ecologist by training, she is interested in applications of biodiversity data for early detection of environmental change.

Pia Kohler

Senior Research Fellow

Pia Kohler is assistant professor of environmental studies at Williams College and a writer/editor for the Earth Negotiations Bulletin. Her research focuses on the governance of hazardous chemicals and wastes  as well as the institutions at the science-policy interface in global environmental politics with publication in RECIEL and International Negotiation: A Journal of Theory and Practice. 

Chandu Krishnan

Senior Research Fellow

Chandu Krishnan’s major interests are in the fields of anti-corruption, governance and sustainable development. As a Democracy Visiting Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, he researched issues related to corruption, inequality and democracy. He served in  intergovernmental Commonwealth Secretariat, London and was a Director of the UK Crown Agents Foundation Council. 

Sarah Lawan

Senior Research Fellow

Sarah Lawan is the Regional Co-operation Advisor, Networks, Partnerships and Gender Division, OECD Development Centre. Lawan is an experienced development practitioner with focus on African sustainable development, including strengthening the African voice during the intergovernmental SDGs negotiations at the UN. 

Adugna Lemi

Senior Research Fellow

Adugna Lemi is Department Chair and Associate Professor of Economics, College of Liberal Arts at UMass Boston. Professor Lemi’s research interests have focused on economic development in Africa, capital flow and its determinants in developing countries, multinational corporations and their role in developing countries, as well as on issues of poverty, trade, and income diversification in Ethiopia.

Yongjin Li

Senior Research Fellow

Yongjin Li is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Executive Director of the Center for Population and Sustainable Development Studies at

Lanzhou University, China. His research interests include environmental development, rural poverty and development, and policy analysis and impact evaluation based on household survey data, statistical and econometric analysis.

Nada Ali

Senior Research Fellow

Nada Mustafa Ali is a scholar, practitioner and an activist whose scholarship spans the fields of comparative politics, women's, gender, and feminist studies, development studies, and African and Middle Eastern studies including work as a researcher and consultant to a number of international and grassroots organizations and UN agencies.

Kamal Bawa

Senior Research Fellow

Kamal Bawa is Distinguished Professor of Biology at the University of Massachusetts Boston, and Founder-President of the Bangalore-based Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) that has been ranked as #18 globally and #2 in Asia among the world’s environment think tanks. 

Harris Gleckman

Senior Research Fellow

A sociologist by training, Harris Gleckman’s professional experience crosses the disciplines of international policy, economics, trade, environment, and global governance. Professor Gleckman works with the Center to create an easy introduction to WEF's key governance proposals and to encourage healthy debate. 

Research Associates  

Natalia Escobar-Pemberthy

Natalia is currently Assistant Professor of International Relations and Global Governance in the Department of International Business at Universidad EAFIT. She is an alum of the PhD Candidate in Global Governance and Human Security at UMass Boston. My research focuses on the role of global environmental conventions in protecting the environment and the implementation of environmental and sustainable development goals.. 

Candace Famiglietti

Candace Famiglietti is a PhD candidate in the Global Governance and Human Security Program at the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies and NSF IGERT Coasts and Communities Fellow. Her dissertation research focuses on global environmental governance regarding biodiversity conservation.

Nancy Riordan

Nancy Riordan is currently a PhD student in the Global Governance and Human Security program at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Her dissertation research focuses on the global governance of space.

Eike Schmedt

Eike Schmedt is currently a PhD student in the Global Governance and Human Security program at the University of Massachusetts Boston. His dissertation research focuses on the comparative assessment of World Heritage Sites and the significance of governance structures to ensure their adequate protection for future generations.

Meg Hassey

Meg's interest in ocean governance in connection with marine plastic debris brought her to UMass Boston. She is currently a PhD student in the Global Governance and Human Security Program at the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies

Wondwossen Wondemagegnehu

Wondwossen S. Wondemagegnehu was the head of Policy and Laws Directorate of the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) in Ethiopia before he joined UMass Boston in September 2013.

Alan Zebek

Alan is a Ph.D. student in the Global Governance and Human Security program at UMass Boston. His research interests include national resource governance and socioeconomic, political, and security developments in post-Soviet Eurasia and Eastern Europe.

James Whitacre

James Whitacre is interested in the implementation of the Ramsar Convention. He is a NSF PhD Fellow based in the Global Governance and Human Security Program at the University of Massachusetts Boston.