Union of Concerned Scientists Welcomes New Board Members

WASHINGTON-The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a national science advocacy nonprofit, recently expanded its board of directors. Board additions include professor and former senior federal and state environmental policy official and nonprofit leader Vicki Arroyo; soil and climate scientist, director of the UC Merced Earth Institute, and former director of the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, Ph.D.; environmental lawyer, founder and director the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, and law professor Michael B. Gerrard; and climate change activist, public health expert, and storytelling strategist Kathy Washienko.

"The addition of this extraordinary cadre of experts and leaders will be invaluable as we reimagine federal science for policy, make progress on climate and clean energy wherever we can, and otherwise bring science to bear for a healthy, safe, and just future," said UCS Board Chair Kim Waddell, Ph.D.

The four new members join a robust board of directors, which includes distinguished scholars and Nobel Prize winners, as well as, activists, businesspeople, lawyers and artists.

New Board Member Biographies

Vicki Arroyo currently serves as professor from practice at Georgetown University Law Center where she teaches courses in environmental law, climate change, policy advocacy and land use. Prior positions include associate administrator for policy at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under President Joe Biden, founding executive director of the Georgetown Climate Center, and vice president for policy analysis and general counsel of the Pew Center on Climate Change. Arroyo served as chair of the Executive Committee of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine from 2019-2020 and on the governing board of the University Consortium for Atmospheric Research. She has contributed to the development of air quality standards in her home state of Louisiana as well as the EPA's Office of Air and Radiation and its Office of Research and Development.

Asmeret Asefaw Berhe's research improves our understanding of how soil regulates the Earth's climate and responds to wildfire, erosion, climate change and land use. Dr. Berhe is professor of soil biogeochemistry and environmental engineering, and Ted and Jan Falasco Chair in Earth sciences and geology at the University of California, Merced. She is also director of the UC Merced Earth Institute. Her work spans soil science, geochemistry, global change science, and political ecology, with a particular focus on the two-way relationship between soil and the human communities that depend on it. She previously served as the director of the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science and prior to that served as associate dean for graduate education at UC Merced. Dr. Berhe is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, and the Geological Society of America, among the many honors she has received for her scientific and public service

Michael B. Gerrard is Andrew Sabin professor of professional practice at Columbia Law School, where he teaches courses on environmental and energy law and founded and directs the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. He is also former chair of the faculty of Columbia's Earth Institute and holds a joint appointment to the faculty of its successor, the Columbia Climate School. Before joining the Columbia faculty in January 2009, he was partner in charge of the New York office of the Arnold & Porter law firm. He practiced environmental law in New York City full time from 1979 to 2008. His practice involved trying cases and arguing many appeals in federal and state courts and administrative tribunals; handling the environmental aspects of transactions and development projects; and providing regulatory compliance advice to a wide variety of clients in the private and public sectors.

Kathy Washienko became a UCS member over 30 years ago, while getting her M.P.H. at the University of Michigan. She subsequently worked in HIV/STD prevention research at the University of Washington. Two decades ago, realizing unmitigated climate change would undermine nearly all aspects of public health, she shifted the focus of her time, philanthropy and political engagement to climate. She served as a senior partner for Climate strategies at Betsy Taylor's consulting group Breakthrough Strategies and Solutions, where she co-led development of multiple rounds of a research- and values-based national climate narrative (shared with high-level political leaders, including former Washington Governor Jay Inslee) and helped organize political donors to press for bold climate action. She was a member of the Green Ribbon Commission updating Seattle's Climate Action Plan, served for over a decade on the board of the Pacific Northwest-based Climate Solutions, and was a founding member of UCS' National Advisory Board, where she served as chair of the Executive Committee. In a personal capacity, Kathy participated in a Seattle kayaktivist protest of an Arctic-bound Shell oil drilling rig.