2019 Event Keynote Speaker Bios

Tongva/Gabrielino and Mexica Native and B.A. Student, Chicano and Latino Studies, California State University, Puvungna (Long Beach)

Miztlayolxochitl (Miztla) Aguilera is an indigenous woman who descends from the Mexica and Tongva nations. She was born and raised in Southern California and is a senior at California State University, Puvungna [Long Beach (CSULB)] earning her degree in Chicano and Latino Studies and a certificate in American Indian and Indigenous Cultures. She is a paddler of a traditional Tongva plank canoe, an Aztec dancer, and a student leader in various Native American and Latinx student organizations on and off campus. As an active board member of the American Indian Student Council, Miztla continues to serve on committees organizing events such as the CSULB Pow Wow, which will be celebrating its 50th year in March of 2020, and the American Indian Leaders of Today and Tomorrow Conference, which is as a college recruitment conference for Native American and Alaskan youth. She is also the student assistant for the Puvungna Student Cultural Resource Center serving Native American and Alaskan Native students at CSULB. She intends to continue to serve the Native American community after graduation.

Senator, California

Senator Ben Allen was elected in 2014 to represent the 26th Senate District, covering the Westside, Hollywood, and coastal South Bay communities of Los Angeles County. Ben serves as chair of the Senate Environmental Quality Committee and the Joint Committee on the Arts. He is a member of the Senate Committees on Natural Resources and Water and Governmental Organization. The senator is Co-chair of the Environmental Caucus. Ben co-authored California’s historic climate change legislation, which requires 50% of the state’s energy to come from renewable sources and doubles energy efficiency in buildings by 2030. He led the effort to end the use of harmful drift gillnets in commercial fishing off the coast that injure and kill endangered sea turtles and other marine life and authored a first-in-the-nation public lands protection law. Ben is authoring an expansive push to move California away from unsustainable single-use packaging and a state general obligation bond measure to address the effects of climate change. As a former board member and President of the Santa Monica–Malibu Unified School District, he was a leader on environmental sustainability.

Superintendent, Rialto Unified School District

Dr. Cuauhtémoc Avila grew up in the City of Compton and graduated from Compton High School in 1987. He served 13 years in the Compton Unified School District (USD) as a classroom teacher, high school Assistant Principal, elementary Principal, middle school Principal, and high school Principal. Dr. Avila then served 5 years in the Glendale USD as a high school Assistant Principal, Principal of Alternate Education, and Director of Student Support Services. He spent three years with the Los Angeles County Office of Education as Assistant Superintendent of Educational Programs. He is now in his 5th year as the Superintendent of Schools at Rialto USD, where he has ushered in systemic transformation with core values that promote agency, creativity, and freedom. Dr. Avila holds a bachelor’s degree from University of California, Los Angeles, a master’s degree from California State University, Dominguez Hills, and a doctoral degree from University of Southern California.

Chancellor, UC Los Angeles

As the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) chancellor since 2007, Gene Block oversees the university’s three-part mission of education, research, and service. He has defined academic excellence, civic engagement, diversity, and financial security as top priorities for his administration. Chancellor Block also holds faculty appointments in the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and the College of Letters and Science. An expert in neuroscience, his research has focused on the neurobiology of circadian rhythms. Before becoming chancellor at UCLA, Block spent 29 years at the University of Virginia, where he was most recently vice president and provost. He has served on the executive boards of several leading organizations, including the Association of American Universities, Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities and Association of Pacific Rim Universities.

Former Governor, California

Brown is three-term former governor of California, and California’s 31st Attorney General. During Governor Brown's first tenure as governor, California created 1.9 million new jobs, marshaled both democrats and republicans in the legislature to slow the growth of state government, indexed personal income taxes, adopted the nation's first energy efficiency standards, and made California the leader in co-generation, solar, and wind energy. While curbing the growth of state government, Brown instituted cutting-edge environmental protections that became guidelines for the nation to follow. He strengthened the California Coastal Commission and established comprehensive policies governing development along the coast. He signed the nation's first legislation requiring high school students to demonstrate basic proficiency before graduation. State funding for higher education, including community colleges, more than doubled during Brown's first tenure as governor. In his second tenure as governor, Brown enacted historic public safety realignment, raised the state’s clean energy goal to 33%, and sought the public’s support for new revenues to protect education and public safety funds. Jerry Brown served as California governor from 1972 to 1983, and from 2011 to 2019.

Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost and Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, UC Los Angeles

Emily A. Carter is Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost (EVCP) and a Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Dr. Carter began her independent academic career at UCLA in 1988, rising through the chemistry and biochemistry faculty ranks before moving to Princeton University in 2004, where she spent 15 years jointly appointed in mechanical and aerospace engineering and in applied and computational mathematics. During her first stint at UCLA, she helped launch two institutes: The Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics and the California NanoSystems Institute. While at Princeton, she held the Arthur W. Marks ’19 and the Gerhard R. Andlinger Professorships. After an international search, she was selected to be the founding director of Princeton’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. From 2010 to 2016, she oversaw the construction of its award-winning building and state-of-the-art facilities, the development of novel educational and research programs, and the hiring of its faculty and staff. After a national search, she served from 2016 to 2019 as Princeton’s Dean of Engineering and Applied Science, where she spearheaded major research, education, outreach and diversity initiatives, before returning to UCLA as EVCP in September 2019. Dr. Carter maintains a very active research presence, developing and applying quantum mechanical simulation techniques to enable discovery and design of molecules and materials for sustainable energy. Dr. Carter earned a B.S. in chemistry from University of California, Berkeley in 1982 and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Caltech in 1987, followed by a brief postdoctorate at the University of Colorado, Boulder, before joining the UCLA faculty.

Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, San José State University

As the Provost of San José State University (SJSU) and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, Vincent Del Casino serves as a key member of the university president’s leadership team with primary responsibility for ensuring academic excellence in undergraduate and graduate studies as well as a continual commitment to research, scholarship, and creative activities that benefit all students and society at large. Prior to his tenure at SJSU, Del Casino provided leadership and administrative oversight at the University of Arizona as the campus redeveloped central spaces for student support activities, re-organized its central administrative areas, and enhanced student success and retention. During his tenure, the university greatly increased its online undergraduate enrollment and program offerings. He was also integral in implementing the University of Arizona’s 100% Engagement Initiative that allows students to participate in “extra-classroom” activities through credit-bearing and non-credit engaged learning experiences. With more than 18 years of academic and administrative experience in higher education, he also served as professor and chair of the Department of Geography at California State University, Long Beach. Del Casino earned a doctorate in geography from the University of Kentucky, a master’s in geography from the University of Wisconsin and a bachelor's in international relations and East Asian studies from Bucknell University in Pennsylvania.

Chief Sustainability Officer, Office of Mayor Eric Garcetti, City of Los Angeles

Lauren Faber O'Connor is the Chief Sustainability Officer for the City of Los Angeles. In her role as Deputy CSO she drove the implementation of the Sustainable City pLAn, released in April 2015, which puts forth an actionable vision for transforming LA's environment, economy and equity. Working across every city department, Lauren focuses on strategic integration of the pLAn's pillars to reach the City's ambitious climate and clean energy goals, ensure benefits accrue to all communities in LA, and pursue regional and international collaborations. Prior to joining the Garcetti Administration, Lauren served for four years as the West Coast Political Director for the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) in San Francisco. At EDF, she worked on building successful strategies and constructive partnerships to win support on innovative approaches to protecting and promoting climate, clean energy, land, water and wildlife. In 2010 Lauren was appointed to Assistant Secretary for Climate Change Programs at the California Environmental Protection Agency, where she was dedicated to the design and implementation of California’s landmark Global Warming Solutions Act. Prior to her work at CalEPA, Lauren served as senior director for Lighthouse Consulting Group in Washington, D.C., where she advised on comprehensive national climate change and energy strategies for domestic and international companies, and non-government organizations, and in particular, the U.S. Climate Action Partnership. From 2005-2009 Lauren served at the British Embassy as the Senior Policy Advisor for climate change and energy. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Earth Systems and Economics from Stanford University, and Master’s degree in Climate and Society from Columbia University.

Director, Office of Planning and Research and Senior Advisor to the Governor on Climate, Governor’s Office, California

Kate Gordon is a nationally recognized expert on the intersection of climate change, energy, and economic development. She was appointed Director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research as Senior Advisor to the Governor on Climate by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2019. Prior to being appointed director, Kate was a Senior Advisor at the Henry M. Paulson Institute where she oversaw the “Risky Business Project” focused on quantifying the economic impacts of climate change to the U.S. economy, and also provided strategic support to the Institute’s U.S.–China CEO Council for Sustainable Urbanization. She served as a nonresident fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, Vice President for Climate and Energy at the Center for the Next Generation, Vice President of Energy and Environment at the Washington D.C.-based Center for American Progress, and Co-executive Director at the national Apollo Alliance (now the Blue Green Alliance). Kate has authored or co-authored numerous publications, including the Fourth National Climate Assessment's chapter on “Reducing Risks Through Adaptation Actions”. She earned a J.D. and a master's in city and regional planning from University of California, Berkeley, and an undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University.

AP Chemistry Teacher, Curriculum Lead, Fremont Union High School District

Kavita Gupta has worked tirelessly to bring access and relevance to science education nationwide alongside policy makers and educators in over two decades as a public high school teacher. Kavita was named inaugural National Geographic Teacher of the year and was featured in the National Geographic Documentary, “Women of Impact” for her contributions towards environmental literacy. Kavita Gupta works with hundreds of Bay Area high school students to organize an annual Youth Climate Action Summit in partnership with The Tech Interactive to build a sustainable future for humanity. During these youth summits, over 500 students understand the issue of climate change through their own research and by learning from the leading experts. She has been selected to speak at national events and plan national conferences such as the STEM Forum and Expo and the National Science Teachers’ Association’s National Conference. Kavita has been published in educational journals, and won accolades from leading higher education institutions such as Stanford and MIT for her outstanding teaching methods. As a speaker at the Silicon Valley March for Science, she has engaged the community in advocating for science education funding alongside fellow science education advocates such as actress Mayim Bialik and Nobel Prize winners.

Assistant Professor, CSU Sacramento, and Film Director and Cinematographer, Metamorph Films, LLC

Kathy Kasic is a documentary filmmaker and an assistant professor at California State University, Sacramento (CSUS). Kathy began her career as an evolutionary biologist in the Ecuadorian Amazon, and for the last 16 years she has been a director and cinematographer of science and natural history films. Her award-winning work has been screened at international festivals and museums, and broadcast on television, including BBC, Discovery, Smithsonian, PBS, and National Geographic. Before CSUS, she taught for six years at Montana State University (MSU) in the Science and Natural History Filmmaking graduate program, where she founded MSU’s Center for the Communication of Science. Kathy is currently the Education and Outreach Director of Subglacial Antarctic Lakes Scientific Access, an exploration of an Antarctic subglacial lake 1,100 meters beneath the ice funded by the National Science Foundation. The research seeks to further our knowledge of subglacial life and to understand the future effects of climate change on the ice sheet. Her transmedia education and outreach efforts of the project include documentary films, photography, PBS Learning Media modules, school presentations, social media campaigns, news stories, and art museum installations.

Lieutenant Governor, California

Ambassador Eleni Kounalakis was sworn in as the 50th Lieutenant (Lt.) Governor of California by Governor Gavin Newsom. She is the first woman elected Lt. Governor of California. From 2010 to 2013, Kounalakis served as President Barack Obama’s Ambassador to the Republic of Hungary. Kounalakis was the first Greek-American woman, and at age 43 one of America’s youngest, to serve as U.S. Ambassador. Governor Jerry Brown appointed Kounalakis to chair the California Advisory Council for International Trade and Investment in 2014. Kounalakis was a Virtual Fellow at the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Intelligence and Research between 2014 and 2017, specializing in international trade and immigration. She is currently a director of the Association of American Ambassadors and a National Democratic Institute “Ambassadors Circle” advisor. Prior to her public service, Kounalakis was president of one of California’s most respected housing development firms, AKT Development, where she worked for 18 years. She built master-planned communities and delivered quality housing to the Sacramento region’s working families—recognizing her as one of the capital region’s most prominent businesswomen. Eleni Kounalakis graduated from Dartmouth College in 1989 and earned her M.B.A. in 1992 from the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. She holds an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from the American College of Greece.

B.A. Student, Geography and Planning, CSU Chico

Sofia Lepore is a climate activist, outdoor leader, and advocate for sustainable practices. She is currently in her final year at California State University, Chico (CSUC). She is a member of the grassroots Sunrise Movement, and serves on the Chico State Campus Sustainability Committee as a student representative. Sofia assisted in getting a campus-wide voter initiative passed through her involvement with Associated Students that called for climate education to be required for students in all fields of study. The initiative passed with 85% voter approval. Sofia works for the CSUC outdoor program Adventure Outings, leading a variety of outdoor excursions for CSUC students. During the summer, she works as a whitewater rafting guide in support of her firm belief that helping others discover their passion for the wilderness is a crucial step in gaining support in the climate movement. Sofia hopes to utilize her double major in geography and Spanish to reach a wider demographic, and promote climate education and sustainable practices.

President, National Academy of Sciences

Marcia McNutt is a geophysicist and the 22nd President of the National Academy of Sciences. From 2013 to 2016, she was editor-in-chief of Science journals. McNutt was Director of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) from 2009 to 2013, during which time USGS responded to several major disasters, including the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. For her work to help contain that spill, McNutt was awarded the U.S. Coast Guard’s Meritorious Service Medal. She is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union, Geological Society of America, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the International Association of Geodesy. McNutt is a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Foreign Member of the Royal Society, U.K., and the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 1998, McNutt was awarded the American Geophysical Union's Macelwane Medal for research accomplishments by a young scientist, and in 2007 she received the Maurice Ewing Medal for her contributions to deep-sea exploration. She earned her B.A. in physics from Colorado College and a Ph.D. in earth sciences from Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

President, University of California

Janet Napolitano is the 20th President of the University of California and the first woman to serve in this role. She leads a university system of ten campuses, five medical centers, three affiliated national laboratories, and a statewide agriculture and natural resources program. The UC system has more than 273,000 students, 223,000 faculty and staff, an operating budget of $36.5 billion, and two million living alumni. A distinguished public servant, Napolitano served as the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security from 2009 to 2013, as governor of Arizona from 2003 to 2009, as attorney general of Arizona from 1998 to 2003, and as U.S. attorney for the District of Arizona from 1993 to 1997.

M.S. Student, Environmental Chemistry, UC San Diego

Enid is a recent graduate and incoming graduate student in environmental chemistry at the University of California, San Diego. Her work designing, constructing, and operating a small-scale anaerobic digester on campus, as well as piloting a student-run food waste collection position, has mitigated over four metric tons of carbon dioxide and diverted over 58,000 pounds of food waste in a single year. Enid has recently won the Lemelson MIT Student Prize and University Office of the President Student Leadership Award for her success in accomplishing large steps towards both campus carbon neutrality and zero waste initiatives, in addition to educating students, staff, and faculty about anaerobic digestion and its multifaceted approach to achieving a more environmentally, socially, and fiscally sustainable future.

Eric Rignot, Chemistry Donald Bren Professor of Earth System Science and Department Chair, Jet Propulsion Lab and Chancellor Professor of Earth System Science, UC Irvine

Eric Rignot is the Donald Bren and Chancellor Professor of Earth System Science at the University of California, Irvine, and Senior Research Scientist at Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His research focuses on glaciology, ice dynamics, ice-ocean interaction, and climate change to better understand the interaction between ice and climate and reduce uncertainties in projections of sea level rise from melting ice. Eric is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, fellow of the American Geophysical Union, and the Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher from 2014 to 2019. He received the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medals, NASA Outstanding Leadership award, and the Louis Agassiz Medal of European Geophysical Union. Eric co-authored the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change AR4, which received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. He received an engineering degree from Ecole Centrale Arts Manufactures in Paris, an M.S.S in aerospace engineering and electrical engineering from University of Southern California (USC), and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from USC.

Education Program Officer, Hewlett Foundation

Peter Rivera is an Education Program Officer at the Hewlett Foundation. He works with our Deeper Learning partners to spread, scale, and support educators in effective teaching and learning practices. Previously, Peter served as program and policy development advisor for the nation’s second largest school district, Los Angeles Unified. He worked on scaling new high school math courses, developing a school performance framework, and implementing district-wide improvement science efforts. From 2010–2016, Peter worked as a senior program officer at the California Community Foundation, where his grantmaking supported nonprofits and educational institutions in Los Angeles. Peter also conducted charter school oversight as a program manager–program monitor for the San Diego Unified School District. He began his career in education at the Long Beach Unified School District. Peter holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the UCLA, and a master's degree in public policy from University of Southern California. He is a Los Angeles native, and enjoys supporting his hometown sports teams.

Professor, Urban Schooling and Faculty Director, Educational Leadership Program, Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, UC Los Angeles

William Sandoval is a Professor in the division of Urban Schooling in the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles and Faculty Director of the school’s Educational Leadership Program. His primary research interest is in how children understand the nature of scientific knowledge and its production and how to promote their understanding through epistemically rich teaching. William is particularly focused on how schools can improve public understanding and engagement with science. He has published widely in the learning sciences, science education, and educational psychology on student learning, teacher learning, teacher professional development, and epistemic cognition. William is a Fellow and past-president of the International Society of the Learning Sciences, a Fellow of the International Society for Design & Development in Education, a member of the American Educational Research Association, National Association for Research in Science Teaching, and the American Psychological Association.

Teacher, Portland Public Schools

Tim Swinehart teaches environmental justice and IB Geography at Lincoln High School, in Portland, Oregon. He is the recipient of the 2015 Oregon Outstanding Social Studies Teacher of the Year award. In 2016, Tim helped create Portland Public Schools’ first-in-the-nation climate justice education policy and has served on the PPS Climate Justice Committee for the last three years. Tim is co-editor of A People’s Curriculum for the Earth: Teaching About Climate Change and the Environmental Crisis, and his writing about teaching the environmental crisis has appeared in Rethinking Schools magazine, at HuffPost and Common Dreams. Tim has led workshops and spoken around the U.S. and Canada about the need for bold climate justice education that empowers students to act as leaders for social and environmental justice, and his work as an environmental justice educator has been featured in stories at The New York Times, YES! Magazine, and NEA Today.

Chancellor, California State University

Timothy P. White is Chancellor of the California State University (CSU) system, one of the largest and most diverse systems of higher education in the United States. White leads a university of 23 campuses and a global community of 481,000 students, 53,000 faculty and staff, and more than 3.7 million alumni. White is a champion of inclusive excellence, leading the CSU through the implementation of Graduation Initiative 2025—a bold and innovative plan to increase graduation rates, decrease time to degree, and eliminate achievement gaps between traditionally underserved students and their peers. Prior to joining the CSU as its seventh chancellor, White held leadership positions at the University of Michigan, Oregon State University, University of Idaho, and at the University of California campuses in Berkeley and Riverside. White pursued his higher education at Diablo Valley Community College; California State University, Fresno; California State University, East Bay; and University of California, Berkeley. Like many CSU students and alumni, he was the first in his family to attend college and earn a degree.