Project Team
Project Managers
Alexander Carius is a founder and director of adelphi, the Berlin-based international think tank on environment, development, and foreign policy. He is a senior advisor to governments and international organisations on climate, security and diplomacy, and helps to design and facilitate international negotiations and agenda-setting processes. Alexander initiated the climate diplomacy initiative as a platform for diplomats to engage in global environmental change. His recent research focusses on the future of democracy and governance in an increasingly dystopian world, and cities becoming agents of transformative change.
Lauren Risi directs the Environmental Change and Security Program at the Wilson Center, where she works with policymakers, practitioners, and researchers to generate innovative, transdisciplinary solutions to development and security challenges related to environmental change and natural resource management. Lauren is the managing editor of New Security Beat. She served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bulgaria and a Crisis Corps volunteer with the Peace Corps and FEMA in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. Lauren holds a master’s degree in environmental security and peace from the UN-mandated University for Peace in Costa Rica.
Project Advisors
The Honorable Sharon E. Burke directs the Resource Security group at New America, which looks at the intersection of human security, prosperity, and natural resources. She also serves on New America's leadership team and is an advisor to the Future of War project. Before joining New America, Burke served in the Obama administration as the assistant secretary of defense for operational energy. Prior to her service at DoD, Burke held a number of senior U.S. government positions at the State Department and Pentagon. Outside of government, Burke has worked for several non-profit organizations, including as a vice president and senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. Burke publishes widely and is on a number of boards and advisory groups, including for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the National Science Foundation. She attended Williams College and Columbia University.
Maxine Burkett is a Professor of Law at the William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaiʻi, co-founder and senior advisor to the Institute for Climate and Peace, and a Global Fellow at the Wilson Center. An international expert on the law and policy of climate change, she has presented her work in diverse areas of climate law throughout the United States and in West Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Caribbean. She is a member of the boards of The Climate Museum, ELAW, and Global Greengrants Fund, and serves as a member scholar of the Center for Progressive Reform, and the American Law Institute. Maxine earned her B.A. from Williams College and Exeter College, Oxford University, and her law degree from the University of California, Berkeley.
Geoff Dabelko is Professor and Associate Dean at the Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs, Ohio University. Geoff is senior advisor to the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program where he served as program director from 1997-2012. He was a Lead Author of the "Human Security" chapter in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 5th Assessment. Geoff is a member of the UN Environment Programme's Expert Advisory Group on Environment, Conflict, and Peacebuilding. He co-edited Environmental Peacemaking and Green Planet Blues. He holds a PhD in government and politics from University of Maryland, College Park and AB in political science from Duke University.
Project Team
Noah Gordon is a Project Manager at adelphi in the field of climate diplomacy. He works at the intersection of climate policy, foreign and security policy, and geopolitics. He is also the climate editor at Berlin Policy Journal. He has written about politics and climate change for The Atlantic, New Statesman, the Centre for European Reform, Clean Energy Wire, and Euractiv.
Amanda King is the Program Associate for the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program. She supports public and private convenings centered on advancing and informing policies for multisector approaches at the intersection of environment, health, and security. She communicates program activities through digital platform mediums and contributes to program research, analysis, and communications. Her research interests focus on the nexus between climate, food security, global security, gender, and foreign policy. She earned her M.S. in environmental policy from Bard College’s Center for Environmental Policy and B.A. in environmental studies from Illinois Wesleyan University.