CareBridge Members

Members R–Z

Eric Rasmussen, MD, FACP, Medical Corps, United States Navy, spent seven Navy years in nuclear submarines before receiving his undergraduate and medical degrees from Stanford University. After a period working in Haiti with the State Department, and as a molecular biologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, he completed a residency in Medicine and returned to the Navy as Assistant Program Director within the Internal Medicine Department of the Navy Medical Center near San Francisco, California. From there he was selected as the Department Head for Surface Fleet Medical Programs at the Navy’s Medical Institute in Florida, and subsequently served as a physician-at-sea aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) and on deployment with the missile cruiser USS Yorktown (CG-48). He served three brief rotations in Bosnia, and during that period was appointed a Principle Investigator in Medicine for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). In 1996 he was awarded both a Certificate of Meritorious Achievement from DARPA and an appointment as a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. He was selected as the Fleet Surgeon for the US Navy’s Third Fleet in 1997 and spent much of the subsequent four years focused on medical support to civil-military operations. His work included international exercises that deeply incorporated UN relief agencies into the exercise development process, and the field evaluation of technologies specifically developed to improve integration at the civil-military boundary. Dr. Rasmussen returned in early 2001 to the medical faculty at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, with a simultaneous faculty appointment to the National Security Studies staff at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey and a teaching position within the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. He is a Visiting Scholar at the Rocky Mountain Institute and a Principal Investigator for DARPA. He is published in wilderness ecology, biophysics, biochemistry, clinical medicine, humanitarian medicine, decision analysis, shipboard medical care, aerospace medicine, and trauma research. He holds several personal, unit, and theater military decorations and is both Qualified in Submarines and qualified as a Surface Warfare Medical Officer.

Michelle Sandoval, Administrative Assistant for Research & Consulting for Rocky Mountain Institute, has a BS in journalism from the University of Texas and a technical certificate in computer programming and operations from the Computer and Business Management Education Center in San Antonio. For five years she was editor-in-chief at Publications and Communications, Inc., in Austin, and was the sales manager at Climbing Magazine for two years. She has an extensive background in database management and office administration.

Ben Shepherd, a member of the Green Development Services team for Rocky Mountain Institute, has conducted research for green building case studies and assists in planning and conducting charrettes, educational workshops, on-site project reviews, and environmental guidelines. Ben has professional experience as a land use planner in Ohio, has conducted research into the costs and benefits of community growth, and coordinated environmental services for a municipal utilities department. Listed in "Who's Who of U.S. Colleges and Universities, 2000," Ben graduated from Northland College with a BA in environmental science with an environmental policy minor. While at Northland, Ben was elected student body president and helped to develop sustainability indicators for the college. Ben has extensive youth-leadership training experience and is currently volunteering as a football coach and participating in a local youth mentoring program.

Zieba Shorish-Shamley is the Founder and Executive Director of Women's Alliance for Peace and Human Rights in Afghanistan (WAPHA). She is an anthropologist, with a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from University of Wisconsin-Madison. In the early 1990s, she taught classes in cultural anthropology to the undergraduate and graduate students at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her specialization within the cultural anthropology includes Medical Anthropology, Symbolic Anthropology, Gender Relations, Refugee Studies, ethnicity, Comparative Religion, Indigenous medicine, and others. Her poems that describe the misery of Afghan women and children have been published in various magazines and newspapers all around the world. She is fluent in Persian and English. She has basic knowledge of Pushtu and Arabic languages. In over 20 years of war that has plagued her homeland Afghanistan, she has been involved in activities promoting the cause of her people. Since March 1996 she has become a full time human rights activist for the Afghan people cause with a strong focus on the rights of women and children. She has done research among the Afghan refugees in Pakistan concerning the refugees and general condition, January 1998, October 1998. She has testified before the United States Congress on the Afghan crisis in 1996, 1997, 1998, and 2000. Among her work was the presentation of a peace proposal for possible solution to the Afghan conflict. The Proposal incorporated views of various Afghan scholars and experts in exile. She organized panels and participated at panels organized by the UNIFEM and PHR Hague Peace Appeal, 1999, Netherlands. She has additionally briefed a number of United Nations Committees to discuss the Afghan issue. Commendations include the Humanitarian Award from Middle East Studies Center, Vanguard University 1999, the Human Rights Award from Afghan Physicians Association in America and the Feminist Majority Foundation Human Rights Award, 2000.

Dr. Edwin Shinn is the Executive Director of Village Earth. He has worked in the field of community and village development for thirty years. His expertise includes organizational development, planning and management methods, training design and implementation, technology transfer, project monitoring, and survey research. Dr. Shinn’s work as an organizer and a trainer have taken him to the villages of India, Australia, Kenya, Peru, Guatemala, Wounded Knee, rural California, Pakistan, Indonesia, Egypt, Azerbaijan and Bosnia. Recently Dr. Shinn has worked to form strategic partnerships with other resource institutions such as IRC, CHF, The Sustainable Village and NREL. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology, a Master’s degree in Group Dynamics, and a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy.

Paul Stamets has been a dedicated mycologist for over twenty years. Over this time, he has discovered and co-authored four new species of mushrooms, and pioneered countless techniques in the field of edible and medicinal mushroom cultivation. He received the 1998 "Bioneers Award" from The Collective Heritage Institute, and the 1999 "Founder of a New Northwest Award" from the Pacific Rim Association of Resource Conservation and Development Councils. He has written five books on mushroom cultivation, use and identification. Paul sees the ancient Old Growth forests of the Pacific Northwest as a resource of incalculable value, especially in terms of its fungal genome. A dedicated hiker and explorer, his passion is to preserve, protect, and clone as many ancestral strains of mushrooms as possible from the pristine woodlands. Much of the financial resources generated from sales of goods from Fungi Perfecti are returned to sponsor such research.

R. David Stone – With a degree in Zoology and Wildlife Conservation, David has pursued a profession in environmental conservation and management and community participation in environmental management. Having worked with WWF-World Wide Fund For Nature for several years, David started Conservation Advisory Services, an independent Swiss-based consulting firm focussing on project development, management and evaluation on all aspects of environmental management and biodiversity conservation. Working in the humanitarian arena for the past five years, since 2001 David has been the Senior Technical Officer (Environment) at the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, responsible for the organisation's programme of natural resource management, worldwide. He has a BA (Hons), Trinity College Dublin, Ireland; Doctor of Philosophy, University of Aberdeen, Scotland; Post-Doctoral Fellowship, Universite de Lausanne, Switzerland.

Roger W. Taylor is Manager of International Programs at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. His quest is to expand and promote the use of renewable energy to support sustainable economic development throughout the developing world—in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, other U.S. government agencies, the renewable energy industry, foreign partners, financing and development agencies. Mr. Taylor has been extensively involved in application of renewable energy systems to the needs of developing countries since 1992. Over the past 10 years, NREL has developed collaborations and substantive engagement with over 15 countries. Mr. Taylor’s primary country foci have included Brazil, India, China, Egypt, Ghana, the Philippines, and Morocco. Prior to NREL, he spent 15 years working on the integration of renewables with electric utilities, which included 10 years working with the Electric Power Research Institute and the EPRI-sponsored Power Electronics Applications Center.

Larry Thompson is the Director of Advocacy for Refugees International (RI), a Washington-based humanitarian organization which works on behalf of refugees, displaced persons, and other vulnerable people around the world. A former diplomat with the U.S. Department of State, Larry joined Refugees International in 1992 to advise a foundation on the expenditure of $50 million in relief aid for war-torn Sarajevo and to edit the bi-weekly publication, Bosnia Relief Watch. He later led RI advocacy for UN reform and world food security. His work for RI has included assessment of the humanitarian situation of Tuareg refugees in the Sahara and Kosovar refugees in the Balkans and examination of the plight of Ethiopian Jews, highland peoples of Southeast Asia, and displaced people in Mexico. In 1997, he played a large role in stimulating emergency humanitarian aid to Bulgaria, including a successful program to provide lunches to more than 150,000 poor schoolchildren daily. During the last year, Larry has focused on the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. In February 2000, he visited Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and reported on the humanitarian consequences of a catastrophic snowstorm near the city of Herat. In May 2000, he visited the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance and assessed the impact of a drought on farmers and displaced persons. Since the terrorist bombings of September 11, he has visited Pakistan and Afghanistan several times. As one of few Americans with personal experience in Afghanistan, his views on the Afghan refugee situation have been prominently featured in media such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, CNN, NBC, ABC, and BBC. Larry is married and has two children. He is originally from Oklahoma and is a member of the Kansa Indian tribe.

Jonathan Todd is the Vice President of John Todd Research and Design, Inc. a leading firm in the development of ecological technologies for food production, waste purification and conversion, environmental restoration and systems integration for architecture and eco-industrial parks. He has assisted in the development of a prototype Ocean Ark, an advanced design sailing, worked in coastal fishery development, was captain of OAI’s Ocean Pickup, which was engaged in fishery development work on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, has worked on tugboats in the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. Jonathan attended the College of the Atlantic in Maine and received his captain’s papers from the US Coast Guard. He rejoined Ocean Arks International as captain of Aquaria One, a hybrid wind/diesel fishing vessel that operated in both New England and Caribbean waters. With John Todd Research and Design, Inc., he started in pond management and then moved into the design, fabrication and operation of a wide variety of living machines and floating water restorer technologies for clients in Canada, Hawaii, Georgia, New Mexico, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Vermont. He continues to assist the design team at Ocean Arks International in the development of new water purification technologies for Asia and the South Pacific. He has also worked for architectural and engineering firms in the design of ecological exhibits, eco- industrial parks, and ecologically based theme parks. He has a keen interest in developing sustainable solutions for refugee populations throughout the world. Jonathan, with his wife Meg, cultivate a six acre urban market farm in Falmouth, Massachusetts.

Steve Troy began working in the appropriate technology field in 1966 when he was preparing to join a Peace Corps-type program in Mexico. He discovered — and fell in love with — the concept of Appropriate Technology. This initial inspiration, added to his "business blood and entrepreneurial soaked brain," evolved into numerous companies including Open Circle, Real Goods, Jade Mountain, Planetary Solutions and most recently, The Sustainable Village. The products and systems designed and supplied by Steve's many enterprises have together saved thousands of kilowatt hours of electricity, millions of gallons of water, and kept tons of air pollutants out of our atmosphere. Steve now works as a business consultant, appropriate technology engineer, marketing strategist, obscure trouble-shooting and irascible problem solver. All proceeds from his work go toward donation/investments in developing countries.

Arnold (Arnie) Valdez is co-founder with his wife Maria of Peoples Alternative Energy Services (PAES) a non-profit organization promoting alternative energy for low-income sectors, sustainable planning, and environmental reform. PAES's grassroots organizing, workshops, and hands-on initives were featured in a variety of publications and highlighted in a PBS documentary. The Valdez's co-established Valdez & Associates, a consulting firm specializing in earthen design, research in cultural landscapes, and vernacular architecture. In the 1980s, the Valdez's were trainers for Peace Corps state side appropriate technology training and government sponsored solar projects. Because of their solar successes they were one of two groups selected to represent Colorado at an International Conference on rural development in New Delhi, India. Currently, Arnie is the planning and zoning director for Conejos County and previously he was the land use administrator for Costilla County. In 1992, Arnie obtained a MArch at the University of New Mexico receiving the John Gaw Meem Award for his work on Hispano vernacular architecture. He has collaborated on a design for a high altitude solar adobe village and worked on several restoration projects including a domed adobe chapel. In 1999-2000, Valdez received a Loeb Fellowship to Harvard University where he focused on regional planning and landscape ecology. Currently, Arnold is an adjunct professor at the University of New Mexico, School of Architecture and Planning.

Maria Mondragon-Valdez is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of New Mexico, Department of American Studies. Her research focuses on land loss and gentrification in a rural southern Colorado Hispano enclave. Involved in peace and justice issues since 1970, Maria has been an advocate for farm workers and low-income communities since that time. She has served on the Board of the Solar Energy Research Institute and other solar grassroots initiatives in Colorado and New Mexico. Because of her work on mining reform and sustainable land use planning she was awarded Colorado's Woman In Environmental Action. The Valdez's family have resided in Colorado for six generations. They live in a passive solar adobe home where they raised their five children.

Sima Wali is President and CEO of Refugee Women in Development (RefWID), Inc. an international institution focusing on women in conflict and post-conflict reintegration issues. She advocates nationally and internationally for uprooted women and girls whose rights have been violated as refugees and internally displaced people. Her writings have been published in prestigious journals and books. Most recently she was one of three female delegates to the U.N. Peace Talks on Afghanistan and was the chief organizer of the "Afghan Women's Summit for Democracy" held in Brussels. On March 8, 2002 International Women's Day, the United Nations invited her to deliver the keynote address on Afghan women. Ms. Wali is the recipient of Amnesty International's l999 3rd Annual Ginetta Sagan Fund Award of Amnesty International in recognition of her work on Afghan women and human rights. Ms. Wali is the recipient of numerous awards for her pioneering work in developing program models aimed at the empowerment of women caught conflict, democratic civil society-building of war-torn societies, gender, forced migration, and human rights. She is the recipient of the Gloria Steinem: Women of Vision Award for her pioneering work in addressing violence against refugee women in the United States. She is cited in the "Who's Who in the 2lst Century", Who's Who of Emerging Leaders, Who's Who of Women in the East, Who's Who of American Women, Millennium Edition, among others. Ms. Wali is Vice President and Treasurer of Sisterhood Is Global Institute (SIGI) based in Montreal, Canada.

Peter Warshall has spent thirty years working to improve community governance, the balancing of conservation and development (especially water resources, ranching and forestry, and biodiversity), as well as teaching, guiding and writing on natural and cultural history. Trained as both biologist and anthropologist, Peter has taken a broad view of the complexity of cultural change. While others may work as a scientist or activist or artist, Peter has tried to bridge these realms as scientist/activist/essayist. He works on all socio-economic levels and with highly diverse peoples and ecosystems, believing that important beneficial change can come from many unexpected human sources. He graduated from Harvard University in Biology; has a degree from the Sorbonne, and a Ph.D. from Harvard in Biological Anthropology.

Alan Weisman’s reports, set in the United States, Mexico, Canada, Central and South America, the Caribbean, Antarctica, Europe, the former Soviet Union, and the Middle East, have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, Audubon, Mother Jones, Condé Nast Traveler, and in several anthologies, and have been heard on National Public Radio and Public Radio International. He is the author of An Echo In My Blood (Harcourt Brace, Inc.1999) Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World (Chelsea Green Publishing, 1998); La Frontera: The United States Border With Mexico (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986); and We, Immortals (Pocket Books, 1979). He is currently working on a book on the future of energy, funded by the John. D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. He is a senior producer for Homelands Productions, and Lecturer Laureate in creative writing at the University of Arizona during 2002. Weisman has been a Fulbright Senior Scholar in Colombia, writer-in-residence at the Altos de Chavón Escuela de Arte y DiseZo in the Dominican Republic, the John Farrar Fellow in Nonfiction at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and a contributing editor to the Los Angeles Times Magazine. His many awards include a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Citation, the Harry Chapin World Hunger Year Media Award, and the Social Inventions Award from the London-based Global Ideas Bank for his book Gaviotas. He and his wife, sculptor Beckie Kravetz, live in Tucson, Arizona.

Robert Wilkinson, director of RMI’s water program, has been an Adjunct Senior Research Associate with RMI for 10 years. Wilkinson is a Lecturer in the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Environmental Studies Program. His teaching and research focus is on environmental policy issues, energy and water policy, climate change and variability impact analysis, urban environmental issues, and sustainable communities. In addition to teaching and research work, he is presently coordinating the climate impacts assessment effort for the California Region for the U.S. Global Change Research Program and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Over the past decade he has worked extensively in every country of Central Europe from Albania through the Baltic States and throughout the former Soviet Union, including Siberia and Central Asia. In 1990, George Soros asked Wilkinson to establish and direct the Graduate Program in Environmental Sciences and Policy at the Central European University based in Budapest, Hungary, which he did from 1990 through 1992. He has also been engaged in renewable energy work at Lake Baikal, Siberia since 1990. Robert Wilkinson received a double major BA in Environmental Studies and History and an MA and PhD Candidacy in Political Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He also studied law and history at Cambridge University and agroecology through the University of California at Santa Cruz. He is married and has three sons.

Daniel Williams FAIA, APA, is the Principal of his firm Daniel Williams Architect, in which he provides architectural, and urban and regional planning. The Recipient of the national AIA Honor Design Award for Urban and Regional Design in 1999 and again in 2000, Dan has practiced sustainable design in architecture and urban and regional planning since for more than 25 years and has received a number of design awards. He was a founding member of the American Institute of Architects’: Hurricane Recovery Center - leading the Committee on Long Term Regional Planning and the reworking of Community and Design codes after Hurricane Andrew in 1992. He was Director of the Education and Research Center for the University of Florida 1997-1999 and Research Associate Professor at the Center for Urban and Community Design at the University of Miami, School of Architecture 1992-1997, researching the relationship between general systems ecology, hydrology and community planning. His work has led to several applied research infill projects: Arch Creek (a project to reconnect the Creek amenities with Stormwater and community needs); the Miami River Watershed Basin Plan; the City of Hialeah - Stormwater and Future Land Use Plan; Naranja Lakes Redevelopment Charrette; Monroe County Development Codes Project; and the South Dade Watershed Project. Presently he is vice-chair for the American Institute of Architects, National Executive Committee on the Environment – COTE, and is a member Environmental Council for the Urban Land Institute. He received his Fellowship from the American Institute of Architects in 1997 for preservation of natural systems. In 1998 he received the Catherine Brown Award from the Congress for the New Urbanism where he chaired the Environmental Task Force since 1996.

Robert Younger currently serves as the Business Area Manager for Technology Transformation and Transition in the Advanced Technology Division of the Command and Control Department at the Navy R&D laboratory, SPAWAR Systems Center, San Diego. Mr. Younger works closely with DARPA and other agencies to promote the transformation of technologies into useful products, and the transition and adoption of those products to military, commercial and humanitarian use. Previously, Bob has served as the founder and director of Advanced Technology Transition Division at Ocean Systems Engineering Corporation (OSEC); he also was a Vice-President at OSEC. He served as a project engineer and a program manager at NAVSEA System Command in Washington, DC. He has also held several positions as division manager, program manager and software engineer in government service as well as at SAIC, and at Computer Software Analysts, Inc. Bob served as a Captain in the United States Marine Corps before taking positions in private industry and government service. Additionally, he is a professional photographer. He holds an MBA in Information Systems.