Board of Directors
2024 Board of Directors
Ellen is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Geography at Colgate University. Kraly is currently serving as Editor of the International Migration Review and is Director of Environmental Studies at Colgate University. She was a member of the National Academy of Sciences Panel on Immigration Statistics and has prepared reports on topics including international migration data and immigration policies for the United Nations Statistical Commission, National Academy of Sciences, U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform. Her current research program has three themes: (1) refugee policy and forced migration ; (2) ethical and human rights dimensions of the use of population data systems in policy and administration, with particular reference to Aboriginal affairs in Australia; and (3) population vulnerabilities, community health, and HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. At Colgate, she teaches courses in population geography, international migration and refugee studies, medical geography, environmental studies, and research method
Eileen Allen
Dr. Donathan L. Brown is the Vice Provost for Faculty Diversity in the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Northeastern University in Boston. Prior to that, Donathan was the Assistant Provost and Assistant Vice President for Faculty Diversity and Recruitment at Rochester Institute of Technology. Dr. Brown was an associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Ithaca College, where he also served as the director of faculty diversity and development for the School of Humanities and Sciences. At Ithaca College he published four books, along with 10 articles and book chapters on matters pertaining to African American and Latin social policy. In 2017, Brown earned a U.S. Fulbright Professorship where he taught race and American politics at the University of Maribor in Slovenia. He has also earned five teaching awards, including Ithaca College’s highest honor, the Ithaca College Faculty Excellence Award. Donathan holds a bachelor’s degree from Illinois College, a master’s from Syracuse University in communications and rhetorical studies, and a doctorate in rhetoric and public affairs from Texas A&M University.
Kimberly Coleman
Bryan Goodwin
Bryan is the Network Manager of Information Technology at SUNY Adirondack in Queensbury, NY. When not working, Bryan enjoys the outdoors and fishing. He holds a BA from Cornell University and Associate degrees from Fulton-Montgomery Community College and SUNY Adirondack.
Joseph Henderson
Joe is a Lecturer in the Department of Environment and Society at Paul Smith’s College where he teaches courses in the environmental social sciences. He is trained as an anthropologist of environmental and science education, and his research investigates how sociocultural, political and geographic factors influence teaching and learning in emerging energy and climate systems. He completed a Ph.D. at the University of Rochester, where he conducted ethnographic analyses of science learning, sustainability education, and educational policy. His post-doctoral work at the University of Delaware examined the emerging field of climate change education from learning sciences and educational policy perspectives.
Melanie H. Johnson
Mel is an associate professor and president of the faculty congress at Paul Smith’s College, where she teaches courses in Environmental Science, GIS, Remote Sensing, Field Ecology and Landscape Ecology. She was raised in the Midwest, and received her B.S. in Anthropology from University of Minnesota Moorhead, her M.S. in Geology from the University of North Dakota, and a doctorate in Environmental Science from the University of Idaho. As a conservation scientist, her work centers around integrating remote sensing, GIS and related skills with field work to examine real-world conservation issues. Dr. Johnson has worked in the environmental field for over twenty years at the university level, local and state government level, as a geological consultant.
Doug became the Faculty Director of the Kelly Adirondack Center (KAC) of Union College in September, 2017, and is the Kenneth. B. Stone Professor of Economics. He received his BA in Mathematics from Grinnell College, and his PhD in Economics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has taught at Union for 40 years and while there has served as the Associate Dean for Information Technology, the Dean of Interdisciplinary Studies and the Director of Union’s Environmental Science, Policy and Engineering (ESPE) programs. In 2008, while Dean, Doug helped create Union’s annual Symposium on Engineering and Liberal Education. Since 2012, Doug has co-led Union’s 3-week December student study tour of energy and environment in New Zealand, and in August, 2019 he will lead Union’s first 3-week student study tour in the Adirondacks. Doug has taught courses in economic history, microeconomics, antitrust and regulation, has supervised capstone research projects for students majoring in economics or environmental policy, and has been a regular contributor to Union’s required general education courses for first- and second-year students.
Stephen Langdon Steve is the Director of the Shingle Shanty Preserve and Research Station. He has 25 years of experience in the Adirondacks working on conservation from shovel-in-hand trail maintenance to biodiversity research with government and private organizations. He has a Masters degree in Ecology from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, as well as a B.S in Ecology and a B.A. in Philosophy from SUNY Plattsburgh, where he is an adjunct instructor in the Center for Earth and Environmental Science. Steve is involved in a number of research efforts surrounding impacts of human-caused global environmental change on biodiversity within the boreal-temperate ecotone with a particular focus on peatlands. When he is not at Shingle Shanty he lives with his wife and two young sons in Saranac Lake.
Most recently, Dave served as Director of Strategic Initiatives at Ecology and Environment in Lancaster, NY, where he led the development of new strategic initiatives for company growth and success. Previously he was the Chief of Staff to NYS Education Commissioner Richard Mills and Deputy Commissioner for Innovation responsible for the Office of Government Relations, the Office of the Board of Regents, Office of Organizational Effectiveness and the Communications Office. Dave served in the conservation movement for 25 years with 18 plus of those years at the National Audubon Society, first as Northeast Regional Vice President (1988-1996) and then as Executive Director of Audubon New York (1996-2007). He received his B.A. in Environmental Studies and Economics at St. Lawrence University.
Rich is the Associate Department Chair of the Department of Natural Resources and Associate Director of the Center for Conservation Social Sciences at Cornell University. As a faculty member in resource policy and management, his teaching, outreach, and research focus on the interaction between social and ecological systems. His training is in sociology, and he uses the theories and methodologies of this discipline as a lens for examining a broad array of human/environment conflicts. He is particularly interested in the challenges that rapid social and ecological changes pose for the sustainability of forested ecosystems, watersheds, and human communities. His work in the Adirondacks has focused on community wellbeing, relationships between visitors and residents, and the challenges and opportunities afforded by land acquisition and management strategies. He is eager to expand his work in this crucially important region. Dr. Stedman has his B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Sociology and Rural Sociology, and his M.S. from Cornell University in Natural Resources.
Elizabeth Thorndike
Liz has spent her professional career in the nonprofit and education sectors, and in public policy positions concerned with the environment at the local, state, and federal levels. Dr. Thorndike was founder, executive director, president, and member of the board of the Center for Environmental Information (CEI) in Rochester, NY from 1973 to 2007. She has held appointments as adjunct faculty at Cornell University since 1996. She has served as a Commissioner of the Adirondack Park Agency where she chaired the Agency’s Park Policy and Planning Committee from 1980 to 1995, as a member of Governor Mario Cuomo’s Environmental Advisory Board from 1985 to 1994, and as a member of NYSERDA’s Board 1997-2017 where she chaired the Waste and Facilities Management Committee with oversight for cleanup of the West Valley nuclear waste site. Dr. Thorndike holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Stanford University and Harvard University and a doctorate in natural resource policy and planning from Cornell University. Liz has served as ARC Vice President from 2003 to 2006 and as President from 2006-2008.
Mark recently retired from NYSERDA as the Program Manager of the Environmental Research and Energy Resources programs. He managed an annual budget of approximately $6million in areas including climate change, acid and mercury deposition, air quality, impacts of renewable energy technologies, biofuels and bioproducts, wood combustion technologies, and controlled environment agriculture. Adirondack projects supported through the program include: long-term support for the Adirondack Center for Loon Conservation, where he currently serves as a Science Advisor; air quality monitoring at Newcomb and Whiteface Mountain; primary supporter of the Adirondack Lakes Survey Corporation; numerous projects investigating acid deposition impacts on Adirondack lakes, streams and soils; promotion of high-efficiency, low-emission wood heat technologies in Adirondack facilities; and climate change research. Prior to NYSERDA Mark managed a technical services program at the NYS Energy Office, and worked for the NYSDEC in the fisheries bureau and also the wildlife pathology unit. Mark received his B.S. in Forest Biology at the College of Environmental Science at Syracuse.