Executive Committee
OCEANIA
Mariann Lloyd-Smith
John Wickens
Mariann Lloyd-Smith
National Toxics Network, Australia
Dr Mariann Lloyd-Smith has a PhD from Law Faculty, UTS Australia, and is the Senior Advisor of the IPEN PO National Toxics Network in Australia. She has campaigned in the area of chemicals policy and hazardous waste management for over three decades, working with NGOs, indigenous groups, national governments, UNEP, and the OECD. Mariann participated in the technical working groups for Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants and focuses on PFAS chemicals. Dr Lloyd-Smith was a member of the UN Expert Group on Climate Change and Persistent Organic Pollutants, and an advisor to the OECD for their Fracking Summit. She served as IPEN Co-Chair from 2006-2011 and has since then remained active in IPEN, most recently co-authoring IPEN’s reports on ocean pollutants.
ASIA
Ravi Agarwal
John Wickens
Ravi Agarwal
Toxics Link, India
Ravi Agarwal is the founder and director of Toxics Link, a leading-not-for profit organization based in New Delhi, India. Toxics Link has been working on areas of toxics, waste and chemical safety for over 15 years in India and has a very strong information outreach program. It works with a multitude of NGO partners on-the-ground and continues to have significant impact on national policy on chemicals issues. Toxics Link has been part of IPEN since its inception and also participates in other international networks. Ravi is an Ashoka fellow, and holds Communications Engineering along with Masters in Business Administration degrees.
EUROPE
Frida Hök
Frida Hök
ChemSec, Sweden
Frida Hök is the Deputy Director of the IPEN PO ChemSec in Sweden. She holds a Master of Science degree in Environmental Science.
Frida has extensive knowledge on chemical legislation and takes part in policy meetings all over Europe. Frida project manages most of ChemSec’s policy-focused reports and has experience in working with the private sector to phase out hazardous chemicals (www.chemsec.org).
LATIN AMERICA
Sofía Chávez
Sofía Chávez
Casa Cem, México
Sofía Chavez is the founder and General Manager of the IPEN PO Casa Cem in Mexico. She holds a Master of Business Administration and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Political Science.
In 2007, she founded Casa Cem, an environmental organization that initially worked on waste issues with a special emphasis on e-waste. At present, the organization holds a full program involving research, advocacy, public policy, education, communication, and cultural activities related to chemicals and waste topics. Casa Cem is rooted in community, and links local research to national policy/laws (www.casacem.com).
Sofía oversees the organization’s financial/legal/decision-making responsibilities and works in Casa Cem’s research and policy programs. In addition to her long experience in managing an NGO, Sofía has several years of board experience, serving on the board of a family business.
Casa Cem has been an IPEN PO since 2016 and has participated in several of IPEN’s programs during this time. Sofía has several times participated in the IPEN delegation at global policy meetings.
NORTH AMERICA
Dr. Ken Geiser
Dr. Ken Geiser
Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts Lowell, United States
Dr. Ken Geiser is a Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts Lowell. Dr. Geiser is one of the authors of the Massachusetts Toxics Use Reduction Act and served as Director of the Massachusetts Toxics Use Reduction Institute from its founding in 1990 until 2003. His research and writing focus on pollution prevention and cleaner production, toxic chemicals management, international chemicals policy, safer technologies, and green chemistry, and, in 2001, he completed a book, Materials Matter: Towards a Sustainable Materials Policy, published by MIT Press. As a recognized expert on environmental and occupational health policy, he has served on various advisory committees for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the United Nations Environment Programme.
IPEN CO-CHAIRS
ANGLOPHONE AFRICA
Tadesse Amera, PhD
Pesticide Action Nexus (PAN), Ethiopia
Tadesse Amera recently completed his PhD in environmental communication. He has extensive experience in working with grassroots communities, government officials and high level national policy makers, academia, as well as international fellows and donors. Tadesse worked for seven years in the Ministry of Health of Ethiopia as District Environmental Health and Health Education Coordinator on a wide range of public health issues. He has served on the IPEN Steering Committee since 2012. He has been very active in international networks including IPEN, PAN, and the International Environmental Communication Association. One of his most impressive accomplishments is his initiative with farmers in promoting agro-ecology, specifically organic cotton production—as a result, approximately 2,800 farmers in southern Ethiopia are producing organic cotton, with 200 gaining the first ever (in Ethiopia) organic certification. He has also led important work on e-products/waste management and to eliminate lead in paint. Tadesse has participated, contributed to, and made interventions in the Basel, Rotterdam & Stockholm Conventions, the Minamata Convention on Mercury, SAICM and UNEA.
NORTH AMERICA
Pamela K. Miller
Alaska Community Action on Toxics (ACAT), United States
Pam Miller founded ACAT in 1997. Since 2000, ACAT has been awarded multiple federal grants for which Pam has been serving as team leader and, from 2005 through 2016, as Principal Investigator of a research team that includes faculty from four universities in Alaska and New York. These research projects rely on collaborative efforts with tribes in Alaska to address environmental health and justice issues. Pam is a leader in Coming Clean, a national network of groups concerned about chemicals policy reform, and in the Collaborative on Health and the Environment, an international partnership committed to strengthening the scientific and public dialogue on environmental factors linked to chronic disease and disability. She is one of the world’s foremost experts concerning the toxic pesticide lindane, serving on two governmental organizations (United Nations and the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation) to address international concerns about lindane. She was instrumental in prompting the 2006 decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to withdraw agricultural products containing lindane from the U.S., the 2010 decision by the same agency to phase out uses of endosulfan, and the 2011 decision by the United Nations Environment Programme to ban endosulfan worldwide under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.
FORMER IPEN CO-CHAIRS
Sharyle Patton, 1998-2004
Commonweal
USA
Dr. Romeo F. Quijano, MD, 1998-2006
Pesticide Action Network Philippines
Philippines
Jack Weinberg, 2001- 2005
USA
Prof. Jamidu Katima, 2006 - 2010
Agenda for Environment and Responsible Development
Tanzania
Dr. Mariann Lloyd-Smith, Ph.D., 2006 - 2011
National Toxics Network Inc.
Australia
Emmanuel Calonzo, 2011 - 2015
EcoWaste Coalition
Philippines
Dr. Olga Speranskaya, 2010 – 2018
Eco-Accord/HEJSupport
Russia
