Erica Key

Global Hub Director, USA Hub

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As the new Director of Future Earth US Global Hub, Erica brings a wealth of international experience in supporting transdisciplinary research and working with a range of global partners on advancing sustainability science. Before joining Future Earth, Erica served as the Executive Director of the Belmont Forum, where she closely collaborated with Future Earth, most prominently on the Sustainability Research and Innovation Congress, which is a joint initiative of Future Earth and the Belmont Forum. Erica has also held a position as a Program Director at the US National Science Foundation (NSF), and worked as an Oceanographer at Columbia University as well as a Visiting Scientist at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS). She holds a Ph.D. in Meteorology and Physical Oceanography from the University of Miami. Erica joins Future Earth at a pivotal moment, as it welcomes the new Global Secretariat Hubs and prepares for the very first Future Earth Assembly meeting, where the new Governing Council will be selected. Erica looks forward to leading the US Global Hub of Future Earth and developing a strategy that will enable it to better engage the US community of sustainability science, while further strengthening its rapidly growing programs. She comes to us from Uruguay in South America where the Belmont Forum resides with her family including a son, three dogs and a cat.

Laurel Milliken

Director of Operations, USA Hub

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Kathy Kohm

Editor-In-Chief, Anthropocene magazine

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Kathryn Kohm is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Anthropocene, an international magazine focused on sustainability and climate science and sponsored by Future Earth with initial funding from National Science Foundation. Previously, she was the founding editor of the University of Washington’s Conservation magazine. She also edited several books, including “Balancing on the Brink of Extinction,” and “Creating a Forestry for the 21st Century.” Professional commendations include: a 2020 CASE Circle of Excellence Award for best university-based specialty magazine; an honorable mention in the 2020 World Changing Ideas list from Fast Company magazine; a 2019 Eddie Award (FOLIO) for editorial and design excellence; and in 2017, she was named one of the year's 40 most influential people in the publishing industry by Folio Magazine. She has a Master of Science degree from the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and is now based in Seattle Washington, USA.

Veera Mitzner

Associate Director, USA Hub; Director, Sustainability Research and Innovation Congress

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Veera Mitzner is the Associate Director of the Future Earth US Global Hub and the Director of the Sustainability Research and Innovation Congress. Veera holds a PhD in History and Civilization from the European University Institute and has worked in international roles for several nonprofit organizations, building and leading new programs and initiatives focused on sustainability, conservation and evidence-based decision-making. Through her work, Veera has been affiliated with Columbia University, Princeton University, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Helsinki, University of Turku, and the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. Her book “European Union Research Policy – Contested Origins,” was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2020.

Margaret Krebs

Program Director, Earth Leadership Program

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As Program Director for the Earth Leadership Program, Margaret Krebs designs and facilitates the leadership program for the cohort of fellows. She also works with universities, offering train-the-trainers workshops that enable faculty and staff to design their own sustainability leadership programs for various audiences—graduate students, postdocs, early career faculty. She’s been instrumental in developing the collective leadership framework that guides the transdisciplinary training provided for researchers. Margaret’s commitment and experience designing leadership development programs led her to be selected as a participant in the 2014 Leadership for Collective Intelligences, led by Dialogos. She has melded the content of that training with her own interdisciplinary experience and is now co-designing and facilitating other related programs such as the Africa Science Leadership Program, AAAS’s Emerging Leaders in Science and Society, and the International Social Science Council’s Transformations to Sustainability Programme and Stanford’s Leading Interdisciplinary Collaborations fellowship program. Prior to joining the Earth Leadership Program, Margaret managed two Stanford training grants to design new learning environments that integrated technology to support teaching and learning. Margaret’s interest in teaching and learning developed while she was an undergraduate in innovative study programs at Earlham College and evolved further when she became a teacher designing a “school without walls” in Philadelphia. This background inspired her future work in developing programs to bring research and innovation to new audiences in diverse settings – from an early childhood research center in New Haven, Connecticut to Cisco Systems in Silicon Valley.

Judit Ungvari

Co-Lead, Research & Innovation

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Judit Ungvari is the co-lead of the Future Earth Research and Innovation portfolio and the Research and Innovation Officer at George Mason University’s Institute for a Sustainable Earth. She came to Future Earth and Mason after 2 years at the National Science Foundation where she was a AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow. She was working in the Geosciences directorate on various international and integrative activities facilitating transdisciplinary global change research. Her work encompassed various programs within the Belmont Forum, Future Earth, and the Sustainability Research and Innovation initiatives. Judit is an ecologist by training, with expertise in avian biology in tropical habitats. She studied birds in the Peruvian Amazon region combining both laboratory- and field-based research and received her Ph.D. in Zoology with a certificate and concentration in Tropical Conservation and Development at the University of Florida. Her work on Amazonian forest bird communities related to the ecological mechanisms of habitat specialization, movement and dispersal between patchy habitats, combining metapopulation theory, landscape ecology, and population genetics. She also worked as a postdoctoral scholar at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC, addressing avian conservation issues in coffee agroecosystems in Colombia. Judit is involved in local capacity building and community outreach both in the USA and Latin America and has mentored dozens of students to complete independent research projects in Peru, Colombia and Florida. Her interests include sustainability science, science diplomacy, supporting open research efforts, and communicating science to the public.

Kyoko Shiota MacAulay

Network Manager

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Kyoko Shiota MacAulay is a Network Manager at the US Hub. She previously worked for the Japan Hub as a Program Manager coordinating the Future of Washing Initiative. She also worked for some private companies as an ESG consultant as well as for the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability as a lead program manager for the Education for Sustainable Development Programme. She has also worked for the United Nations Population Fund as a knowledge management consultant. She holds an M.A. in International Educational Development from Teachers College, Columbia University, and a B.A. in International and Cultural Studies from Tsuda University.

Bridget Blake

Communications Manager

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Bridget is the Communications Manager for Future Earth. Before joining, she spent just over a decade in the news business, most recently as a news producer for CNN International where she produced a live global news program with a focus on Africa. She is looking forward to bringing her perspective from her time in news to the Communications Manager role. Bridget has her Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from the University of Oregon and is based in Atlanta.

Stephan Useche

Event Tech Manager, USA

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Stephan Useche is the Event Tech Manager of the Future Earth US Global Hub. She is based in South Florida where she graduated from Florida International University with a bachelor’s degree in Communications. Prior to joining Future Earth, Stephan managed the process for virtual event accounts, and before that she led the development and execution of integrated marketing plans ranging from media and influencer relations, experiential activations, partnerships, and community outreach.

Makyba Charles-Ayinde

Latin America and Caribbean Regional Lead, USA Hub

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Makyba Charles-Ayinde serves as the Latin America and Caribbean Lead and is focused on expansion, reinforcement, and deepening of strategic relationships among sustainability, informed decision support, and transformative action organizations in the Global South with the offices and communities of Future Earth. As such, she is particularly focused on leading such activities in the region of Latin America and the Caribbean and being both a conduit and advocate to the Global Future Earth administration for that region. She came to Future Earth after efforts at the National Institutes of Health where she supported exceptionally creative scientists pursuing highly innovative research with the potential for broad impact in biomedical, behavioral, or social sciences and the United States Department of State where she worked as their lead Covid-19 officer within the Office of International Health and Biodefense. Makyba has previously worked with Future Earth while as an AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow at the National Science Foundation. She worked in the Geosciences directorate on various international and integrative activities facilitating transdisciplinary global change research. Her work encompassed various programs within the Belmont Forum, Future Earth, Sustainability Research and Innovation, and Global Sustainability Scholars initiatives. Makyba is a public health scientist by training, with expertise in environmental and global health. She assessed seafood safety following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and identified highly vulnerable subpopulations to environmental disasters in the Gulf region. She also worked as a National Academies of Sciences fellow, where she analyzed programs responding to the Zika disease outbreak following hurricane Irma and evaluated novel techniques for mosquito control due to climate change within the State of Florida. Makyba is originally from the Caribbean and is extremely passionate about moving the needle on initiatives relative to sustainability science and its connectivity to public health, as well as science diplomacy within the Global South.

Mark Harris

Senior Editor, Anthropocene Magazine, USA Hub

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Mark Harris is the Senior Editor for Anthropocene Magazine, based in Seattle. He has also written for TechCrunch, The Guardian, MIT Technology Review, and IEEE Spectrum. He has broken stories about military drones, giant airships, hydrogen aircraft, and illegal satellite launches. In 2014, he was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT, and in 2019 he won the National Press Club’s Dornheim Award for Aerospace reporting.

Monika Bauer

Manager, Collaborative Projects and Partnerships, USA

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Monika works in the Future Earth US Global Hub and is managing the Future Earth horizon scanning on climate change and biodiversity science to advise on the Horizon Europe Work Program for the last three years for the European Commission. She is based at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), where she has worked over a decade in bringing together the global systems analysis community, and is looking forward to coordinating this collaborative project throughout 2023 with Future Earth.

Stephanie Honda

Intern, USA Hub

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Stephanie joined Future Earth as a digital content intern for the USA Hub. She holds a master’s degree in Global Studies from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Her thesis focused on themes of media and communication and adaptation to global environmental change in the Federated States of Micronesia. Her role at Future Earth involves creating digital content across media platforms.

Lalie Marie

SRI Intern, USA Hub

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Lalie joined the Future Earth USA Hub as an SRI Intern. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Human Biology from Stanford University. Her role at Future Earth involves outreach, engagement, and operations in preparation for the 2024 SRI Congress in Finland.