Senior Scholar Lois-ellin Datta, Ph.D., is president of Datta Analysis, and provides consulting services in statistics, evaluation, and policy analysis internationally. She has a Ph.D. in comparative and physiological psychology, an M.A. in social psychology from Bryn Mawr College, and an M.A. in sociology and B.A. in psychology from West Virginia University. In addition to many technical reports, Dr. Datta has written over 100 articles and three books.
Dr. Datta spent many years in Washington, D.C., serving as a postdoctoral fellow, Laboratory of Psychology, National Institutes of Health (1963-1968); National Director, Project Head Start Evaluation, U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity (1968-1970); National Director, Head Start Evaluation and Director of Research, Children’s Bureau, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (1970-1972); Director, Research and Planning, Career Education Division, National Institute of Education, U.S. Department of Education (1972-1978); Director, Teaching, Learning and Assessment Division, National Institute of Education, U.S. Department of Education (1978-1982); and Director, Research in the Human Service Areas, Program Evaluation and Methodology Division, U.S. General Accounting Office (1982-1989).
She has served as a board member for the Evaluation Research Society and the American Evaluation Association, and is a past-president of the American Evaluation Association. She was chief editor for New Directions in Evaluation, and serves on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Evaluation, International Encyclopedia of Evaluation, and the International Handbook of Education, among others. Dr. Datta is a member of Sigma Xi and Phi Beta Kappa. She has received numerous awards including Myrdal Award in Evaluation, American Evaluation Association; Ingle Award, American Evaluation Association; Davis Award, Knowledge Utilization Society; Distinguished Service Award, U.S. General Accounting Office, and Comptroller General’s Award, U.S. General Accounting Office.
Senior Scientist Louis A. Derry, Ph.D., is an associate professor of geological sciences in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University, and the director of the Cornell IGERT Program in Biogeochemistry and Environmental Biocomplexity (BEB), an interdisciplinary NSF funded graduate training program. He received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in geochemistry and a B.A. in geology from Colorado College. He is active in the Geological Society of America, the American Geophysical Union, the Nepal Geological Society, the American Chemical Society, and many other organizations.
Dr. Derry’s concentration is in the “processes and consequences of biogeochemical interactions between the oceans, atmosphere, and land surface; modern and ancient carbon cycle, Earth’s current processes linked to global change as well as the history of the Earth’s surface environment and its link to the evolution of life through time.”
http://www.eas.cornell.edu/people/profile.cfm?netid=lad9
He established The Cornell Earth and Environmental Science Program (Cornell EES Program), an undergraduate Earth System Science field study program based on Hawai‘i Island that is offered in collaboration with The Kohala Center.
Dr. Derry is widely published. His work has appeared inNature and many other scientific journals and publications. While Dr. Derry’s contributions to the scientific community is broad, his work has had an even farther reach—into the general public—as he has been interviewed by National Public Radio, as well as served as a consultant to the scientific series NOVA which appears on PBS.
Senior Scientist Charles H. Greene, Ph.D., is a professor and director of the Ocean Resources and Ecosystems Program in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University. He earned a B.A. from the University of Colorado in Boulder, and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Washington in Seattle. He serves as an associate editor ofOceanography, the official magazine of The Oceanography Society. His awards and appointments include: fellow of The Oceanography Society (2008); Faculty Innovation in Teaching Fellow, Cornell University (2001); Merril Presidential Scholar Outstanding Educator, Cornell University (1999); J.P. and Mary Barger Excellence in Teaching Award, College of Engineering, Cornell University (1998).
Dr. Greene is widely published in the fields of ecology and oceanography. His research “focuses on the impacts of climate variability and change on marine ecosystems” and he notes that “recent research efforts have resulted in major breakthroughs in our understanding of climate impacts on the continental shelf ecosystems of the NW Atlantic.” Dr. Greene is a leader in the effort to “promote the emerging new field of Conservation Oceanography,” which “incorporates the latest advances in sensor technology, ocean observing systems, and computational methods to provide resource managers and policy makers with the information they need to ensure the sustainability of both exploited and protected marine populations.” http://www.geo.cornell.edu/geology/faculty/Greene.html
Senior Scientist C. Drew Harvell, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University. She chairs the World Bank Targeted Research Program on Coral Disease and Coral Reef Sustainability and formerly the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis program on the Ecology of Marine Disease. She is a former vice president of the Society of American Naturalists and serves on the editorial board of Annual Reviews of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics.
Dr. Harvell received a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Washington in Seattle and a B.Sc. in zoology from the University of Alberta.
Dr. Harvell is recognized for her work on marine diseases and the ecology of marine invertebrates. She has published over 40 papers in the last decade, and over eighty in her career. Currently, the focus of her laboratory group is on the ecology and evolution of coral resistance to disease of which “a subtheme of this work includes evaluating the impacts of a warming climate on coral reef ecosystems.” Dr. Harvell’s analyses and papers have led to the now widespread acceptance that diseases in marine ecosystems are important, particularly in the very climate-sensitive coral reef ecosystems. Her work has received both national and international media exposure.
Senior Scholar Kekuhi Kanae Kanahele Keali‘ikanaka‘oleoHaililani is the executive director of the Edith Kanaka‘ole Foundation, coordinator of I Ola Haloa,Title III, a federally funded educational program, and an instructor in the Hawaiian Lifestyles Program at Hawai‘i Community College. She and her sister Huihui Kanahele-Mossman are kumu hula of Halau o Kekuhi, which was founded by the ancestors of Pualani Kanaka‘ole Kanahele and Nalani Kanaka‘ole, whose lineage can be traced to the very beginnings of hula, the Peleclan itself.
Kekuhi holds a B.A. in Hawaiian Studies from the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo, and a M.Ed. from Heritage University. She is also a doctoral student in Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, with a focus on Hawai‘i Primal Religion and Sacred Ethno-ecology at Union Institute and University. Her professional and community service include: past and current board memberships in Na Maka Haloa, the Ka‘u Learning Center; cultural consultancies to Kaho‘olawe Island Reserve Commission and the Protect Kaho‘olawe ‘Ohana, Kupuna Council for Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park, and the Folk Alliance Conference.
Among her many accomplishments, she is also an award-winning performing artist, with three audio recordings: Hahani Mai (1996 Punahele Productions), Kekuhi (1999 Mountain Apple Company), and Honey Boy (2002 Mountain Apple Company). In 1999, she was named Female Vocalist of the Year at the Na Hoku Hanohano Music Award.
Senior Scientist Karen Kemp, Ph.D, is a professor of the Practice of Spatial Sciences at the University of Southern California (USC). Fortunately, since her teaching duties are in the on-line Masters in Geographic Information Science and Technology program, she is able to live full-time in Hawai‘i while teaching at USC. This has allowed her to engage with The Kohala Center and other members of the Island’s community on a number of GIS-based projects.
Dr. Kemp holds a Ph.D. in geography from the University of California at Santa Barbara (1992); an M.A. in geography from the University of Victoria, British Columbia (1982); and a B.Sc. in physical geography from the University of Calgary, Alberta (1976).
Prior to moving to Hawai‘i in 2006, she founded and directed the M.S. in GIS (Master of Science in Geographic Information Systems) Program at the University of Redlands in southern California. Earlier, she was Associate Director of the National Center for Geographic Information Analysis at the University of California Santa Barbara and Executive Director of the Geographic Information Science Center at the University of California Berkeley.
Dr. Kemp has authored numerous works on GIS education and been a frequent organizer of and presenter in workshops on GIS education around the world. She participated in the establishment of a program for certification of GIS professionals and edited the Encyclopedia of Geographic Information Science. Her scientific research focuses on developing methods to improve the integration of environmental models with GIS from both the pedagogic and the scientific perspectives and on formalizing the conceptual models of space acquired by scientists and humanities scholars, across a wide range of disciplines. In 2011, she was inducted as a Fellow of the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science “for her extraordinary record of accomplishment, service and contributions to the advancement of geographic information science and applications.” http://spatial.usc.edu/?team=karen-kemp
Senior Scientist Jed P. Sparks, Ph.D. is an associate professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University. He earned a B.S. in biology from the University of Utah and a Ph.D. in botany from Washington State University. His recognitions include a Howard Hughes Undergraduate Research Fellowship for biology (1992); acceptance into Who’s Who Among American Colleges and Universities (1994); and an outstanding undergraduate achievement award for biology from the University of Utah (1994). He also received an Aase graduate fellowship from Washington State University (1994 and 1995); Noe Higinbotham Award for Graduate Research (1996); Biddulph Award for Botany (1997); Biosphere Atmosphere Research Training Fellowship, National Science Foundation (1998); National Science Foundation Early CAREER Award (2002); and an Atmospheric Chemistry Division Visiting Fellowship to the National Center for Atmospheric Research (2002).
Dr. Sparks’ research “centers on physiological factors governing relationships between plants and their environment with emphasis on the interaction between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere.” He is a member of the Ecological Society of America; American Association for the Advancement of Science; and the American Geophysical Union. He also serves on the editorial boards of Plant Biology and Global Change Biology.