Michael Mann, Distinguished Professor of Meteorology, Penn State University, and Director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center (ESSC)

Dr. Michael Mann was a Lead Author on the Observed Climate Variability and Change chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Scientific Assessment Report in 2001 and was organizing committee chair for the National Academy of Sciences Frontiers of Science in 2003. He has received a number of honors and awards including NOAA's outstanding publication award in 2002 and selection by Scientific American as one of the fifty leading visionaries in science and technology in 2002. He contributed, with other IPCC authors, to the award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. Mann is author of more than 200 peer-reviewed and edited publications, numerous op-eds and commentaries, and five books. He received his undergraduate degrees in Physics and Applied Math from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.S. degree in Physics from Yale University, and a Ph.D. in Geology & Geophysics from Yale University. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society, the Geological Society of America, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He is also a co-founder of the award-winning science website RealClimate.org.

Ruth McDermott-Levy, Associate Professor & Co-Director, Mid-Atlantic Center for Children's Health and the Environment (PEHSU Region 3), M. Louise Fitzpatrick College of Nursing at Villanova University

An expert in environmental health, global health, and public health nursing, Dr. Ruth McDermott-Levy has taught and conducted research in Philadelphia’s Arab-American and immigrant communities, with community health workers in Nicaragua, and in the Marcellus Shale region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. She has advocated for health protective regulations for those who live in oil and gas development communities and developed recommendations and teaching strategies to incorporate environmental health and climate change into the nursing curricula. Dr. McDermott-Levy is a co-editor of an open-access environmental health textbook for nurses, Environmental Health in Nursing. In 2018, she received the Fulbright-Saastamoinen Foundation Health and Environmental Sciences Award for teaching and research. She received her Ph.D. from Villanova University and a master’s in public health from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.