2023 Board Nominees
The USSEE Board of Directors is pleased to announce the nominees for the 2023 Board Elections. The following nominees are for 3 available positions: Secretary-Treasurer (1 nominee) and two At-Large Member Positions (2 nominees). Additionally, the position of Undergraduate Student is available for appointment by the Board. Please contact us with nominations or self-nominations. Nominees are presented by position in alphabetical order. Elections close on Wednesday May 31.
Please note, your ISEE/USSEE membership must be up-to-date to vote! If you are an active member, you will receive voting instructions via email to the address in your ISEE/USSEE profile. If you believe you are an active member but have not received a ballot, please contact us.
Secretary-Treasurer
John A. Sorrentino
John A. Sorrentino was a charter member of ISEE/USSEE. Currently, he is an Associate Professor of Economics at Temple University. He was a co-founder of Temple University’s Environmental Studies Program, and was honored by the University with a 1999 Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching. Most of his publications and consulting work have involved the micro-economics of energy and the environment, and have appeared in journals such as the American Economic Review, Journal of Environmental Economics & Management, Environmental Management, Landscape & Urban Planning, & Sustainability. He also has an essay entitled “Containing Carbon through Cap and Trade or a Per Unit Tax” in the Encyclopedia of Environmental Economics edited by James Kahn. His works-in-progress include such topics as sustainable housing placement, environmental information systems, sustainable business practices, urban agriculture, and using environmental and health amenities to offset wealth inequality. John received his B.B.A. from Baruch College of the City University of New York and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Purdue University, all in economics.
CANDIDACY STATEMENT:
I am running again for Secretary-Treasurer because I firmly believe in the transdisciplinary mission & goals of ISEE/USSEE, & I believe that I can continue to promote them in another term. With respect to conferences, I have served on the scientific committees reviewing proposals, and presented my own research at many of them. I have chaired or co-chaired the Board’s Membership Committee, seeking to maintain or expand membership as sub-groups of our previous constituency broke away. Recently, my University approved a “transition to retirement” plan for me to teach one semester per year. This will free up more time to devote to EE research & USSEE matters. I hope that you will give me the chance to continue to work with the Executive Committee & the Board of Directors to get more of our general members involved in USSEE activities, & to spread the word about ecological economics.
Member At-Large (2 positions)
Seth Binder
Seth is an Associate Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies at St Olaf College, currently serving as chair of the Environmental Studies department. His teaching includes courses in Economic Development, Environmental Economics, Environmental Policy & Regulation, Sustainable Development, and Sustainable Land Use in Costa Rica. Seth’s research focuses on how best to manage land, resources, and ecosystems in consideration of both efficiency and equity criteria, and, more recently, on the importance of access to land to support livelihoods and equitable, sustainable development. His research has been published in diverse, interdisciplinary journals, including Ecological Economics, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, Human Ecology, Journal of Benefit-Costs Analysis, and PNAS. Seth holds a PhD in Environmental Economics from the Yale School of the Environment, an MSc in Environment and Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a BSFS in International Political Economy from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
CANDIDACY STATEMENT:
I’m excited at the prospect of serving as an at-large member of the USSEE board. I have long been energized and inspired by the work of ecological economics and I’ve been a member (on and off) of the ISEE and USSEE since 2009. Ideally, a professional association like USSEE provides opportunities for intellectual exchange and enrichment; professional development; networking and recruitment; community-making and community service; and mentoring and support of the next generation. Given the ideological, methodological, and disciplinary pluralism of ecological economics, USSEE should be a large, diverse, lively, and flourishing association. Paradoxically, it is challenged by its pluralism, and by the stubborn disciplinarity of the academy. I suspect that many potential members prioritize membership in the professional association of their “home” discipline or particular ideological community. My goal as a board member is to help USSEE find and develop its niche (or comparative advantage, if you prefer!) and to communicate to the community of ecological economists the distinctive value that our association can offer. I will bring to that effort my experience as the treasurer of the board of a congregation of comparable size, as well as experience serving on college-wide curriculum, governance, and financial advisory committees.
Laura Villegas
Laura is an ecological economist by choice, though trained in the mainstream views of environmental economics. She holds a PhD from North Carolina State University in environmental and development economics, a master’s degree in applied economics from Montana State University, and bachelor degrees in economics and political science, also from Montana State University. Laura is at Earth Economics as a Sr. Researcher. She also serves as an associate in the Human-Environment Systems program at Boise State University. Her previous position was with the World Resources Institute, where she worked as an economics researcher studying the role of macroeconomic policies and growth pathways in addressing the joint effects of climate change and rampant inequalities in the developing world, and the role of natural infrastructure in improving the provision and management of water-related services.
CANDIDACY STATEMENT:
Laura is an enthusiastic ecological economist, political scientist, and environmental data scientist. She grew up with German Shepherds in a small town in the Colombian Andes and now lives in Nampa, Idaho.
Laura loves mountains and her family most of all and is passionate about justice and ecological integrity issues. Laura has technical expertise in systems modeling, environmental governance and collective impact, sustainable climate risk management, ecosystem services valuation, spatial econometrics techniques, scenario modeling, and data analytics.
Laura’s education along with her personal and professional experience make her skeptical of mainstream and hegemonic schools of thought and constantly lead her to question the ethical implications of economic analyses in policy making. In her work, Laura favors a pluralistic, interdisciplinary, and empirical approach to research and tries to represent the voices of all affected groups.
She believes Ecological Economics can assist in shaping narratives, inform strategies, and empower grass-root movements to help build a healthy community of members connected to nature and supportive of other community members. She wants to contribute to the field by figuring out ways in which the discipline can apply sound empirical methods to address wicked problems in economic, social, and environmental policy.