Paul Slovic is a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon and a founder and President of Decision Research. He studies human judgment, decision making, and the psychology of risk. With colleagues worldwide, he has developed methods to describe risk perceptions and measure their impacts on individuals and society. He is a past President of the Society for Risk Analysis and in 1991 received its Distinguished Contribution Award. In 1993 he received the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association. In 1995 he received the Outstanding Contribution to Science Award from the Oregon Academy of Science. He has received honorary doctorates from the Stockholm School of Economics (1996) and the University of East Anglia (2005). He was elected to The American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2015 and to the National Academy of Sciences in 2016. He holds a B.A. from Stanford University (1959) and an M.A (1962) and Ph.D. (1964) from the University of Michigan.
Susan N. Gary is an Orlando J. and Marian H. Hollis Professor at the University of Oregon School of Law. Her current scholarly work focuses on fiduciary duties and investing. She has examined how fiduciaries managing assets for charities can take mission into account, and she has discussed the evolution of the prudent investor rule to include consideration of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors. Prof. Gary is a member of the steering committee of the Intentional Endowments Network, among many professional affiliations.
Jay Namyet is the Chief Investment Officer of the University of Oregon Foundation, having joined the organization as its first staff professional in 2000. Jay is responsible for oversight of all facets of investment management with regard to the endowment, trust, and cash pools totaling approximately one billion dollars. In addition he has helped launch three UO student experiential-learning opportunities in equity-portfolio management, bank lending and seed- fund investing. He has approximately 35 years of investment experience, having started his career as a proprietary trader for Paine Webber Mitchell Hutchings in 1982.
The Foundation was awarded Mid-Size Foundation of the Year honors by Foundation and Endowment Money Management (FEMM) in 2007. It also received Institutional Investor’s Good Governance award in 2016. Since inception of its internal investment department the Foundation has consistently produced top quartile returns.
Jay earned a BA in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA, with a concentration in investments, from New York University.
He serves as Past President of the Eugene Education Foundation and as an Investment Committee member of both CASE and the Oregon-based Ford Family Foundation. When not thinking about investments, Jay can be found photographing the natural beauty of the coast and Cascades of Oregon.
Jim Shephard is a business angel investor and educator. He has three decades of global business experience as an international corporate finance lawyer and has served in a number of senior management roles in the financial services industry, including as CEO of an international French bank and CEO of a UK regulated asset management company. He has significant board experience and has served as a board member of companies in Ireland, The Netherlands, Germany, the UK, France, Italy and the US. He is involved in volunteer and philanthropic activities as a Trustee of the University of Oregon Foundation where he currently serves as Chair and a member of the Finance, Investment and Executive Committees and as a member of the Advisory Council of the Clark Honors College. He graduated from the University of Oregon’s Clark Honors College where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He also obtained graduate degrees (Maîtrise and DEA) with high distinction (mention très bien) from the University of Poitiers (France) and a law degree from Tulane University. He was a Fulbright Scholar and has published research on the history of law and commerce. He was also a member of the New York and Paris bars.
Kate Gordon is a Senior Advisor at the Paulson Institute, where she provides overall strategy and coordination for the Institute’s climate change, air quality, and sustainable urbanization programs both in the US and China. She is also a nonresident Fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University and a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal as one of the paper’s “Energy Experts.”
Gordon is a nationally recognized expert on the intersection of clean energy and economic development. Before joining the Paulson Institute, she was the Founding Director of the “Risky Business Project,” co-chaired by Michael Bloomberg, Henry Paulson, and Tom Steyer, and focused on the economic risks the U.S. faces from unmitigated climate change. Gordon took on this project in her role as Senior Vice President for Climate and Energy at Next Generation, a non-partisan think tank based in San Francisco, where she worked on California policy development as well as large-scale national communications and research projects.
Earlier in her career Gordon served as Vice President of Energy and Environment at the Washington D.C.-based Center for American Progress, where she helped develop and author policy recommendations related to the Congressional cap-and-trade negotiations, Gulf oil spill, and American Reinvestment and Recovery Act implementation. Prior to CAP, Gordon was the Co-Director of the national Apollo Alliance (now part of the Blue Green Alliance). She still serves on the Apollo Alliance board, as well as on the board of Vote Solar.
Gordon earned a law degree and a master’s degree in city planning from the University of California-Berkeley, and an undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University.
Dave Chen is a principal at Equilibrium, which builds and operates portfolios of sustainably driven real assets for institutional investors. For Equilibrium, he oversees new product development and guides the firm’s growth. Previously, Dave was a general partner at OVP Venture Partners; Founder/CEO GeoTrust; Corporate Vice President Marketing Mentor Graphics; associate at McKinsey & Company; and early team member at Solectron.
Dave was the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco’s Portland Branch, is a current board member of The Freshwater Trust, board member of B Corp/B LAB, advisory board member of Volans, was Governor appointed Chairman of the Oregon Innovation Council (2005-2011) and founding Chairman of ONAMI. Dave is an Adjunct Professor of Finance at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and previously faculty at Stanford GSB, on the topic of sustainable investing and finance.
Dave has B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley and a M.M., Kellogg School of Management from Northwestern University.
Dave is a co-owner of Patton Valley Vineyards, a grower of sustainably farmed Oregon Pinot Noir.
Emilie Mazzacurati is the founder and CEO of Four Twenty Seven, an award-winning market research and advisory firm that brings climate intelligence to economic and financial decision-makers. Ms. Mazzacurati’s work mixes rigorous economic analysis and creative data visualization to help businesses and communities understand climate risks and develop effective climate resilience strategies. She was the lead author on the 2015 Caring for Climate report The Business Case for Responsible Corporate Adaptation and a contributing author to 2016 the Global Adaptation & Resilience Investor discussion paper: Bridging the Adaptation Finance Gap. Ms. Mazzacurati holds a MA from Science Po (Paris) and an MPP from UC Berkeley also teaches at UC Davis Executive MBA.
Dr. Steven Brence is a Senior Instructor in Philosophy at the University of Oregon, an Oregon native that grew up in Portland, and attended the UO. His areas of focus in Philosophy include American Pragmatism and the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. Dr Brence teaches Ethics of Enterprise and Exchange, Social and Political Philosophy, Environmental Philosophy, and other courses at the University.
David G. Lewis is a member of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, a descendant of the Takelma, Chinook, Molalla, and Santiam Kalapuya peoples of western Oregon. David is engaged in research on the tribes of the Oregon. He served as the director of the Southwest Oregon Project Collection at the UO, and the Cultural Department Manager of the Grand Ronde Tribe. David has a PhD in anthropology from the University of Oregon and is a professional ethnohistorian, conducting research, giving presentations and writing articles about the tribes of Oregon. Much of his work is published in his blog ndnhistoryresearch at WordPress. David lives in Salem with his wife Donna, and sons Inatye and Saghaley.
Dr. John Bellamy Foster is a Professor of Sociology of the University of Oregon and editor of Monthly Review (New York). He is the author of The Vulnerable Planet (1994), Marx’s Ecology (2000), Ecology Against Capitolism (2009), The Ecological Rift (with Brett Clark and Richard York, 2010), What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism (with Fred Magdoff, 2011), and other works.