Europe and
Northern America

Regional Community Convenor (RCC)

The Planetary Health Alliance is a growing consortium of over 350 universities, NGOs, research institutes, and government entities from 65+ countries committed to understanding and addressing the impacts of global environmental change on human health and wellbeing. The PHA supports the dissemination of new research, the development and curation of foundational education materials, and the bringing together of communities of practice around the world. It seeks to mobilize the global health and human development communities, private sector, and civil society to recognize that the Earth Crisis represents an urgent humanitarian crisis and to build an activated global constituency committed to rapid structural shifts in how we live.

Tulsi Modi, Regional Convenor Project Manager

Tulsi has a Bachelors of Science in Nutrition and Dietetics and a Masters in Public Health with a focus on global health and climate change. After a decade in patient-care, Tulsi noticed the multitude of interconnections between human health and planetary health. She now works with the Planetary Health Alliance as the Regional Hubs Lead, aiming to grow the field, facilitate conversations, and avail resources to the PHA members.

Marie Studer, PHA Program Director

Dr. Marie Studer is an executive leader with 20+ years of scientific and education program and operational experience delivering results for mission-oriented organizations supporting sustainable community development and audience engagement. Her career has focused on public accessibility and understanding of science through government and public policy positions, to scientific and education leadership for international citizen science projects, to engaging formal and informal educators and youth in biodiversity learning using hands-on and online resources and tools. She is especially interested in creating awareness and action around the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and other international sustainability targets.

Sam Myers, PHA Director

Samuel Myers, MD, MPH studies the human health impacts of accelerating disruptions to Earth’s natural systems, a field recently dubbed Planetary Health. He is a Principal Research Scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and is the founding Director of the Planetary Health Alliance. Sam received his BA from Harvard College, MD from Yale University School of Medicine, and MPH from the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. He performed his internal medicine residency at UCSF and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine.

Leeya Pressburger, Johns Hopkins SAIS Public Service Fellow, Intern Connecting Climate Minds

Currently pursuing a MA in International Relations at Johns Hopkins University SAIS, focusing on Development, Climate, and Sustainability. She is an interdisciplinary climate scientist passionate about sustainable development with two years of policy-relevant research experience. She is dedicated to using upstream thinking and interdisciplinary research to find innovative solutions and advance global progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals.

Nicky Christensen, Communications Manager

Nicky Christensen is the Communications Manager with the PHA. She has worked in nonprofit communications for 10+ years, facilitating connections among educational and business communities by creating and implementing comprehensive brand strategies encompassing print and digital media, design, and photography. Her experience supporting international cultural initiatives aids PHA with its goals of creating Planetary Health awareness and action to create transformational change for a livable future. Nicky received her BS from the University of Central Missouri in public relations and political science and has served on the board of the Iowa Museum Association.

Co-Convenors

Dr. Britt Wray, Lead, Climate Change and Mental Health, a Special Initiative of the Chair, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences of Stanford Medicine

Britt Wray, PhD is the Director of the Chair’s Special Initiative on Climate and Mental Health in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences of Stanford University School of Medicine. She is the author of 2 books, including Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis, and is the founding creator of the weekly Gen Dread newsletter (gendread.substack.com), which shares insights and expert advice for coping and acting in the climate crisis.

University of Minnesota

Coming soon…

Dr. Kyle Hill, Assistant Professor, Division of Environmental Health Sciences

I am an Ojibwe (Turtle Mountain Band; Enrolled Citizen), Dakota (Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe), Lakota (Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe). I am active in community-based participatory research with American Indian and First Nations communities in the US and Canada, focusing on research projects across social, behavioral, and environmental health. Specifically, my primary line of research considers the social, political, and ecological determinants of Indigenous health, as well as the intersection of climate justice and Land-based healing within Indigenous communities.

Sean A. Kidd, Ph.D., C.Psych., Clinical Psychologist

Sean Kidd is a Clinical Psychologist based out of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto where he is a Senior Scientist and the Psychology Division Chief. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto and his work focuses on trialing interventions for youth lacking housing and individuals with severe mental health challenges and knowledge mobilization in the area of health equity and climate change.

Youth Ambassadors

Iris Blom

London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Iris Blom is a Ph.D. candidate researching greenhouse gas mitigation and adaptation of health care systems. She is a medical doctor from the Netherlands with a Master's Degree in Global Affairs from Tsinghua University in China. She has attended UNFCCC COP25-27 to advocate for planetary health and is the first next-generation representative on the Steering Committee of the Planetary Health Alliance.

Amiteshwar Singh

CCM Advisory Board Member Medical Student, Co-founder of the Youth Climate and Health Network

Amit is an organiser and student doctor working towards health justice catalysed by the intersections of ecological justice, racial justice and a just economic transition. Amit's roles include Co-founder of the Youth Climate and Health Network & Medical Strategist for Centric Labs.

Bonolo Madibe

WHO Youth Council Member and Chair of the Climate Change & Health Working Group

Bonolo has experience across non-profits and multilateral organizations dedicated to social and environmental impact, building public facing partnerships to catalyze action around the SDGs and amplify youth voices in climate and environmental decision-making processes. As the Chair of the WHO Youth Council’s Climate Change and Health Working Group, she coordinates youth expertise and experiences to amplify the WHO’s global efforts to address the health outcomes of climate change.

Olivia Sterantino

Olivia recently graduated from Lafayette College with honors in environmental science. She is applying to graduate programs to study planetary health and the intersection of ecosystem degradation and neglected tropical diseases. She currently works for Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, the company that made the first FDA approved treatment for the Ebola virus.

Lived Experience Advisory Group

Donald Warne, MD, MPH (Oglala Lakota)

Center for Indigenous Health, Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University

Donald Warne, MD, MPH (Oglala Lakota) Co-Director of the Center for Indigenous Health and as a tenured, Full-Professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University where he also serves as the Provost Fellow for Indigenous Health Policy. Dr. Warne is also the Senior Policy Advisor to the Great Plains Tribal Leader’s Health Board in Rapid City, SD.

Allison Kelliher, MD

Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, Bloomberg School of Public Center for Indigenous Medicine

Allison Kelliher, MD, is Koyukon Athabascan, Dena, from Nome, Alaska. She is a research professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and Bloomberg School of Public Center for Indigenous Medicine, she is the first and only physician trained as a Traditional Healer in a Tribal Health setting and weaves this into her practice as a Family and Integrative Physician.

Dr. Philippa Clery

University College London, Academic Clinical Fellow

Dr Pip Clery is a training psychiatrist based in London, UK. She received her medical degree from King’s College in London in 2018. She is now an Academic Clinical Fellow, working part-time clinically, part-time undertaking research. She is currently involved in research projects at University College London to study the impact of temperature on symptoms of mood disorders. She is passionate about the impacts of climate and ecological breakdown on mental health and sees it as a duty of care to address planetary and human health as one, given their inextricable link.