Friends of Israel’s Environment Board of Directors
We are a diverse group of attorneys, environmental policy experts, scientists, educators and business people from throughout the United States working to support IUED as it addresses the critical environmental challenges facing Israel and the region.
Directors:
Rachel Bartur - Los Angeles
Rachel Bartur provides private psychotherapy services to adults and children. She is on the faculty at The Reiss Davis Post Graduate Child Study Center in Los Angles. Rachel grew up in Israel and is a graduate of Haifa University and University of Southern California. She is currently starting a new psychotherapy program at an inner-city charter school in Los Angeles as part of the Los Angles Child Development Center.
Dan Grunfeld - Los Angeles
Dan Grunfeld has been the President and Chief Executive of Public Counsel Law Center, one of Los Angeles' largest pro bono legal firms. Born in Israel and raised in Ethiopia, Grunfeld is Deputy Mayor of the City of Los Angeles.
Viva Hammer - Washington DC
Viva Hammer is a Vice Chair of the FIE Board. She is a partner at Crowell & Moring in the Tax and Financial Services group. She previously worked for the Office of Tax Policy in the U.S. Department of Treasury where she was Associate Tax Legislative Counsel responsible for developing policy and laws governing the taxation of financial institutions and products.
Evan Kaizer - Los Angeles
Evan Kaizer is currently Treasurer and past Chairman of the FIE Board. He is President of the Sieroty Company, a commercial real estate company based in Los Angeles. Evan Chairs the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles' Environmental Initiatives Committee of the Los Angeles - Tel Aviv Partnership.
Suellen Keiner - Washington DC
Suellen Keiner is Secretary of the FIE Board. She is an environmental and civil rights attorney, currently Chief Operating Officer for the State of the USA, Inc., a new non-profit that is establishing a system of economic, environmental and social indicators for the U.S. She is a graduate of the Georgetown Law Center and Bryn Mawr College.
Howard Learner - Chicago
Howard Learner is Chair of the FIE Board. He is an experienced public interest attorney and serves as the Executive Director of the Environmental Law & Policy Center, the Midwest's leading environmental legal advocacy and eco-business innovation organization. Howard is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of Michigan.
Henry Lester - Southern California
Henry Lester is the Bren Professor of Biology at Caltech, in Pasadena, California where he has taught since 1973. He has a doctorate from Harvard College. The lab under his direction studies the nervous system at the molecular level.
Elissa Parker - Washington DC
Elissa Parker is Vice President of the Environmental Law Institute where she supervises U.S. and international programs for water protection, climate change, sustainable use of land, biodiversity, environmental justice, wetlands, greenbuildings, constitutional law, and nanotechnology. Prior to joining the Institute in 1984, she served as Special Assistant Attorney General in Pennsylvania.
Michelle Portman - Boston
Michelle Portman is a research fellow in the Marine Policy Center at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Previously she worked at the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. She has a PhD from the University of Massachusetts and degrees from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and U.C. Berkeley. During 1993-1995 Michelle worked at IUED as an environmental planner.
Daniel Rosenblum - New York
Dan Rosenblum is founder of the Carbon Tax Center based in New York. He has worked for over thirteen years as an energy and environmental attorney advocating for increased energy efficiency and the expanded use of renewable energy. He is a graduate of Northwestern University School of Law.
Geri Unger - Chicago
Geri Unger currently serves as the Director of Education at the Cleveland Botanical Garden. As a consultant to foundations, non-profit organizations, universities, and government entities, she specializes in program development on environmental issues and evaluation of sustainability efforts. She has a M.Sc. from The Hebrew University and a B.Sc. from University of Michigan.
Philip Warburg - Boston
Philip Warburg is President of the Conservation Law Foundation, New England’s leading environmental advocacy group headquartered in Boston with advocacy centers in five states. Phil served as Executive Director of the Israel Union for Environmental Defense from 2000 to 2003. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School.
Jonathan Zasloff - Los Angeles
Jonathan Zasloff teaches law at UCLA. He is a graduate of Yale Law School, holds a PhD in the history of American foreign policy from Harvard and an M.Phil. from Cambridge University. His interests focus on the response of public institutions to social problems and the role of ideology in framing policy responses.