
About the
Conference

Youth Leadership Development
Climate Opportunities: Finding Your Path Within the Climate Movement
Elizabeth Bagley, Director - Drawdown Learn at Project Drawdown
Evan Hynes, Founder, Climate Base
Bill Wiehl, Founder and Executive Director for Climate Voice
Vivian Saxon, Communications Director and Founder, Global Warming Mitigation Project
Jackie Francis, Founder, Global Warming Mitigation Project
Fernanda Matsuoka, Chief Operating Officer, Youth Climate Leaders
Matt Scott, Manager - Storytelling and Engagement at Project Drawdown
Student Career Workshop
Carly Carroll, Vice President, Wells Fargo
Carly Carroll is a business initiatives consultant at Wells Fargo, focusing on sustainability education and employee engagement. As a part of her role, Carroll is responsible for coordinating and managing Green Teams across the company.
Carroll joined the Stagecoach in August 2018 from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, DC. At EPA, Carroll held numerous roles over 11 years in stakeholder engagement, public affairs, and environmental education. Carroll earned her Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Policy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2006. She also holds a Master’s in Science Education from North Carolina State University and earned her MBA from the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School in 2017.
Student Career Workshop
Dionne Toombs, Ph.D., Director of the Office of the Chief Scientist, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Dr. Dionne Toombs is the Director for the Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS). In this role, she provides leadership on a wide range of issues affecting science programs and science policy in agricultural research, education, and economics. She comes to OCS from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) where she was Director of the Division of Nutrition, leading a collaboration of nutrition science leaders across the Department. Under her leadership, the Division provided direction in science policy and program development to ensure the safety of America’s food supply and the availability of healthy food to its citizens. She served as National Program Leader for NIFA’s Agriculture Food and Research Initiative (AFRI), leading large competitive grant programs to fund research into nutrition, food science and technology, and food safety.
Dr. Toombs received her Ph.D. in Nutritional Sciences from Howard University. She earned her Master of Science degree from Alabama A & M University and her Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Bethune-Cookman University.
Student Career Workshop
Jim Barrett, Ph.D., Principal, Barrett Economics
Jim Barrett has over 20 years of experience working on energy and environmental issues. Prior to consulting, he served as the Chief Economist at the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, where he led the economics and finance program. There, he conducted and led several projects ranging from valuing the risk associated with exposure to electricity spot market volatility to assessing finance initiatives aimed at enabling clean energy investments in low and moderate income communities. He also produced numerous studies modeling the economic impact of various energy efficiency policies and investment strategies.
Student Career Workshop
Laura Helmuth, Ph.D. Editor-in-Chief, Scientific American
Laura Helmuth is the Editor in Chief of Scientific American. She has previously been an editor for The Washington Post, National Geographic, Slate, Smithsonian, and Science’s news section. She serves on the boards of High Country News, Spectrum and SciLine and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s standing committee on the science of science communication. She is a past president of the National Association of Science Writers. She has a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience from the University of California, Berkeley, and attended the U.C. Santa Cruz science writing program.
Student Career Workshop
Sarah Brady, Ph.D., Deputy Director, California Council on Science and Technology
Sarah is the Deputy Director of the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST) where she leads outreach efforts to connect CCST’s network of experts with state decision makers and directs large-scale commissioned projects requested by the Legislature and state agencies. While at CCST she has continued to strengthen existing science services and create new opportunities for engagement. Sarah is also a member of the CCST Science Fellows Alumni Steering Committee. Prior to joining CCST, Sarah served as Legislative Director in Assemblymember Susan Bonilla’s office where she was hired after her placement as a CCST Science and Technology Policy Fellow in 2014. Sarah earned a Doctorate in Chemistry at the University of Oregon researching the degradation of plastics and Bachelor’s degrees in Chemistry and French from North Central College. She was also a GK-12 Fellow and an NSF-IGERT Fellow where she worked at Hong Kong Baptist University.