The Allianz Knowledge Site's Who's Who features people and organizations that make a difference in the areas of climate change, microfinance, and demographic change.
Evan Mills
Who's that?
Staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
What does he do?
Mills has published important research about the intersection of climate change, energy efficiency, and risk management, including articles for Science and Forbes. Along with several detailed assessments of the global insurance industry's response to climate change, Mills has also contributed as an author to the influential third and fourth UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments.
Dr. Mills co-authored an article about the legal consequences of global climate change on the insurance industry, which appeared in the Stanford Journal of International Law in the summer of 2007. He is also a member of the Earth Institute's Economics and Public Policy Working Group chaired by Jeffrey Sachs, and heads the Lumina Project, which works to introduce efficient, low-carbon, off-grid white LED lighting in the developing world.
Nicholas Negroponte
Who's that?
Chairman of One Laptop per Child, Chairman of the MIT Media Lab
What does he do?
Nicholas Negroponte is an architect and computer scientist best known as the founder and chairman of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Negroponte's current project, One Laptop per Child, aims at providing children around the world, especially those in developing countries, with an inexpensive laptop. Negroponte and former UN General Secretary Kofi Annan unveiled the so-called 100-dollar laptop in 2005. Full-scale production is expected to start in mid-2007. So far, countries scheduled for the pilot roll-out are Argentina, Brazil, Ethiopia, Libya, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Thailand, Uruguay, and the United States.
Negroponte is also a businessman and writer. In 1992, he became the first investor of the newly created Wired magazine. He later summed up his columns written for Wired in a best-selling book, "Being Digital," which outlined his vision of an interactive world.
Rajendra Kumar Pachauri
Who's that?
Chairman of the UN International Panel on Climate Change
What does he do?
India's Rajendra Kumar Pachauri chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 2002. The panel recently issued its fourth report, regarded as the most important forecast of global climate change.
After working in the private sector, Pachauri moved to the United States and studied at North Carolina State University. He received Ph.Ds in economics and industrial engineering and served as an assistant professor. Returning to India he joined the Staff College of India, Hyderabad. Since 1981 he has headed the Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI), a think tank focused on energy, environment, forestry, biotechnology, and the conservation of natural resources.
Pachauri also serves as the head of The Energy and Resources Institute, a developing-country institution devoted to sustainable development. The United Nations Development Programme appointed him as a part time advisor in the fields of energy and sustainable management of natural resources from 1994 to 1999. He is advisor and member of a number of organizations and research institutes, and has authored 21 books and numerous papers and articles.
In acknowledgement of his environmental contributions, Pachauri was awarded the Padma Bhushan - one of India's highest civilian awards that recognizes distinguished service to the nation - in 2001. In December 2007, the IPCC and Al Gore were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Jonathan Patz
Who's that?
Associate Professor of Environmental Studies and Population Health Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison
What does he do?
Dr. Patz is one of the world's leading authorities on the human health risks of climate change. He directs the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE) at the University of Wisconsin. He is also lead author of the United Nations/World Bank Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, as well as several World Health Organization (WHO) and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports about the health impacts of global environmental change.
Since the early 1990s, he has lectured and published important scientific papers about how climate change and deforestation could increase heat-stress, malaria incidence, and the spread of other diseases. He co-edits the journal, Ecohealth: Conservation Medicine and Ecosystem Sustainability.
