Who we are
a global coalition of lively, respected, and like-minded organizations, determined to bend the curve on population and hyperconsumption*
(we don't always agree on everything - but advancing solutions together is more important than perfect agreement)
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Staff, volunteers & associates
Co-founder & CEO
Phoebe Barnard
Dr Phoebe Barnard has a vision of a wiser, kinder, diverse civilization and a still-diverse planet supporting it. A global change and biodiversity scientist with 34 years working on African national development, she's also a team-builder, conflict-resolver, women's leadership mentor and policy strategist.
Strategist - social media
Kathleen Sweeney
Kathleen Sweeney, WordCityStudio founder, works at the intersection of digital art and social change. Her book Maiden USA: Girl Icons Come of Age is taught in media studies programs all over the USA. She is Associate Professor at the New School, NY and publishes on technology, pop culture and mindfulness...
Associate - youth journalism
Gresë Sermaxhaj
Gresë is a Kosovan journalist writing about young changemakers, society and social and technological change for Youth Time Magazine. She has a degree in Political Science at the University of Prishtina, Republic of Kosovo, with a background in journalism. Gresë also works as an External Public Relations Specialist for MCW Global.
Associate - photographer
Julie Steelman
Julie is an award-winning photographer who hopes that her images soothe viewers' souls, to feel the essence of nature’s glory. When not traveling, she empowers women to make savvy and values-based investment decisions. She also rehabs marine mammals, works with a whale disentanglement team...
Chief of staff
Julia Dederer
Julia empowers leaders dedicated to transforming the challenges of our time. She has worked in transformational education for 40 years in organizational development, leadership development and group facilitation, and for 30+ years as an activist and fundraiser in ending global hunger...
Strategic communications
Steve Kent
Stephen Kent is the president of KentCom LLC, a public interest and public policy PR practice he founded in 1988. It serves global, national, regional and community-based NGOs and has particular experience in peace and security, nuclear policy, nuclear abolition, climate change, environmental protection...
Strategist - partnerships
Rob Harding
Rob Harding is a planetary health activist who cares deeply about protecting life on Earth. He is a board member of The Rewilding Institute, a trustee of the WILD Foundation, and a chapter director at Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy. Rob is committed to creating a more just and sustainable world with competence...
Associate - writer
N.R. (Niki) Baker
Author NR (Niki) Baker is an explorer. She doesn’t have Sherpas or a frozen moustache, she’s just got incurable wanderlust. Whether it’s the mountains of Albania, the islands of Indonesia or the jungles of Guatemala, she has always been happiest when she’s far off the beaten track. Niki has earned recognition for her travel writing...
Intern - social media
Agnes Wangui Irungu
Agnes Irungu offered her services as a volunteer intern and kiSwahili/Kikuyu translator to the Stable Planet Alliance and our project GirlPlanet.Earth. She grew up in Kenya's rural highlands, watching the effects of climate change on farming, women’s livelihoods, and land condition.
Associate - strategy
Stephen Awoyemi
Dr Stephen Awoyemi is internationally known through his work with the University of Cambridge and the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB), serving concurrently as President of two of its groups (Africa Section and the Religion and Conservation Biology Working Group) from 2015-2017.
Associate - law and ethics
Karin Kuhlemann
Karin Kuhlemann is a Brazilian-born lawyer and PhD candidate at University College London. She holds degrees in law, politics, and life sciences. Karin’s dissertation focuses on the human right to procreate and the legitimate scope of anti-natalist population policies. As part of this, she is developing a novel, interest-based account...
Associate - feminist history
Sharon Spaulding
Sharon Spaulding is an historian and researcher who specializes in the life and times of early feminist and suffragist Mary Ware Dennett. The official curator of the Dennett archives, Sharon is at work on a book about Dennett’s court trial. She publishes the newsletter “Women Make History: Stories We Should Have Learned in School.”
Volunteer - operations
Ruth LeBrun
Ruth is a community activist, urban farmer, and registered nurse on open-ended furlough during COVID. She is a keen volunteer in Stable Planet Alliance’s fundraising research and GirlPlanet.Earth’s administration. She’s highly organized, energetic, and has a love for...
Associate - journalism
Veronika Perková
Veronika Perková is an environmental journalist who focuses on wildlife conservation and population issues. She is the host of Nature Solutionaries, a podcast about conservationists who do amazing things for nature and inspire people's lives. She is also a lecturer at Masaryk University...
Associate - global policy
Noa Steiner
Noa Steiner is a global policy strategist. Previously BirdLife International's global policy coordinator, UNEP-WCMC's Programme Officer, and the Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection's Coordinator of Open Landscapes and Biodiversity, Noa holds an MPhil in conservation leadership from Cambridge University, MSc in desert studies...
Associate - writer
Carole Douglis
Carole Douglis is a science and technical writer, digital content manager, and presentation training expert helping mission-driven organizations reach their goals. She is known for turning mind-numbing data into clear and useful content. An award-winning science journalist, Carole wrote for the National Geographic Society...
Advisors and patrons
Advisor & Chair
Nandita Bajaj
Nandita is the Executive Director of Population Balance, a non-profit that educates about—and offers solutions to address—the impacts of human overpopulation and over-consumption on the planet, people, and animals. A humane educator and a passionate advocate for planetary health...
Advisor
Elizabeth Essien
Dr Lizzy Andrew-Essien is a professor of systems ecology at the University of Calabar, Nigeria. She works on ecosystem resilience and how social and industrial processes facilitate economic growth and urbanization, which can improve quality of life, but also increase ecological ...
Advisor & counsel
Laura Aghwana
Laura is a goal-driven lawyer and barrister in Nigeria with the zeal to build a better world with her practice of law and her policy research. She is passionate about legal and practical solutions using corporate and commercial law, litigation, and public policy.
Advisor
Amy Lewis
Amy is the WILD Foundation's Vice President of Policy & Communications, and has spent the last 15 years researching the building blocks of collective action. She has brought this knowledge to bear in her own work as an award-winning nonprofit leader...
Advisor
Joe Bish
Joe is the Director of Issue Advocacy at Population Media Center. He holds a Master of Science in Environmental Advocacy and Organizing from Antioch University New England. Joe serves as a public-facing expert articulating the nuances, complexities, and interconnectedness...
Advisor
Philip Cafaro
Dr. Phil Cafaro is a philosophy professor focused on environmental ethics and preserving wild nature. Past president of the International Society for Environmental Ethics, Phil hosts The Population Factor on Earthx TV and is co-principle investigator of The Overpopulation Project...
Patron - global change
Will Steffen
Emeritus professor of environment and society at the Australian National University (ANU), Dr Will Steffen is one of the godfathers of the ‘stable planet’ paradigm. He has a long and deep history in international global change research, serving 1998-2004 as executive director of the IGBP...
Advisor
Cécile Ndjebet
Dr Cécile Ndjebet is an agronomist, forester, gender specialist and women’s leadership trainer and adviser. She holds a MSc in social forestry from Wageningen Agricultural University and a PhD on women’s access to land in coastal Cameroon from Central Africa Catholic University....
Advisor & counsel
Carter Dillard
Carter's ethics, legal and policy career started with the US Dept of Justice, and his thesis and 2021 book "Justice as a Fair Start in Life" reframed the right to have children in inter-generational and child-centric terms. He is Policy Director of the Fair Start Movement, where future children are a specially...
Advisor
Susan Allen
Susan Allen, MD, MPH, is a Professor in the Schools of Medicine and Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta, and the founder of the Rwanda-Zambia Health Research Group. Since 1986, Dr Allen and colleagues have researched and implemented programs...
Advisor
Eileen Crist
Eileen is Associate Professor Emerita of Science, Technology, and Society at Virginia Tech. She holds a BA and PhD in Sociology. Her work focuses on the ecological crisis and its root causes and pathways toward creating an ecological civilization...
Advisor
Nikiwe Solomon
Sociologist Dr Nikiwe Solomon has a PhD in environmental humanities, community development, gender and urban planning, and lectures in the Social Anthropology Department at the University of Cape Town. She is a research associate at the African Centre for a Green Economy...
Advisor
Vicki Robin
Vicki Robin is a well known and prolific social innovator, cultural scout, writer and speaker. She hosts the YouTube podcast interview series, What Could Possibly Go Right?, inviting cultural scouts to shine a light on what’s emerging as the pandemic, climate, and economy unravel...
Patron - overshoot
William E. Rees
Dr Bill Rees is a human ecologist, ecological economist, professor emeritus and former director of the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning in Vancouver, Canada. He is best known in ecological economics as the godfather of...
Advisor
Karen Hardee
Dr Karen Hardee is president and CEO of the What Works Association. She has a PhD in social demography from Cornell University, and >25 years of international technical and leadership experience working with bi- and multilateral organizations, nongovernmental organizations...
Advisor
Abidemi Raji
Dr Abi Raji is a young community ecologist and educator passionate about biodiversity conservation, people and their relationship with the environment. She works on ecosystem services, land-use impacts on biodiversity, behavioral ecology and community development...
Advisor
John R Bowey
Filmmaker and multimedia director John Bowey works on big-picture issues challenging society today, from conflict resolution, identity and history, to sustainability, biodiversity, climate change, justice, health, science, innovation, consciousness, technology...
Advisor
Oying Rimon
Jose "Oying" G. Rimon II is the Director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and concurrent Principal Investigator of the The Challenge Initiative (TCI). Oying is a senior scientist...
Advisor
Terry Spahr
Terry Spahr directs Earth Overshoot, a nonprofit dedicated to making nature and its resources central to personal and public decisionmaking through targeted education and advocacy. Spahr, a filmmaker, naturalist and activist, is an expert on sustainability and the intersection of...
Patron - faiths
Paul van Engen
Dutch journalist, author, editor and founding CEO of Right Now!, Paul van Engen is mobilizing 1.5 bn followers of global faith leaders who met at the Vatican in October 2021, calling on humanity to take urgent, radical, responsible action on the climate emergency. In response to faith leaders...
Patron - philosopher
Carl Safina
Dr Carl Safina’s work explores how we are changing the natural world and what the changes mean for human and non-human beings. Carl sees that the durability of human dignity and survival of the natural world will depend on each other; we cannot preserve the wild unless we preserve...
Co-founder & Advisor
Chris Tucker
Dr Chris Tucker is a co-founder of Stable Planet Alliance, and author of A Planet of Three Billion, Chair of the American Geographical Society, Chair and CEO of The MapStory Foundation, and President of foreign policy advocacy group, Friends of the Arc. Chris emphasizes women's roles...
Advisor
Amanda Janoo
Amanda Janoo is the Wellbeing Economy Alliance’s (WEAll’s) knowledge and policy lead. She is an economic policy expert with rich experience working with governments and international development institutions around the world. She aims to build just and sustainable economies...
Advisor
Joseph Merz
Joseph started his first business at sixteen years old and has founded a number of organisations since. Within these he has developed new concepts like setting commercial limits to growth and profit. His exceptionally ethical approach to business has gained him a...
Advisor
Suzanne York
Suzanne York is the director of Transition Earth. She has reported on international human rights, globalization, and environmental issues for nearly three decades. Her work is focused on the interconnectedness of population growth with women’s empowerment...
Advisor
Wana Udobang
Wana Udobang is a writer, poet, performer and storyteller in Lagos and London who has performed around the world. Wana has freelanced with The Guardian, Aljazeera, CNN, Observer and produced and presented documentaries for BBC Radio4 and BBC World Service. She was a popular radio host for...
Patron - wisdom
Lora Pennington
Lora Pennington is a respected cultural teacher, an elder of the Upper Skagit tribe in the Salish Sea region bridging northwestern USA and southwestern Canada, and a teacher of Lushootseed, the language of Chief Seattle (Si?al). A great-niece and cultural inheritor of the work of Vi Hilbert...
Co-founder & Patron
Peter Fiekowsky
Peter is a co-founder of Stable Planet Alliance, and an MIT-educated physicist and Silicon Valley entrepreneur and philanthropist with 27 patents. He has 30 years’ experience as a citizen lobbyist for poverty and climate issues, and over the past decade has been working to build...