CHICKS Advisory Board

Elizabeth Bechard, MScPH

Elizabeth Bechard, MScPH, is a Senior Policy Analyst for Moms Clean Air Force, where she leads Moms’ work at the intersection of climate change and mental health. Before working full-time on climate change, Elizabeth spent a decade working as a health coach and clinical research coordinator at Duke Integrative Medicine, where her areas of focus included studies on coaching for behavior change; expressive writing for trauma resilience; and mindfulness-based stress reduction. After becoming a mother, Elizabeth became passionate about the intersection between climate change and family resilience. She is the author of Parenting in a Changing Climate: Tools for Cultivating Resilience, Taking Action, and Practicing Hope in the Face of Climate Change. She lives in Vermont with her husband and young twins.

Robert J Friedlander Jr., MD, Chair

As a hematologist-oncologist and subsequently a palliative care physician, Bob focused his clinical and research roles on the human connections between patients, family members and physicians. In his volunteer life, his long-standing interest in active listening, personal narratives, community organizing and working with diverse populations led to the founding of Innisfree Cancer Help of NH, an interdisciplinary supportive care program, and Healthcare Voices of NH, a grassroots, independent and non-partisan COVID-19 vaccine trust-building campaign. In political campaigns and non-partisan ones, Bob has helped amplify the individual and collective voices of a diverse cross-section of healthcare workers. It was in this spirit that he founded NH Healthcare Workers for Climate Action. Bob hopes to leverage the ’trusted-messenger status’ of healthcare workers on the impact of climate on health to enhance awareness, knowledge and direct action in support of climate solutions. As with past community organizing initiatives, he is committed to developing affiliations with community organizations, academic centers and national organizations. Bob is a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy, Yale College, and Weill Cornell Medicine. Bob founded NH HWCA in the summer of 2021 and served as Board Chair for the first year. He founded CHICKs in 2022, the Climate and Health Initiative for Caregivers and Kids. The goal of CHICKs is to protect the mental and physical health of children 0-10 years old and their parents/caregivers in a changing climate. CHICKs is developing K-5 after-school climate and health programming, parent climate cafes, and a statewide grassroots climate and children's health advocacy movement.  

Elliot Haspel, M.Ed.

Elliot Haspel, child & family policy expert and commentator, is Director, Climate and Young Children at Capita. He specializes in early childhood & education issues and the intersection between early childhood development and climate change. He most recently served as the Senior Program Officer for Early Childhood Education at the Robins Foundation.

Among other accomplishments, Elliot conceived of and helped raise over $7 million for the Child Care NEXT philanthropic initiative, and helped spearhead the launch of the 100-member strong Virginia Funders Network.

Elliot is the author of Crawling Behind: America’s Childcare Crisis and How to Fix It. He has appeared on television as an analyst, including on The PBS Newshour with Judy Woodruff and MSNBC’S American Voices with Alicia Menendez. His writings have appeared in a variety of top publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic. In 2021, Elliot was invited to testify before the U.S. House of Representatives on the care economy. Elliot holds an B.A. in History from the University of Virginia and an M.Ed. in Education Policy from Harvard's Graduate School of Education.

Anya Kamenetz

Anya Kamenetz speaks, writes, and thinks about generational justice; about thriving, and raising thriving kids, on a changing planet. Her newsletter on these topics is The Golden Hour. She covered education for many years including for NPR, where she co-created the podcast Life Kit: Parenting. Her newest book is The Stolen Year: How Covid Changed Children’s Lives, And Where We Go Now. Kamenetz is currently an advisor to the Aspen Institute and the Climate Mental Health Network, working on new initiatives at the intersection of children and climate change.

Margaret R. Karagas, PhD

Dr. Margaret R. Karagas is the James W. Squires Professor and founding chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College and Director of their Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Center and Center for Molecular Epidemiology. Her research encompasses interdisciplinary studies to illuminate the etiology of human cancers, along with adverse pregnancy and children’s health outcomes. Her work seeks to identify emerging environmental exposures, host factors and mechanisms - that influence health from infancy to adult life, and to apply novel methods and technologies to understand health and disease pathogenesis. Among her current investigations is a cohort study of pregnant women and their offspring in rural New Hampshire to determine the sources and impacts of environmental factors, including those related to climate change, on childhood infection, allergy/atopy, growth and neurodevelopment. This work encompasses a broad range of biomarkers of exposure, susceptibility, biological and clinical response such as the microbiome and vaccine response. Collectively, these efforts have helped to inform to public health policy and clinical practice change. She participated as a panel member for a Global Climate Action Summit Symposium on Climate Change Solutions and Kid’s Health and has served on international consensus panels for the International Agency for Research on Cancer Monograph Program and European Food Safety Authority Scientific Opinions, and on committees for the US National Institutes of Health, Environmental Protection Agency and National Academies of Sciences. She received her PhD in epidemiology from the University of Washington.

Leyla McCurdy, MPhil

Leyla McCurdy is the founder and chair of the Children’s Environmental Health Committee of the APHA’s Environment Section.  She has over twenty years of experience in environmental health. Currently she is an environmental health consultant, board member of Children’s Environmental Health Network, and chairs ecoAmerica’s Climate for Health Executive Committee. She serves on several committees, including the American Public Health Association’s Center for Climate, Health, and Equity Advisory Board and the National Environmental Health Partnership Council.

Jerome A. Paulson, MD

Jerome A. Paulson is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Environmental & Occupational Health at The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, and an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. He created the American Academy of Pediatrics Program on Climate Change and Health. He is a consultant to the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health and is a founding member of Virginia Clinicians for Climate Action and is helping clinicians in other states create Clinicians for Climate Action groups. He is a past chair the executive committee of the Council on Environmental Health of the AAP and past Medical Director for the Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Units – East. He served on the Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee for the US EPA. Dr. Paulson co-created, and for a number of years lead, the Mid-Atlantic Center for Children’s Health & the Environment. Dr. Paulson received a bachelors degree in biochemistry with honors and with general honors from the University of Maryland, College Park, MD. He received an MD degree from Duke University in Durham, NC. He did his pediatric residency at the Johns Hopkins Hospitals and Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, MD. He also completed a fellowship in Ambulatory Pediatrics at Sinai Hospital.

Elizabeth Pinsky, MD

Dr. Elizabeth Pinsky is a child and adolescent psychiatrist and pediatrician at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she is the Associate Director of the Pediatric Psychiatry Consultation Service, and at Shriner’s Hospital for Children Boston. Her clinical interests focus on the intersection of child mental and physical health, including trauma and fostering resilience in medically ill children. She believes that climate change poses the most urgent threat to children at that intersection of physical and mental health, and that clinicians caring for children must advocate for a rapid and just transition off fossil fuels. She serves as the Associate Director for Advocacy at the MGH Center for Environment and Health and is also a founding member of Climate Code Blue, a Boston-area climate action group for physicians and other health professionals.

Harriet Shugarman

Harriet Shugarman is an internationally renowned author, educator, activist, policy analyst and sought after speaker.  She is the author of "How to Talk to Your Kids About Climate Change, Turning Angst into Actions and is the founder and Executive Director of ClimateMama, an online community with members in over 100 countries and all 50 States. Harriet worked for 13 years with the International Monetary Fund including 10 as an IMF representative at the United Nations. Harriet is a mentor and leader with Climate Reality and the recipient of the prestigious Climate Reality Alfredo Sirkis Memorial Green Ring Award.  Harriet is the co-chair of the Advisory Council for Our Kids Climate, an international network of parent organizations, a core team member with The Ecosphycepedia Project and a professor of World Sustainability and Climate Change and Society at Ramapo College in New Jersey. She lives in New York City.

David Sobel 

David Sobel is a trailblazing environmental educator and author who raised his children in the heart of nature. His story shows other parents how they can counter today’s pervasive ‘nature deficit.’ Sobel consults and lectures nationally and internationally on place-based education, children’s relationship with nature and nature-based early childhood education.

Nsedu Obot Witherspoon, MPH

Nsedu Obot Witherspoon, MPH, serves as the Executive Director for the Children’s Environmental Health Network (CEHN), where her responsibilities include successfully organizing, leading, and managing policy, education/training, and science-related programs. For the past 21 years, she has served as a key spokesperson for children’s vulnerabilities and the need for their protection, conducting presentations and lectures across the country. She is a leader in the field of children’s environmental health, serving on the External Science Board for the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) NIH Research work. She is a Co-Leader the Health/Science initiative of the Cancer Free Economy Network and Co-Chair of the National Environmental Health Partnership Council. Ms. Witherspoon is also the Board Chair for the Pesticide Action Network of North America, Board Member for the Environmental Integrity Project, and serves on the Maryland Children’s Environmental Health Advisory Council.Ms. Witherspoon has held past appointments on the Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee for the Environmental Protection Agency, the NIH Council of Councils, the Science Advisory Board for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Board for the American Public Health Association. She is a past member of the National Association of Environmental Health Sciences Council and the Institute of Medicine’s Environmental Health Sciences Roundtable. Ms. Witherspoon has a variety of publications and has the distinct honor of having one of CEHN’s leadership awards, the Nsedu Obot Witherspoon (NOW) Youth Leadership Award, named in her honor. She is also the recent recipient of the William R. Reilly Award in Environmental Leadership from the Center for Environmental Policy at American University and the Snowy Egret Award from the Eastern Queens Alliance. Ms. Witherspoon has a B.S. in Biology Pre Med from Siena College and a M.P.H. in Maternal and Child Health from The George Washington University, School of Public Health and Health Services. She is a proud mom to 4 children!