Speakers

PETER BERGEL

Peter Bergel is the Executive Director of Oregon Peaceworks, which is the Oregon affiliate of Peace Action, the nation’s largest grassroots peace and justice group. It’s mission is to educate and activate people to work for peace, justice and environmental sustainability.
Peter has been the editor of The Peaceworker newspaper, Oregon’s peace, justice and environmental newspaper, since 1988. And he has edited Civilian-Based Defense, an international newsletter covering nonviolent alternatives to military-based defense for three years.

He holds a degree in physics from Reed College and once worked for the Atomic Energy Commission.

Has been a nonviolence trainer since 1967. Has contributed nonviolence training to numerous direct action campaigns and has run many courses of study in nonviolence through community groups and local colleges. He served for three years as chairperson and instructor at Salem’s Peace Training Institute, a cooperative effort between citizens and Willamette University offering comprehensive training to social change agents.

In 1979-80 he directed the successful campaign to pass a ballot measure ending the construction of new nuclear power plants in Oregon.

Website: Oregon Peace Works

DAN SHEA

Dan Shea served in the US Marine Corp as a machine gunner in the Vietnam War from 1968 to 1969 and is an Agent Orange victim. His son Casey died from multiple birth defects at the age of three, due to the poisoning from this herbicidal warfare.

Dan now devotes his life to the peace movement. He is a member of Veterans For Peace and co-founder and Executive Director of Education without Borders. He is also a member of Courage to Resist, an organization that supports troupes that resist to fight.

He is a painter, photographer, printmaker and human rights activist whose art is a social commentary on war, race and class. He carries his message of peace and justice through his art and by sharing his experiences, collaborating with various Peace, political progressives and faith groups in planning educational forums, actions, and large street protests. Currently, he is leading the movement for a Sanctuary City for GI Resisters

Websites:
Courage to Resist
Veterans for Peace

KELLY CAMPBELL

Kelly Campbell, Executive Director Of Physicians for Social Responsibility, brings together her experience and passion working for both peace and environmental health.

She was previously the Portland Area Peace Program Director for the American Friends Service Committee and is a founding member of September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows.

In January 2002, Kelly traveled along with three other 9/11 family members to Kabul, Afghanistan to meet with Afghan families affected by the US bombing and returned to the US to advocate on behalf of civilian victims of war.

She has served on the steering committees of September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows and the national coalition United for Peace and Justice. Kelly worked in the environmental health and justice field as Communications Director for Pesticide Action Network North America, and as Campaign Coordinator for the statewide coalition, Californians for Pesticide Reform.

She was born and raised in the Midwest and has a BA in Anthropology and English from the University of Iowa. She lives in Portland with her husband and baby boy.

Web site: Physicians for Social Responsibility

Speakers

BURKE HALES

Burke Hales is an Associate Professor in the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. He has been with OSU for over 10 years. He was a Department of Energy Distinguished Global Change Postdoctoral Scholar working with Taro Takahashi at the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University in New York City from 1995 to 1998. He received his BS in Chemical Engineering and a PhD in Chemical Oceanography, both from the University of Washington.

Currently, his research interests include studying carbon cycling at the ocean boundaries (land-ocean margins and air-sea interfaces) and the sea floor. He started his research studying how elevated carbon dioxide in deep sea sediments dissolves sea floor calcium carbonate bio-minerals. More recently, he has focused his research on the cycles in the coastal ocean that connects coastal and open ocean waters and the atmosphere.

Professor Hales has sailed in all the major oceans of the world, except for the artic, logging about 500 days at sea on a dozen different research vessels, including a dive on ALVIN, a manned deep ocean research submersible vehicle that can dive to depths of 4,500 meters (nearly 3 miles). His ports of call include Antarctica, Barbados, Bermuda, Brazil, Cape Cod, Chile, New Guinea, New Zealand and more.

He has led or co-authored over 40 peer-reviewed publications, in over 20 scientific journals and reports. He has done interviews with OPB, NPR, KGW and several local and regional newspapers regarding his research on coastal carbon cycle issues, and has presented science overviews and participated in panel discussions with groups including the Heceta Head Coastal Conference, the Public Interest Environmental Law Consortium, the Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association and the World Affairs Council of Oregon.

Professor Hales lives in Albany with his wife and two sons, his Chesapeake Bay retriever and a cat. He is an outdoor enthusiast, and a dedicated hunter-gatherer of Northwest natural products, from the fungal to the macrofaunal.

GEORGE WALDBUSSER

George Waldbusser is an Assistant Professor in the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. He started his position at OSU in October 2009 after moving to Oregon from the East Coast. Prior to his current position, he was an Assistant Research Scientist at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. Professor Waldbusser holds a PhD in Biological Oceanography from the University of Maryland, a M.Sc. in Oceanography from the University of Connecticut and a B.S. in Environmental Science from St. John’s University in New York City.

Professor Waldbusser’s research interest includes animal-sediment interactions, the effects of animal interactions on sediment biogeochemistry, and the response of organisms to acidification of coastal and estuarine waters. His current research, funded by the National Science Foundation, is examining the effects of acidification on growth, survival, and behavior of juvenile’s bivalves, including clams and oysters.

Professor Waldbusser has published work in top-tier scientific journals and presented talks to the National Shellfisheries Society, and the National Academics of Science in Washington D.C. He has also participated in activities at the crossroads of science and policy, including lobbying the U.S. congress with a delegation from the American Society if Limnology and Oceanography.

He currently lives in Corvallis with his long-term girlfriend and is an avid surfer and a not-so competitive sailor of high performance beach catamarans. He and his girlfriend are currently exploring sustainable agriculture options on their small acreage property.

Speakers

JENNIFER BAICHWAL
Jennifer Baichwal was born in Montréal and grew up in Victoria, British Columbia. She studied philosophy and theology at McGill University and received an M.A. in 1994, supported by a McGill Major Fellowship and an FCAR Master's Scholarship.

She has been directing and producing documentaries for over 14 years. Her first film, Looking You In The Back of the Head, an enquiry into the problem of personal identity, asked thirteen women to try to describe themselves and was first broadcast, to critical acclaim, on TV Ontario's From the Heart. It subsequently sold for broadcast across Canada.

Jennifer's award winning documentaries have been shown at film festivals around the world, including Sundance and Toronto International Film Festival. Her subjects are eclectic, skewed to art and philosophy, and try to extend formal boundaries without being inaccessible.

Her most recent feature documentary, Manufactured Landscapes, is about the work of photographer/artist Edward Burtynsky. Produced by Mercury Films, Foundry Films and the NFB, it premiered at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival and was given the Toronto-City Award for Best Canadian Feature Film.

She lives in Toronto with her husband, Nick de Pencier, and their two children.