IPEN Executive Committee Members:

ASIA

Ravi Agarwal
Toxics Link, India

Ravi Agarwal is founder director of Toxics Link, a leading not for profit organization based in New Delhi, India. Toxics Link has been working on areas of toxics, waste and chemical safety for over 15 years in India and has a very strong information outreach program. It works with several NGOs partners on the ground and continue to have significant impact on national policy on these issues. Toxics Link has been part of IPEN since its inception and also participates in other networks including Healthcare Without Harm (HCWH) and the international Zero Mercury Working Group. He is an Ashoka fellow, and holds Communications Engineering along with Masters in Business Administration degrees.

AUSTRALASIA & PACIFIC ISLANDS

Dr Mariann Lloyd-Smith
National Toxics Network, Australia

Dr. Mariann Lloyd-Smith is the Senior Advisor to the National Toxics Network, Inc. in Australia, and holds a Ph.D. from the Faculty of Law at the University of Technology, Sydney. Dr. Lloyd-Smith has worked in the area of chemical use and waste management for over two decades, specializing in capacity building and dispute resolution to support environmentally sound chemical management in the Australian and Pacific regions.

EUROPE

Anne-Sofie Andersson
International Chemical Secretariat (ChemSec), Sweden

Anne-Sofie Andersson: holds a M.Sc. in chemistry from University of Hamburg, Germany. She has worked as a policy advisor at ChemSec with focus on REACH and business corporations and is now the director of ChemSec. Before joining ChemSec, she worked for the consumer organizations in the Nordic countries, where she monitored chemical issues from a consumer perspective. As a scientist she started her career with biotechnology research on diseases before focusing on policy.

LATIN AMERICA

Fernando Bejarano G
Red de Accion sobre Plaguicidas y Alternativas en Mexico (RAPAM), Mexico

Fernando is the founder of the Red de Accion sobre Plaguicidas y Alternativas en Mexico (RAPAM), a non profit legal civil association in Mexico and a member of the Pesticide Action Network in Latin America (RAP-AL). RAPAM recently expanded its toxic activities through the Center for Analyses On Toxic and their Alternatives (CAATA) to incorporate mercury, medical waste and zero waste issues. Fernando is the Director of CAATA and has authored several reports on pesticides and POPs related issues. Fernando trained as a sociologist and has a Masters in Rural Development. He has been involved in toxic issues for 25 years ago and has participated in IPEN since the beginning of the Stockholm Convention negotiations. Fernando is a member of Mexico's National Coordination Committee for the Implementation of the Stockholm Convention.

NORTH AMERICA

Professor Ken Geiser
Lowell Center for Sustainable Production at the University of Massachusetts, US

Dr. Kenneth Geiser is Professor of Work Environment and Director of the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Dr. Geiser is one of the authors of the Massachusetts Toxics Use Reduction Act and served as Director of the Massachusetts Toxics Use Reduction Institute from its founding in 1990 to 2003. His research and writing focus on pollution prevention and cleaner production, toxic chemicals management, international chemicals policy, safer technologies, and green chemistry and, in 2001, he completed a book, Materials Matter: Towards a Sustainable Materials Policy published by MIT Press. As a recognized expert on environmental and occupational health policy, he has served on various advisory committees for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the United Nations Environment Program.

IPEN CoChairs

EASTERN EUROPE CAUCUSES CENTRAL ASIA

Olga Speranskaya,
Eco-Accord, Russia

Olga Speranskaya graduated with a MA in geophysics from Moscow State University. She received her doctorate in geophysics from the Institute of Water Problems of the Russian Academy of Science. Olga is the Head of the Program on Chemical Safety of the Eco-Accord Centre on Environmental Problems Solution. She is a member of the International Advisory Committee of the Women in Europe for a Common Future. She participated in moving forward global agreements on toxic chemicals and is a member of the Inter-agency Commission on the development of the Russian National Implementation Plan of the Stockholm Convention on POPs. She is the author of educational materials on chemicals, environment and health and received an honorable diploma of the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources for the development of environmental education in the Russian Federation in 1999-2000.

SOUTHEAST ASIA

Emmanuel Calonzo,
Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives / Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance (GAIA)

In addition to Manny Calonzo’s position as an IPEN Co-Chair, he is also the IPEN Southeast Asia Co-Hub Coordinator and a Campaigner, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives / Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance (GAIA). Manny holds a BS in Business Administration – Economics from the Lyceum of the Philippines in Manila. He is an NGO Representative for the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) Asia-Pacific, a Member of the Board of Directors for Greenpeace Southeast Asia, the President of Greenpeace Philippines, and a Steering Committee Member of the EcoWaste Coalition.

  Version: August 2010