Is this someplace you could see yourself, maybe as an employee, volunteer, partner, director or advisor? If so, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us with your resume, portfolio, interests, volunteer needs and anything else you think we’d like to see here.
The CI4S team has a diverse and outstanding experience in sustainability issues, from local to global levels and across research, policy and practice, with an emphasis on merging complex challenges including transforming consumption practices and structures that improve community well-being. Our capacity to identify key research needs, produce quality work and engage in action-oriented partnerships build on our individual careers in the sustainability field.
Directors
Carmen Niessen (since 2014)
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Carmen Neissen is retired from a thirty year career in education. Carmen holds a Master of Distance Education, a Master of Environmental Studies and a Bachelor of Arts – Sociology. Her teaching experience at Sault College has enabled her to follow the same keen interest that directed her personal education in social justice, and the social environment. Carmen is skilled in the use of Microsoft Word, basic social media web development, and service as a secretary for non-profit organizations. She has also authored two text/work books for use in post-secondary education, and designed and written the content of post-secondary courses for distance learning.
Our Mission
We are a research and advocacy group focused on transforming the structures of consumption to move towards sustainability and improved well-being. We do this by motivating and facilitating collective action for social change in Algoma through partnerships, local demonstration projects and global knowledge networks. We promote positive and pragmatic visions of the future that inspire healthy livelihoods, nurture ecological conservation, cultivate sustainable economies, and motivate the building of institutional structures that supports these visions.
Our Vision
The Crane Institute's vision is to create an exceptional learning and demonstration environment within Sault Ste. Marie and Algoma that is a motivational catalyst for transformative change, fosters sustainability that ensures human activity operates within ecological limits, promotes social inclusion, participation and discourse, advances new social frameworks and structures in which sustainability and equity are default, and connects with global social and economic transitions.
Kathie Brosemer (since 2014)
Kathie Brosemer is the Environmental Director for the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. A dual citizen (US/Canada) and enrolled member of the Echota Cherokee, she holds the Bachelor of Science, Geology from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and did her graduate study in Environmental sciences at the University of Virginia. She has worked on climate change for NASA, and various issues including solid waste and recycling, Great Lakes water quality, energy demand/supply, and forestry for various NGOs in Ontario. She ran for MP for the Green Party in 2000, and in her current position developed the material that won the Tribe recognition as one of two Climate Action Champion tribal communities nationwide. She flies a small plane, and makes maple syrup at the northern limit of sugar maples.
Mackenzie DiGasparro (since 2019)
Mackenzie DiGasparro is a Program Development Intern at the Invasive Species Centre. She obtained her Honours Bachelor of Science from the University of Ottawa, specializing in ecology, evolution, and behaviour. Mackenzie is driven in support of her passions. She was involved with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada for 3 years, acting as the liaison for the Sault Ste. Marie and Algoma region, organizing annual fundraisers and raising upwards of $12,000 for the organization. She has always been fascinated by nature and the outdoors, fuelling her passion for environmental protection. She excels in communicating science-based content to the public. She strives to bridge connections between science and policy. Mackenzie values her free time and enjoys spending it being active, whether at the gym, playing softball, hiking, cycling, or kayaking.
Advisors
Maurie J. Cohen is Professor of Sustainability Studies and Director of the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Associate Fellow at the Tellus Institute. He is Co-founder and a Board Member of the Sustainable Consumption Research and Action Initiative and Editor of the journal Sustainability: Science, Practice, and Policy. His most recent book is The Future of Consumer Society: Prospects for Sustainability in the New Economy.
Birgit Isernhagen is Program, Planning and Evaluation Officer for Ottawa Public Health. Her experience includes environmental policy, sustainability and development review. Birgit co-authored the first Air Quality and Climate Change Management Plan for the City of Ottawa, authored the Idling Control By-law, and integrated sustainability options into the procurement process. She holds a Master’s degree from McGill University in Geography specializing in climate change. Birgit is a certified Environmental Professional in both Policy and Legislation, and Communications and Public Awareness.
Giorgos Kallis is an environmental scientist working on ecological economics and political ecology. A Marie Curie International Fellow at the Energy and Resources Group of the University of California at Berkeley before coming to Barcelona Giorgos holds a PhD in Environmental Policy and Planning from the University of the Aegean in Greece, a Masters in Economics from Universitat Pompeu Fabra, and a Masters in Environmental Engineering and a Bachelors in Chemistry from Imperial College, London. From April 2015-16, Dr Kallis is on leave, as a Leverhulme visiting professor at the department of Development Studies, SOAS, London. Follow at: https://twitter.com/g_kallis
William Rees is a bio-ecologist, ecological economist, former Director and Professor Emeritus of the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning. Best known as the originator of ‘ecological footprint analysis’, Prof Rees has authored over 160 peer reviewed and numerous popular articles on sustainability policy. Rees is a founding member and former President of the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics; a founding Director of the One Earth Initiative; and a Fellow of the Post-Carbon Institute. Dr. Rees was elected Fellow of Royal Society of Canada in 2006; was awarded a Trudeau Foundation Fellowship in 2007; and, in 2012, received both the international Boulding Prize in Ecological Economics and a Blue Planet Prize (jointly with Dr Mathis Wackernagel) as well as an Honorary Doctorate from Laval University.
Dr. Trevor Hancock is a public health physician and a Professor at the School of Public Health and Social Policy at the University of Victoria. He has a long-standing interest in health and the environment, in the links between health and sustainable development and in the ecological determinants of health. He is currently leading a major report for the Canadian Public Health Association on the health implications of global ecological change. He has played a key role in founding several environment-focused organizations, including the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and the Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care. In the 1980’s he was one of the founders and the first leader of the Green Party in Canada.
Courtney Howard is a University of British Columbia and McGill-trained Emergency Physician who practices in Canada’s subarctic and is the Vice President of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE). She led the successful campaign to have the Canadian Medical Association divest from fossil fuels and for MD-Financial to create a Fossil-Free Fund for individual physician investment. She has contributed to advocacy efforts in active transportation, hydraulic fracturing and coal phase-out, including the recently-announced Accelerated Canadian Coal Phase-out and presents frequently on climate-health at medical conferences across Canada. She has been honoured to win the Canadian College of Family Practice’s Environmental Health Award in 2013 and its Mimi Divinsky Award for History and Narrative in Family Medicine in 2015.
Dennis Raphael is a professor at the School of Health Policy and Management at York University. His most recent publications have focused on the health effects of income inequality and poverty, the quality of life of communities and individuals, and government decisions and policy. Dennis is editor of Social Determinants of Health, co-editor of Staying Alive and author of Poverty and Policy in Canada. He served as an advisor to the California Newsreel series Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick? and the Deveaux Babin Productions Canadian documentary Poor No More.
