As a relentless optimist and courageous catalyst for change, Bonnie has held many high-profile positions at the global forefront of a new low carbon, resource protected and just economy. As a corporate sustainability executive, owner of an environmental planning and communications consultancy, and university educator, Ms. Nixon has always been driven to the better end by designing and leading ethical conversations and initiatives and accelerating sustainability with the use of new and emerging technologies. Today Bonnie is a Sustainability Strategist and Human Rights Educator with BonnEco, Inc. and specializes in complex supply chains. Bonnie graduated from Penn State in Sociology and more recently obtained her Masters’ Degree in Learning Technologies and is pursuing a PhD in Global Leadership and Change, both at Pepperdine University. Ms. Nixon believes in the power of web-based collaboration and understands that blockchain technology, gamification, social media, online education using multi-media platforms, augmented and virtual reality, artificial intelligence, robotics and visual animation can and will dramatically accelerate a more sustainable future for future generations. 

Bonnie has served in these roles for the following communities: 

• Senior Partner with Environmental Resources Management (ERM)
• Director of Corporate Social Responsibility and Global Sustainability for Mattel Toys
• Senior Sustainability Strategist and Advisor for the Sustainability Roundtable
• Executive Director of Walmart led Sustainability Consortium
• Director of Global Sustainability and Ethical Sourcing for Hewlett-Packard
• Driver for the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition and Responsible Business Alliance
• Chairwomen of the Board for Sustainable Silicon Valley
• Vice President of Environmental Communications Consultancy, Circlepoint, Inc.
• Director of Public Relations for the Boston Harbor Cleanup Project
• Advisory Board for Sustainable Brands, Sustainable Works and Responsible Sourcing Network
• Board Member for Pepperdine University Social Entrepreneurship and Change Council

Eden is a second-year master student pursuing a degree in Environmental Health Sciences. He is especially interested in climate change, environmental economics, and sustainability on both the corporate and community level. In his first year at UCLA, Eden worked at the Luskin Center for Innovation, helping to develop evaluation plans for grantees of the Strategic Growth Council’s Transformative Climate Communities (TCC) Program. He did research and wrote on topics related to community-based sustainability. Currently, Eden is participating in the Patagonia Case Competition – a team-based contest that focuses on bringing innovative and sustainable solutions to the private sector. In addition to his master degree, Eden will graduate with a certificate for Leaders in Sustainability from the Institute of Environment and Sustainability (IoES).

Prior to his graduate studies, Eden received his bachelor degree in Environmental Science and Management from UC Davis and then worked in both the non-profit and private sector. Most notably, as the environmental specialist at an aerospace manufacturing facility, he maintained compliance with regulations and improved production sustainability. He was in charge of ensuring adherence to the site’s environmental management system, air and water standards, waste minimization projects, and energy saving efforts. Through these experiences, Eden gained an understanding of the role and importance of life cycle analysis, management involvement, accountability, transparency, and incentivization, in achieving a more sustainable product and process. After completing his graduate program, Eden hopes to utilize his knowledge and skill set to help make California more sustainable. 

Chloe Ney is a fourth year Geography & Environmental Studies major with a minor in Urban & Regional Studies. She’s originally from Los Angeles and hasn’t managed to get out yet! Just kidding, she’s all too well adapted to the weather and can imagine living in few other places; she’s a big fan of the beach and the sun. Outside of SAR, you can find her on campus tucked behind a computer at one of the CLICC computing lending labs in YRL or Powell. In her free time, she likes to pal around with her dog Ricky at her childhood-favorite state park, Will Rogers State Historic Park. She spent her first year of SAR on the Graduate Housing Team as a member, and participated as a team leader for the Biodiversity and Landscaping Team during her second year before joining as the 2019 Communications Director.

Dr. Courey, who is from Buffalo, New York, joined the UCLA faculty in 1990 and was promoted to full professor in 1999. He has served the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry as Graduate Advisor (2003-2005), Vice Chair for Education (2001-2005), and Chair (2008-2012). He also serves on the Advisory Committee of the Molecular Biology Interdepartmental Program and is one of the founders of the Gene Regulation Interdepartmental Program. Dr. Courey has instructed a course at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories in Protein Purification and Characterization every spring since 1996. His lab uses Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism to study transcriptional control mechanisms as well as the cell and developmental biology of SUMO, a ubiquitin-family protein. Dr. Courey has authored a textbook entitled Mechanisms in Transcriptional Regulation (Blackwell Publishing Company). He is an avid pianist and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Piano Performance from the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music.

Carolina Villacis graduated from UCLA with her B.S. in Environmental Science and a specialty in Environmental Engineering in 2017. She currently works as a water engineer for Arcadis U.S., where she plans and designs water treatment processes and provides water resource planning services. Her current projects include implementing a groundwater bank in the Inland Empire, designing storm water best management practices for the San Diego Port, and designing emergency response cell towers with Motorola to improve LA County’s resiliency. Carolina loves anything outdoors, is an avid runner (woo, Ragnar races!), and is currently getting her SCUBA diving certification. Carolina speaks English, Japanese, Spanish and French, has lived in three continents, and is always planning her next move!

Megan is a NatureNet Science Fellow at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. She is a specialist in blue carbon, the carbon stored in coastal vegetated ecosystems such as salt marshes, seagrass beds, and mangroves. Her research explores effect of mangrove conversion to shrimp aquaculture on carbon storage and local food security in Indonesia. Megan works across the environment, health, and development sectors with the aim of producing research that both informs effective conservation and improves the wellbeing of local communities. Megan did her PhD at University of California, Davis, where she studied tradeoffs and synergies between carbon storage and other important wetland management goals such as invasive plant eradication and nutrient pollution mitigation in California salt marshes. Before graduate school, she led community-based wetland restoration projects for four years in San Francisco Bay and Point Reyes National Seashore.

Rajit Gadh is a Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and the founding director of the UCLA Smart Grid Energy Research Center (SMERC), the UCLA Wireless Internet for Mobile Enterprise Consortium (WINMEC), and the Connected and Autonomous Electric Vehicles Consortium (CAEV).

Dr. Gadh’s research interests include Smart Grid, Micro Grids, Electric Vehicle to Grid Integration, Electric Vehicle (EV) and Autonomous Vehicles (AV), Smart Transportation, AI and machine learning in EV and AV management. He has over 200 papers in journals, conferences and technical magazines, and, 5 patents granted.

He has a Doctorate degree from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), a Masters from Cornell University and a Bachelor’s degree from IIT Kanpur. He has taught as a visiting researcher at UC Berkeley, has been an Assistant, Associate and Full Professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, and did his sabbatical as a visiting researcher at Stanford University for a year. He has won several awards from NSF (CAREER award, Research Initiation Award, NSF-Lucent Industry Ecology Award, GOAL-I award), SAE (Ralph Teetor award), IEEE (second best student-paper, WTS), ASME (Kodak Best Technical Paper award), AT&T (Industrial ecology fellow award), Engineering Education Foundation (Research Initiation Award), William Wong Fellowship award from University of Hong-Kong, etc., and other accolades in his career. He is on the Editorial board of ACM Computers in Entertainment Publication and the CAD Journal.

Shota Kenmochi studies public policy at the UCLA Luskin School, focusing on the areas of environment, energy and corporate sustainability. Prior to enrolling at UCLA, he led a team to manage the national Green Investment Bank (GIB) program with the annual budget of 45 MM at Japan’s Ministry of the Environment. His work covered both domestic and international issues. He developed a strategic plan for a green loan program and led a program evaluation team of eight members. He was selected as a delegate for OECD study group (Working Party on Climate, Investment and Development) to discuss green finance policy with delegates from 23 countries in Paris.

He received B.A. degree in Economics from Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo in 2012.

Kenmochi is excited to join the Blue Prosperity Project, as he believes he can bring a change to the real world through the project. In this project, he aims to develop a tool-kit that helps small island states to grow their economies through sustainable port development and management.