Honorary and Keynote Speakers
Honorary Chair
Rev. George K. Heartwell, the former mayor of the City of Grand Rapids, MI
During his 12-year tenure as Mayor of Grand Rapids, the city was recognized by the United Nations as the country’s first Regional Center for Expertise in Education for Sustainable Development, by the US Chamber of Commerce as the nation’s most sustainable mid-sized city, and Heartwell was recognized by the US Conference of Mayors with the first place award for climate protection in the large city category. Heartwell has received Gubernatorial appointments from both Democrat and Republican Governors of Michigan, including his current appointment as State Transportation Commissioner, and was appointed by President Obama to serve on the State, Local and Tribal Leaders Task Force on Climate Resilience. Heartwell has professional background in business, government, and higher education. He completed his undergraduate studies at Albion College and holds the Master of Divinity degree from Western Theological Seminary. Heartwell is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ.
Sarah Duffer
Sarah Duffer teaches earth and environmental sciences at Asheville High School in Asheville, NC. In 2018, she led her students to win the Inaugural Drawdown EcoChallenge.
Duffer has received several national awards in recognition of her innovative teaching. She was an Energy Literacy and a Climate Literacy Fellow with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Office of the Environment.
In her presentation, Sarah will explore solutions through individual assignments, collaborative group work, problem-based learning, and EcoChallenge. Participants will pick up specific lessons and strategies for high school students to learn about and practice the Drawdown solutions to reverse global warming. All of Sarah Duffer’s curriculum will be shared with you. All lessons utilize technology to maximize collaboration. Integrating Drawdown into high school science classes is a way to shift our negative climate paradigm into a positive, constructive, action-oriented framework.
Dr. Jeffrey A. Andresen
Dr. Jeffrey A. Andresen, is the State Climatologist for Michigan and a professor of Geography at Michigan State University Department of Geography, Environment, and Spatial Sciences. His teaching responsibilities include courses in agricultural climatology, meteorology, and physical geography.
He serves as director of the Michigan Climatological Resources Program and associated extension/outreach activities, including administration of the Michigan Automated Weather Network (MAWN), a network of automated weather stations designed to provide quality, detailed weather data to the state’s agricultural industry over the Internet.
Dr. Andresen is a co-director of the Great Lakes Integrated Science and Assessment (GLISA) program of the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration).
The primary focus of his research has been the influence of weather and climate on agriculture, especially within Michigan and the Great Lakes Region.
Dr. Jessica Thompson
Dr. Jessica L. Thompson is an Associate Professor of Environmental Communication in the Communication and Performance Studies Department at Northern Michigan University. She teaches courses in public relations, new media and environmental communication.
Jessica is the founder and director of the Northern Climate Network. She is an author of numerous scholarly articles and a book 'Interdisciplinary Research Team Dynamics: A Systems Approach to Understanding Communication and Collaboration in Complex Teams'. Her research focuses on team and organizational communication about complex ecological issues.
Dr. Thompson recent research projects include working with interdisciplinary teams studying climate resilience and building communication capacity for climate change engagement.
She currently serves on the National Park Service Advisory Board’s Education Committee.
In her recent TED Talk Let’s change the way we talk about climate change, Jessica shares how to constructively engage in a conversation about climate change.