The ISF Board of Directors
Jeffrey Barber, President
Executive Director, ISF
Since joining ISF in 1992, Jeffrey Barber has engaged in both public interest advocacy and organizing efforts, nationally and internationally, focusing especially on the importance of strategic collaboration among environmentalists, consumer and health advocates, community development and social justice activists, trade unions, and other members of civil society.
Currently, Mr. Barber works with a number of civil society networks and coalitions, including as Co-Chair of the Northern Alliance for Sustainability (ANPED) and as Northern Co-Chair of the NGO Caucus on Sustainable Production and Consumption at the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development. In his NGO work at the UN, Mr. Barber has actively participated since 1995 in the Commission for Sustainable Development, the OECD (on the revision of the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises and with the OECD's Sustainable Development Plan), the UN Summit on Social Development, and the UN Conference on Human Settlements. Mr. Barber is one of the founders of the recently formed Sustainable Development Issues Network (SDIN) for the World Summit on Sustainable Development.
Prior to ISF, Jeffrey spent more than a decade working in social policy and public opinion research at nationally-known organizations, as Director of Media Research for Peter D. Hart Research Associates, as manager of Audience and Program Research for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, as Project Director of Custom Market Research for Arbitron Ratings Company, and as Communications Analyst at Stanford Research Institute (SRI International). Mr. Barber received his BA in psychology and MA in social science from San Francisco State University.
Jefferson C. Boyer, Treasurer
Professor of Anthropology, Founder of Sustainable Development Program, Appalachian State University
Jefferson Boyer is a professor of anthropology at Appalachian State University with expertise in social anthropology, peasant and regional studies, rural development; Honduras and Central America, and Appalachia. He is also the founding director of the Sustainable Development Program at ASU, which provides both applied research and community support for sustainable development initiatives in this mountain region. Issues include the search for alternative employment to vanishing industry, efforts to support declining family farming, community-based land use planning, watershed, forest and soil protection. The program also helps rural mountain communities give voice to their future as genuine Appalachian culture is overtaken with externally controlled tourism, the second home industry and the forces of globalization.
Since the 1960s as a Peace Corps volunteer, Dr. Boyer has worked in Honduras and Central America in peasant communities, agrarian reform and rural development. He has also worked on rural community and farming issues in North Carolina and southern Appalachia since the 1980s. Dr. Boyer received his BA in Anthropology at Portland State University and his PhD from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is on the Board of Directors the Highlander Research Center and is also an active speaker and writer for the American Anthropology Association (AAA).
Dianne Dillon-Ridgley
Sustainability Advocate
Dianne Dillon-Ridgley has actively promoted sustainability through numerous governmental, intergovernmental, NGO, philanthropic and corporate entities. She has served on several US delegations to the United Nations and was commissioned by the White House to serve as an advisor and member of the US Delegation to the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Appointed to the President's Council on Sustainable Development in 1994, Ms. Dillon-Ridgley served as co-chair of the Council's International Task Force and co-chair of the Population and Consumption Task Force. In 1998 Ms. Dillon-Ridgley was elected to the Global Water Partnership (Stockholm) and in 1999 appointed to the Oxford University Commission on Sustainable Consumption (UK). Other highlights of her career include four-term president of then ZPG (Zero Population Growth), now Population Connection; board member and national chairman of Racial Justice for the YWCA of the USA and UN representative for the World YWCA, Switzerland. In 1997 she was elected vice-chairman of the National Summit on Africa board and received the UNA Garst Memorial Award for individual service and global citizenship.
One of the founders of US Network for UNCED, now the Citizens Network for Sustainable Development, Ms. Dillon-Ridgley has served as a Co-Chair for CitNet. She has a BA at Howard University and is state-certified by the Iowa Mediation Service as a mediator specializing in agricultural mediation and public policy negotiation.
Alisa Gravitz
Executive Director, Co-op America
For over 20 years, Alisa Gravitz has helped pioneer and lead the national agenda to create a socially and environmentally responsible economy. A nationally recognized leader in the social investment industry, Ms. Gravitz co-authored Co-op America's acclaimed guide to social investing. Ms. Gravitz has also worked to create infrastructure in the responsible business movement by helping launch Businesses for Social Responsibility, Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies (CERES) and the Social Investment Forum. Ms. Gravitz is the 1995 recipient of the prestigious Socially Responsible Investing Service award and was named one of six of the most important people who are changing the way companies think about the environment by the Green Business Letter. Ms. Gravitz also serves on the Boards of Directors of the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies (CERES), the Social Venture Network, Network for Good, the Positive Futures Network and the Anacostia Watershed Society.
Prior to Co-op America, Ms. Gravitz worked at the US Department of Energy. She has also worked on small business issues and environmental policy in both the public and private sectors. Ms. Gravitz earned her BA in economics and environmental science from Brandeis University and her MBA at Harvard University.
Jessica E. Morse
Medical Resident
Jessica Morse is currently completing her residency in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California , San Francisco . After finishing her training, she hopes to pursue her interests in reproductive health in underserved communities, both domestically and internationally.
Ms. Morse received her MD and Master's degree in public health (MPH) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she earned the Christopher C. Fordham III Award for her practice in Honduras. Her master's work, a policy analysis of cervical cancer prevention in third world countries, stemmed from experiences in developing a service-education program in rural Honduras for medical students from the UNC Chapel Hill. Her work and volunteer experience in women's health in the US and Central America include clinical, political, philanthropic and educational positions.
John W. Morse, Founder
Pioneer John Morse served as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)’s first world Population Officer working in assignments to Chile, Peru, Brazil, Laos and Paraguay. Mr. Morse established the Survival in Freedom Foundation, SURFREE, in 1970, abetting more than one a hundred organizations for broadened approaches in dealing with the various matters of population, economic and social justice development, and peace.
Mr. Morse’s career in business and government consisted of “creative innovations in various occupations” with AT&T, US Rubber, Pentagon Ordinance, Public Health VD; and a six-year Assistant Professor of statistics at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Mr. Morse received his MA from Columbia University in statistics.
Thomas J. Rogers, Secretary
Consultant on Humanitarian Assistance and Sustainable Development
Thomas Rogers is a consultant on humanitarian assistance and post-disaster
recovery. Since 2003, he has worked on humanitarian assistance missions
with the US Agency for International Development's Office of US Foreign
Disaster Assistance (OFDA). With OFDA, he has served in Darfur and southern
Sudan, Pakistan, Kenya, Liberia, Iraq and the US. He also established
the program of Habitat for Humanity International in Afghanistan and
served as interim country director for the International Rescue Committee
(IRC) in Indonesia. He's also worked in the NGO sector in Cambodia,
the Philippines, and Sudan.
As associate director of The Center for Respect of Life and Environment
(CRLE) in Washington, DC from 1992 to 2000, Mr. Rogers also served as
associate director of The Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable
Future (ULSF), national coordinator of the Earth Charter USA Campaign
and national co-coordinator of the US Citizens Network for Sustainable
Development (CitNet). He also served as private sector advisor on the
official US delegations to the UN Commission on Sustainable Development.
Mr. Rogers was actively involved in NGO activities at many major UN-sponsored
global conferences including the Summit on Social Development, the 2nd
UN Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II), the Commission on Sustainable
Development, and Rio+5. Mr. Rogers has co-authored numerous publications
on refugee reeducation, sustainable livelihoods and sustainable development.
Mr. Rogers received his received his BA in Psychology and Philosophy from the University of Minnesota, and his MA in Psychology from the Graduate School of Human Behavior, US International University in San Diego, California.