Close to Home: Climate, Health, & Hope Panel

Moderator Biography:

David Pogue is a seven-time Emmy-winning correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning. He’s also a New York Times bestselling author, a five-time TED speaker, and host of 20 NOVA science specials on PBS. From 2000 to 2013, he was The New York Times weekly tech columnist.

He’s written or cowritten more than 120 books, including dozens in the Missing Manual tech series, which he created in 1999; six books in the For Dummies line (including Macs, Magic, Opera, and Classical Music); two novels; his three bestselling Pogue’s Basics books of tips and shortcuts (on Tech, Money, and Life); his practical guide to the climate crisis, How to Prepare for Climate Change; and Apple: The First 50 Years, which spent five weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and won a bunch of awards.

After graduating summa cum laude from Yale in 1985 with distinction in music, Pogue spent ten years conducting and arranging Broadway musicals in New York. He has won a Loeb Award for journalism, two Webby awards, and an honorary doctorate in music. He lives with his wife Nicki near New York City, and is an active member of the Bedford 2030 Board of Directors.

Speaker Biographies:

Dr. Amy Brown is board-certified in Pediatric Pulmonology and General Pediatrics. She pursued her undergraduate education at Emory University, medical education at Temple University, and received a Master’s Degree in Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. She is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at New York Medical College School of Medicine and an Adjunct Associate Professor of Public Health at the School of Health Sciences and Practice. She is currently employed by Boston Children’s Health Physicians and is an attending physician in Pediatric Pulmonology at Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital. 

In addition to clinical work, Dr. Brown is engaged in education, research, public health, and advocacy. She is the Assistant Director for the Children’s Environmental Health Center of the Hudson Valley, a Center of Excellence awarded by NYS, and a partner center to the NYS DOH-funded NYS Children’s Environmental Health Centers (NYSCheck). She recently became the Medical Director for Project ADAM-NY, a national organization with a local NYS affiliate site at Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital. Project ADAM-NY is an advocacy and training resource for cardiac emergency response planning in our local schools and youth sport organizations. Dr. Brown has given numerous lectures locally and nationally on pediatric asthma, environmentally triggered respiratory diseases, air pollution in schools, tobacco and vaping, preventative pediatric pulmonology, and outreach for Project ADAM.

Sandra Steingraber is an American activist, biologist, author, senior scientist, and cancer survivor. Steingraber nowadays spends time writing and lecturing about environmental factors contributing to reproductive health problems and the ways cancer is linked with the air, water, and food we come into contact with. She devoted her life’s work to understanding which chemical pollutants in our environment endanger our health and well-being. During her 20s, Sandra got bladder cancer, which she described in several books as a “disease cluster” (a high number of cancer cases that occur in a particular geographic area for a certain amount of time). After her bladder cancer went into remission, she completed an undergraduate degree in biology from Illinois Wesleyan University. Later on, she spent time working as a field researcher, which eventually earned her a doctorate in biology from the University of Michigan. 

Sandra is also an international anti-fracking activist and biologist who fights for the environmental protection of all living beings and sees this as our basic human right. In March of  2013, Steingraber was part of the protest that blocked the Inergy natural gas facility entrance. She protested the industrialization of the Finger Lakes and was arrested alongside nine other protestors. Steingraber refused to pay a fine and served ten days in the Chemung County jail before she was released. In 2014, she participated in a civil disobedience campaign where she was arrested again, this time for trespassing and blocking a chemical truck at the gates of Crestwood Midstream (formerly Inergy). She served eight days in the Chemung County jail. In 2017, the documentary “Unfractured” was released, in which Sandra Steingraber discussed her life as an outspoken activist. She is a winner of numerous awards and honors and nowadays lives in Trumansburg, New York, with her husband Jeff de Castro and their two children.

Jack Algiere has been working the land in regenerative organic agriculture and agroecosystem design for three decades. Jack and his wife Shannon are the founding farmers of the renowned nonprofit Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture in the Hudson Valley, New York, where he has designed and implemented the diverse and protected farmscape since its opening in 2004. Jack offers coaching and advisory services to regenerative food systems organizations and development projects internationally. His vision for healthy, local food systems is guided by a lifelong commitment to ecological stewardship, organic practices, experiential learning, and collective action. His perspectives and practices have been highlighted by various news media, including The New York Times and NPR. Jack is an active board and committee member for nonprofit organizations and mission-based companies that advance and facilitate local food and farming initiatives, including Johnny’s Selected Seeds, Northeast Organic Farming Association, Cornell Cooperative Extension, and Farm Bureau. Jack and Shannon raised two sons on the farm who now carry on their family’s joyful, healthy, and organic lifestyle.