News from Students –

maintained by

Simon Batterbury

Sept.  2008

1)      The MSc in Environment & Development , London School of Economics 

 

The first students to enroll on the MSc in Environment and Development, taught between the Department of Geography and Environment and the Development Studies Institute, arrived at the LSE arrived in September 1999. The core courses were taught by Eric Neumayer and Simon Batterbury. The second group (2000-2001) had a slightly amended range of course options, and Réne Véron joined us in teaching. Seventeen students took the MSc in 2001-2002 as Tim Forsyth took over administration of the course from the DESTIN side, and there were more in 2002-2003. The course has continued ever since, still run primarily from Geog&Envt.   I have included some 'honorary' participants  that took the classes.

 

If you are not listed here, that is because we have not heard from you – please send news to Simon Batterbury and I will update. Best wishes to all.

 

Simon

 

News from lecturers

 

Simon Batterbury (lecturer, DESTIN 1999-2001) exchanged a temporary lecturing job at DESTIN for a more permanent one in Geography at the University of Arizona in Tucson, near the Mexican border, in August 2001. He was a visiting research fellow at DESTIN for a couple of years and also worked as a visiting prof. at Roskilde University, Denmark in fall 2002. He and Judy married in June 2002 and their already well-travelled son James was born in May 2003 (against the medical odds). In July 2004 he fulfilled a long term ambition and moving to Australia, to a permanent job at the University of Melbourne. He is on sabbatical at Oxford, Jul-Dec 2007. simonpjb@ unimelb.edu.au

 

Tim Forsyth (lecturer, now reader, DESTIN, Geography & Environment) published Critical Political Ecology (Routledge), the Routledge Encyclopedia of International Development and a new book on Thailand in 2008. He teaches dv413 since moving across to DESTIN, and has ongoing research in Asia on environmental governance and a range of other issues.

 

Eric Neumayer (Geography & Environment 1998-). He was awarded a prestigious Leverhulme fellowship and was recently promoted to Professor.  E.neumayer@lse.ac.uk

 

Réne Véron (lecturer, DESTIN 2000-2001) continued work in West Bengal, India. He is working on several new articles and has published a book with Stuart Corbridge and others about governance in Bihar and West Bengal. In January 2002 he relocated with his wife to Canada, where his son was born, and started a permanent post as associate professor at Guelph University near Toronto in August 2002.   rveron@uoguelph.ca

 

 DESTIN has expanded rapidly. I am not in touch much anymore, but I believe the MSc is now flourishing and has expanded its numbers. There have been staff movements between Geography & Environment and DESTIN –Stuart Corbridge and Tim Forsyth moved across to DESTIN. Here is some additional alumni information collected by Eric.  

 

 

News from Graduates   See www.facebook.com where the 1999-2000 group now have a Facebook page

Chris Ackon (MSc, 2001) was in London.

Chris Allan (MSc, 2000) is at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the British Government, in its Environment Policy Department.   Chris was fprmerly posted to the British Embassy in Tokyo to work on environmental and trade issues. chrisallan70 @hotmail.com

Juana Alvarez-Arenas (MSc 2000) worked for UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organization) in their Vienna, Austria office, and coordinated preparatory activities for the Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, 2002. She visited Rio, Brazil in association with this work, and offers home-made Chilean food to any visitors to Vienna! Juana is now married and has a baby. alvarezjuana@hotmail.com jalvares@unido.org 

Brittany Syz (nee Appelstein) (MSc 2002) attended the  Hastings College Law School in San Francisco, USA from 2002-5, and is now a lawyer with Morrison Foerster in the same city.

Alix Audibert (MSc 2000) returned to Uganda. She is (or was in 2001) Deputy Trade Commissioner at the French Trade Commission (DREE) in Kampala.  audibert@bushnet.net alix.audibert@dree.org

Piya Baptista (MSc Development Studies 2000) worked for several years with Ashoka: Innovators for the Public in Washington DC promoting social entrepreneurship. She then went on to work with Grassroots Trading Network, a start-up in India that links small enterprises to markets. Piya also worked for the World Bank's South Asia Agriculture and Rural Development Department in 2005-06. Since 2007 she has been working in the area of Small and Medium Enterprise Development with the International Finance Corporation in Washington, DC. Contact: piya_baptista @yahoo.com

Ana Barona (Anthropology and Development, 2000) is working in conservation, for a National Park in the Amazonian region of her native Colombia. contact via Marion Freisa.

Ujwall Batterchee (MSc 2002) is now in a PhD programme in Boston, USA.

Marianne Berends (MSc 2000) did a conversion course in Law at BPP, close to LSE, and works at a Dutch law firm in the City. She hopes (2003) to move into environmental law in the future.  marianneberends@hotmail.com

 

Seth Binder (MSc 2003) is doing a PhD on environmental economics in F&ES, Yale University, USA.

 

Stefanie Bowles (MSc 2004) Policy Analyst with Canada's federal Department of the Environment, in the Sustainable Consumption and Production Branch.

 

Richard Brooks (MSc 2001) lives in North London and works at the Department of Education and Skills.  He says “although education policy isn't really my field, it gives me a chance to see how the civil service works and how policy is implemented”. r.brooks-alumni@lse.ac.uk  richard.brooks@dfee.gov.uk

 

Patricia Burillo (MSc, Intl. Rels. 2002) works for the government agency SIRESE in La Paz, Bolivia, regulating public utilities, including electricity and fuels. patriciab@sirese.gov.bo

 

Meg Brown (née Yeadon) (MSc 2001) took the Masters part-time over two years. She worked for Parsons Brinckerhoff International, a consultancy/engineering firm, between Singapore, Paris and London, while her husband Ian did an MBA at INSEAD.  She then moved to the JustPensions initiative http://www.justpensions.org in London ECI, a project managed by the UK Social Investment Forum that is concerned with ethical investments and support for international development by pension funds. May now be with Citigroup.

 

Dionne Bunsha (MSc, Development Studies, 2000) is in Bombay, working for Frontline, a Indian national news magazine. Her award-winning articles, available online, include work on GM seeds, violence in Gujarat, and drought impacts. She authored  Scarred: Experiments with Violence in Gujarat  (Penguin, 2006).  In 2008 she is on a journalism fellowship at Stanford University.

 

John Butcher (2001) jbutcher@uol.com.br

 

Verania Chao-Robello (MSc 2001) is in Mexico, doing environmental impact assessments. veraniachao@yahoo.com

 

Joshua Cheng (MSc 2000) resumed his job as a journalist in Hong Kong after graduating. He was in New York just after the attacks of September 11th 2001. cpchenghk@mail.com

 

Olga Chistyakova, (MSc 2004)

 

David Da Silva (MSc, Cities, Space and Society, 2001) worked in Galapagos for his thesis, and after graduating moved to Ottawa, Canada where he began training at the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He became the desk officer for Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and (as of Jan 2004) was on a three year posting as junior political officer for the Ministry in Manila, Philippines covering a range of issues including development, environment, and human rights.  david.dasilva@mail.mcgill.ca

 

Kristina Dahlström (MSc, 2000) worked for a year at a company developing an 'environmental sustainability index', and later for Médecins Sans Frontières. She was then with the Policy Studies Institute, a research institute in London, working on environmental risk and sustainability assessment. Now working on climate change mitigation for UK government.  Kristinadahlstrom @yahoo.com

 

Marianne Dahle (MSc 2000)  Worked as a commodities market analyst (carbon), did an MBA, starting PhD. marianne.dahle-alumni@ lse.ac.uk

 

Elisa Dumitrescu (MSc 2002) is with UNEP's Partnership for Clean Fuels and Vehicles.  

 

Bente Everts (MSc, 2000) workes with Medecins sans Frontières – first in London and the Netherlands, then in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, then 6 months as Administrator for a health care project in the south east rebel controlled region of Burundi. In 2003 she moved to an MSF sleeping sickness project in Nkayi, 200 km s/w of Brazzaville, in Congo-Brazzaville, Central Africa. She returned from there to Europe and now works in human resources for MSF in the Geneva office, managing emergency teams. bente_everts @yahoo.com

Sarah Fitzgerald (MSc 2001) is working for Atkins as a transport planner on public transport issues around London, particularly buses.  sarah.fitzgerald@atkinsglobal.com

Eftichia Fotopoulou (MSc 2004) is in Greece.

Marion Freisa (Anthropology and Development, 2000) is a doctoral student studying anthropology at EHESS, Marseilles, France. She completed her DEA (MPhil) about a Mauritanian refugee camp in Senegal in 2001. marfreisa@yahoo.fr

Frédéric Gagnon-Lebrun (MSc 2002) works for Écoressources consultants in Montreal, after advising the OECD on climate change.

Monica Grant (Anthropology and Development, 2001) came to LSE on a 2 year Marshall scholarship from Kentucky, and went on to complete an MSc (thesis distinction) in Demography and Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She is now a research coordinator in the policy research division of the Population Council in New York, and has co-authored several papers on population issues in developing countries. mgrant@ popcouncil.org

Radhika Gupta (Development Studies, 2000) worked at Winrock International India in Delhi, researching community based initiatives in water harvesting and watershed management. In 2007 she began a PhD at the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, Oxford. rads2000 @ gmail.com

 

Kavita Heyn (MSc 2002)  Development Officer for the UK's leading woodland conservation charity, the Woodland Trust, UK.

 

Leah Hibbin (NGO Management, 2001) has worked at CARE International, UK since 2003, on corporate social responsibility. hibbin@ careinternational.org.uk

 

What NGOs Are by Leah Hibbin
From all four corners, near and far,
We came to learn just what NGOs are,
Of Korten's Fourth and Korten's First,
Of What's Best Practice and what is worst,
We learnt of BRAC and of Proshika,
And the rule of the Charismatic Leader,
From David, our guru, an NGO Star,
But we still haven't heard him play his guitar,
And Hakan, it has to be said, is just great,
His seminars always turn into debates,
And without Jane, well what would we do?
Who else can tell us what's up and what's new?!
So we've searched the texts from A to Z
In search of 'Accountability',
It still eludes us, yet still we chase
Gold medallists all in the NGO race,
And we're Learning for Leverage, we're going to go far,
But please, just don't ask us what NGOs are!

 

Evelina Ivanova (MSc 2000) got married after graduating, and works for her husband's family business in the UK. Her beautiful baby boy, Aemil, was born in 2002.  evelina31@altavista.com

 

Andrew Jones (MSc geog?) works in environmental consultancy for Hyder Consulting, Sydney, Australia  andrew.jones @hyder.com.au

 

Heidi Karst (MSc 2000) worked in Bangkok, Athens,  Bulgaria, London (youth/social development). From spring 2004 she has been Program Co-ordinator for the International Coalition of Historic Sites Museums of Conscience in New York, working on human rights and outreach. Nanertak @hotmail.com

Shinuna Karume (MSc 2002) attended the Johannesburg Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 as a participant, and is now back in Tanzania.

Martin Kindl (MSc, 2000) wrote in 2001 from Arlington, Virginia, USA where he lives about a mile away from the Pentagon attack of Sept 11th. He works as a government analyst for Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting) on Connecticut Av. He wrote that “DC is an interesting place to be right now, and has been for the past few weeks.  I never thought I'd see the day when there were fighter jets flying patrols over the Capitol and Army in the streets directing traffic”. martinkindl@yahoo.com

Suzie Kocchi (MSc, 2000) is working in the Global Programs Division, Office of Atmospheric Programs, Office of Air & Radiation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington DC. She works on stratospheric ozone and climate issues.   skocchi@uwalumni.com  kocchi.suzanne@epa.gov

Isabel Kreisler-Moreno (MSc 2001) got an internship at IIED in 2001. In 2008 she is with the Spanish branch of Oxfam (Intermón Oxfam) in Madrid, as researcher and policy advisor in the Departamento de Campañas y Estudios. ikreisler "at" IntermonOxfam.org.

Marielle Leseur (MSc 2001) works in Tajikistan, first for a French relief and development NGO, ACTED, where she was deputy coordinator for high mountain integrated projects in the Pamirs. She is now with the Mountain Societies Development Support Programme (MSDSP), Aga Khan Foundation, based in Khorog. She said the conditions are quite difficult, and the temperatures fall to minus 30° in winter. Marielle.leseur "at" akdn.org

Stephen Linaweaver (MSc 2002) "Greatly enjoyed" the MSc. He is currently a PhD student and teaching assistant and in environmental policy at Duke University (http://www.env.duke.edu/esp/phdstudents.html), and can be reached at linaweaver@hotmail.com.

Hedvig Ljungerud (MSc, 2000) is putting her Masters and her earlier work in economics to good use as a policy analyst at the UK Treasury. In 2002 she shifted to work in environmental policy... "working with other departments on issues such as emissions trading, EU sustainable development strategy and also on more specific areas such as chemicals and air quality".   Hedvigsita @hotmail.com  

Ana Lopez-Gomez (MSc, 2000) is in Spain. She first worked at a small consultancy firm carrying out market research and analysis on different sectors of the Portuguese economy, and since September 2001 at IBM, providing support for its Portuguese business partners. She would like to work in the environmental field, and sends best wishes. algmbriceno@hotmail.com

Fernando Lyrio (MSc, 2000) spent 6 months travelling around Africa and Asia before returning to Brazil and to the Federal Senate, where he works as a legislative advisor for environmental issues. He was involved with Brazilian participation at Rio+10. fernandolyrio@yahoo.com

Justin MacDermott  (MSc Development Studies 2001) had his dissertation, on livelihood conflicts and politics in Rwanda, published as a DESTIN working paper, and a summary appears on the Environment, Development & Conflict website. He took a research assistantship at UNRISD, Geneva, in March 2002.  j.macdermott-alumni@lse.ac.uk macdermott@unrisd.org

Marla Mc-Carroll-Pinto-Rodrigues (MSc 2001) was temping at the Comprehensive nuclear test-ban treaty organization in Vienna, Austria before being winning a World Bank junior professional associateship. She is now enjoying working for the Bank-funded Pilot Program to Conserve the Brazilian Rain Forest and lives in Brasilia.  marla_pintorodrigues@hotmail.com  mrodrigues1@worldbank.org

Matteo Marchisio (MSc, 2004) Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development department of the World Bank, Washington DC.

Jonas Meckling (MSc, 2004) Ph.D. student in International Relations at the LSE, studying trategic responses of energy firms in Europe and the United States to climate change policy.

Marta Moro Crespo (MSc 2001) works in Madrid for NERA economic consulting, mainly on energy policy in Europe. Got married, 2007.  Marta.Moro@nera.com

Riina Biltekin (Moisander) (MSc Soc Pol & Planning In Developing Countries, 2001) started work at the Nordic Desk of the London office of the World Bank in Feb. 2002. She left London in 2003 and moved to Turkey with her husband Tugrul, and worked for UNICEF on youth and AIDS prevention. Now living in Ottawa, Canada and had a second son in 2006.  riinabiltekin "at" yahoo.com

Vikas Nath (MSc 2001) started work as a policy analyst with the Office of Development Studies at the United Nations Development Programme in New York. He works mainly on global public goods, global environmental governance, and communications technologies. He married Rati in 2002 and moved to the Geneva office of UNDP, then worked for the South Centre, and is now with UNDP, Europe and Commonwealth of Independent States, in Bratislava. He updates his website at http://www.vikasnath.org/.

Caroline Neligan (MSc Development Studies 2001) works in London for Guidestar International, a charity that builds data about civil society organisations.  Previously she worked for One World Trust, an NGO located in the UK Houses of Parliament. carolineneligan@yahoo.co.uk

Rick Reidinger (MSc 2000) lives in Singapore with his family, and since 2006 has worked for ENSR Singapore, concentrating on materials recycling and sustainable business in Asia.  rreidinger@ ensr.aecom.com

Laura Richter (MSc 2002) was awarded a distinction for her Masters. She was tragically killed in an avalanche in the Alps in January 2003.

Philippa Roberts (MSc 2001) works for the London Community Recycling Network.

Rina Rodriguez (MSc 2001) is in Washington DC working as a research associate for the World Resources Institute.

Ingunn Storrø (MSc 2001) works for Point Carbon in Oslo (www.pointcarbon.com) which provides news, analysis and consultancy on the carbon market . Her focus is the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). ingunn.storro @gmail.com

Justin Sykes (MSc 2000) worked for three years at the The Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum in London. In March 2003 he moved to Geneva to become Project Officer for the UN Secretary General's Youth Employment Network (a UN, ILO and World Bank joint initiative to address the global challenge of youth unemployment), and is enjoying the city.

Sandeep Sengupta (MSc 2001) is a PhD student in International Relations at Oxford, working on climate change policy. He worked for Winrock International India as Program Officer in their NRM division in Delhi, and then from 2003-6, was Project Officer in the Forest Conservation Program at IUCN in Geneva. s.sengupta-alumni@lse.ac.uk 

Isabel Shutes (MSc Devt.Studs. 2000) is a research officer at COMPAS, a research programme on migration and transnationalism at the University of Oxford.  Previously she worked in Brussels on employment issues and at the Policy Studies Institute on employment and governance. She completed her PhD at the LSE on refugee employment in 2007.  isabel.shutes  at compas.ox.ac.uk

 

Julie Stoll (MSc Development Management, 2000, part-time) applied her coursework in Environment and Development for 4 years at Pluto Press, who have their small headquarters in north London and publish widely in this field. From Aug 2004 she started new adventures as translator for Babels.org at the European Social Forum, then moving to the World Social Forum in Brazil, and now may be travelling.  jstoll@ras.eu.org.

 

Carmen Treviño (MSc, 2001), returned to México after some time spent travelling, where she worked for a large NGO, Pronatura, in Monterrey until early 2002. She works as a consultant for Punto Verde Consultores in Monterrey.

Conny Wollbrant (MSc 2004) worked in Uganda, and is now a PhD student in economics at Göteborg University, Sweden.   

Christopher Wright (MSc 2002) is doing a PhD in International Relations at LSE, on "Environmental Governance in International Banking".  c.m.wright at lse.ac.uk

Nadia Zaid (MSc 2001) is an energy market analyst at the London office of Williams (a US-based gas company with a good environmental and social record). She is researching energy developments worldwide, particularly in North Africa and the Middle East, and is also looking at renewable sources. She says "I think I couldn't find a better matching of interests and skills."  Nadia.Zaid@Williams.com nadia_zaid@uk.appl.net

 

Pedro Zapata (MSc, 2001) started work in Mexico for the environmental ministry, on issues of transparency, public participation and governance. He then got a 2 year position as Junior Professional Associate, at the World Bank in Washington D.C. Now he works in the President's Office in Mexico City, helping with the drafting, distribution and analysis of the first MDG report for Mexico and lectures at the Universidad Iberoamericana. (rexonas@hotmail.com).

 

 

 

2) Simon's Brunel Students – some I supervised

 

Cristina Parau (MSc, Environmental Change, 2001) was a PhD student in Government at the London School of Economics 2002-6, studying governance in Romania. She is now British Academy postdoctoral scholar at Oxford. http://www.csls.ox.ac.uk/research_staff/cristina_parau.php

 

Sally Denbigh (Honours, 1st, 1999) worked for NGOs including Tourism Concern, the Environmental Investigation Agency, and the RSPB before moving from Sussex to Edinburgh. She is doing a Masters by Research at the University of Edinburgh (2007).

 

Claire Wilton (MSc, Environmental Change, 1998) completed her MA on roads protests, worked for the Women's Institute as a researcher, and has been a campaigns officer at Friends of the Earth in London, UK since at least 2000.

 

Danny Wootton (MSc, Environmental Change, 1997) left his City legal job after graduating, and spent many years with Powerful Information, an environmental consultancy and NGO concerned with environmental awareness in E Europe and Africa, based from Milton Keynes. Still listed as part of the NGO Building Better Futures, which incorporates PI. 

 

 

3) Melbourne Students – some I supervised directly

 
Finn Cheshire (MA Devt.Studs. 2006, UN internship in Liberia). Worked as a researcher for Oxfam New Zealand. Now Policy Officer, working on environmental issues, New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wellington.
 

Marileze Gorgens-Albino (MA Devt.Studs. 2006) is working as an HIV/AIDS consultant with the World Bank and recently published a primer on HIV policies.

 

Kamakshi Mubarak (Hons, 1st, Geography 2006) is a DPhil student in geography at OUCE, University of Oxford, UK (Clarendon Scholarship and Keble College scholarship, 2007-2010)

 

Anna O'Brien (Hons Geography 2006) is Southern Otway Landcare Network Co-ordinator, VIC, Australia.

 

Jane Torney (Hons. Devt.Studs. 2006). Australian Youth Ambassador volunteer, Thailand (2007). MSc student Monash, & Marie Stopes International.