Arlen Christenson is a Professor Emeritus of Law and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School. During his long and distinguished career, he innovated new and more effective legal protections for our natural resources and helped the public stay engaged in democratic processes. He co-founded the Center for Public Representation and played a key role in shaping the Public Intervenor’s Office during its most formative and effective years. Professor Christenson inspired and mentored countless law students through his classroom teaching and supervision of their clinical work with the Public Intervenor’s Office and Midwest Environmental Advocates. His legacy lives on through the hundreds of lawyers educated in environmental protection law who are carrying the torch forward to advance public rights in natural resources.

Susan Davidson is a physician in Maternal Fetal Medicine at Dean/SSM Health, a specialization which focuses on delivery care to women with high risk pregnancies. Since she began practicing medicine in 1986, Susan’s concern over increased birth defects in children of rural women led to her strong interest in the influence of environmental factors on human health. Susan serves on the Wisconsin Birth Defects Surveillance Committee, the Wisconsin Maternal Mortality Committee, the Dane County Fetal and Infant Mortality committee, the Legislative and Advocacy Committee of the Wisconsin March of Dimes and the steering committee of the Wisconsin Environmental Health Network.

Tom Dawson has spent most of his career practicing environmental law, first as Wisconsin Public Intervenor (1976-1995), then Wisconsin Strategic Pesticide Information Project Director (2000-2003); and DOJ Environmental Protection Unit Director (2003-2016). He practiced in state and federal policy and judicial forums advocating for the adoption of statutes, rules, and court decisions to protect the natural resources of the state. He was a founding volunteer member of MEA, served on the Wisconsin Wetlands Association Board, and on the Dane County Parks Commission

Jamie Ferschinger is a senior planner with Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District. She previously served as the Director of Environmental Health and Community Wellness at Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers and the Energy Efficiency Project Manager – Sustainability Coordinator at the City of Milwaukee. Jamie also serves on the boards of Preserve our Parks, which preserves access to public spaces and upholds the Public Trust Doctrine; Teens Grow Greens, which empowers and builds leadership among Milwaukee teens; and Fund Milwaukee, which supports locally owned, main street businesses that focus on economic and sustainable development.

Jan Gentry’s professional expertise includes more than 25 years of experience in marketing management, brand management, strategic planning and business development. Over the course of her career, she has had the pleasure of working for forward-thinking corporations that are intentional about their partnerships with the communities they serve and commitment to the sustainability of our environment. Jan’s family, who were prominent members of a farming community and entrepreneurial in spirit and practice, instilled in her a deep appreciation for high quality food and a commitment to protecting water and soil. She is also passionate about assisting disenfranchised communities that have been disproportionately impacted by health disparities. 

Kris Goodwill is an attorney with the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin and is a former Tribal judge. She previously served as the statewide Tribal liaison for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and as a Tribal attorney for the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe Band, the Ho-Chunk Nation, and the Oneida Nation. She also worked for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation as a contracts specialist, environmental analyst and regional Tribal liaison. In addition, she was a member of the workgroup that drafted the Wisconsin Indian Child Welfare Act, which passed unanimously and became effective in 2009. Kris is an enrolled member of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin. She enjoys fishing, hiking, kayaking and volunteering with Special Olympics.

Steven is a native of Milwaukee and a proud graduate of Riverside University Prep High School. After serving in the U.S. armed forces, Steven became a licensed wellness practitioner and founded Beans & Cornbread Wellness for African Americans. He has worked with a number of arts organizations, including Ko-Thi Dance, Milwaukee Public Theatre and Express Yourself Milwaukee, blending arts education with wellness practice in youth development for 25 years. Steven is also a former program director at Nearby Nature Milwaukee, an environmental justice and equity organization dedicated to building healthier and more resilient communities.

Betsy Lawton is a senior staff attorney at the Northern Region of the Network for Public Health Law. Before joining the Network, Betsy spent over a decade working to improve water quality as an attorney with Midwest Environmental Advocates (MEA) and the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA), where she focused on Clean Water Act implementation and enforcement, reducing agricultural pollution, and preventing drinking water contamination, and represented a broad range of individuals and communities facing water pollution problems. Betsy received her JD, and a Certificate of Environmental Law, from the University of Wisconsin Law School, and her Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Notre Dame.

Bill Lynch is a Milwaukee attorney whose practice has emphasized civil rights and discrimination cases. Bill has participated in complex public interest litigation. He chairs the Lakefront Development Advisory Commission, a City-County-State body that advises on the impacts of new development proposals for Lake Michigan public Land in Milwaukee County. Bill serves on the board of Preserve Our Parks, a Milwaukee County parks preservation watchdog group, and the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters. He also serves on the boards of the ACLU of Wisconsin, and Friends of Mwangaza, a Partnership with Tanzanians for improving education in that country. Bill is a graduate of Bowdoin College and the University of Chicago Law School.

Tom Pearson is a cultural anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. Tom’s teaching and research interests include environmental justice, political ecology, social movements, applied anthropology, and disability studies. He has conducted ethnographic fieldwork on environmental conflicts in both Central America and the United States related to biodiversity conservation, GMOs, intellectual property rights, sand mining, and industrial pollution and toxic exposure. Tom’s current research is a collaborative, multi-sited ethnographic study of community responses to PFAS contamination in the mid-Ohio River Valley and Upper Great Lakes regions of the United States, a project sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research.

Pastor Michelle works to advance environmental equity and justice, particularly in the areas of housing, lead contamination, gentrification without urban renewal, and water issues. Prior to joining the ministry in a professional capacity, Pastor Michelle worked as a paralegal for a number of years. She later used that skill set in her work as a volunteer missionary in El Salvador, where she recorded human rights violations and taught in communities and in the prison system. She also worked as a human resources director for a financial software and media company. Pastor Michelle has a great love for people, especially children, youth and elders.

Elizabeth Wheat is an Associate Professor in Public and Environmental Affairs, Political Science, Environmental Science and Policy, and the Master of Science in Sustainable Management programs at UW-Green Bay. In addition to teaching environmental policy courses, she teaches courses on environmental law, wildlife law, fisheries law, and natural resources law. Elizabeth earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology and political science from Alma College, a master’s degree in public affairs at Indiana University, and a doctorate in political science from Western Michigan University. She serves as a board member of Wisconsin Conservation Voters and as a volunteer advisory board member with the Humane Society of South-Central Michigan.

Jim Zorn is former executive administrator of the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC), an agency of eleven Ojibwe tribes that exercises delegated tribal sovereign authority to affirm and implement hunting, fishing, and gathering rights reserved in various land cession treaties with the United States. Over his 30 years at GLIFWC, Jim developed expertise on tribal sovereignty and jurisdiction, tribal self-regulation and intertribal co-management, tribal co-management with other jurisdictions, and a wide range of natural resource and environmental laws and policies. After retiring from GLIFWC in 2018, Jim served as Assistant Professor in the Department of American Indian Studies, University of Minnesota-Duluth, for the inaugural year of the Master of Tribal Resource & Environmental Stewardship program. Jim currently serves as a family court mediator in Ashland and Bayfield Counties. He also serves on the Great Lakes Fishery Commission’s Council of Canadian and United States Advisors. 

Tricia has been an Associate Justice of the Ho-Chunk Nation Supreme Court since 2013. She has also served as President of the Wausau Board of Education, is founding director of Central Wisconsin Indigenous Peoples’ Day Committee, and is a member of Ho-Chunk Nation. She was candidate for Congress in the 7th Congressional District in 2020. In addition, Tricia is a longtime educator; she has taught in the Legal Studies department at University of Maryland, in the Criminal Justice department at Colorado State University-Global Campus, and serves as law professor at California School of Law, where she also serves as Dean of Faculty. She is a member of the ACLU of Wisconsin Board of Directors, including serving on the Executive Committee.