New Economics Institute


	Vivian Barlach Albertini	Vivian Barlach Albertini is a Spring Intern at the New Economics Institute. She recently earned her MS degree in Environment and Development at the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland, where she conducted research on the practices of Industrial Symbiosis and Industrial Ecology amongst firms in the UK. Prior to joining the Institute, Vivian worked with environmental education at a Botanic Garden in South Florida, and as an events planner. A Brazilian native, Vivian was introduced to environmental issues from a very early age and has always believed in the possibility of finding a positive balance between sustainable economic development and environmental conservation. An avid international news reader, Vivian is always searching for new trends in economic thought and policy, particularly in ecological and de-growth economics. In her spare time, she enjoys cooking and home-brewing.
	Camille Goulding	Camille Goulding is a Spring Intern at the New Economics Institute. She graduated with a B.A. in Natural Sciences and an M.Litt in Geography and Environmental Governance from Trinity College, Dublin. Born and raised in Ireland she developed a great appreciation for the beauty of raw natural landscapes, unique cultural heritages, and a great deal of rain. Her master’s thesis looked at transatlantic comparisons in urban agriculture between community gardens in Dublin and New York. Camille’s interests lie in current and future environmental issues, sustainable agricultures, alternative and transparent food networks, and community-empowered grassroots actions which create a healthier and better planet. She was an integral member of the Transition Wicklow Initiative and has a passion and great admiration for the Transition Towns movement and its philosophy. She loves cats and other animals and in her spare time likes to knit and cook.
	Scott Grimm-Lyon	Scott is a staff member working on the Global Transition Project. Scott recently graduated with a Masters Degree in City and Regional Planning from the Pratt Institute of Brooklyn, New York. While at Pratt, Scott worked with a youth based community group in the South Bronx to find ways of connecting their neighborhood with a proposed greenway, with a Business Improvement District in Central Brooklyn to make recommendations improving urban design along a retail corridor, and with a community coalition in North Brooklyn to create a citizen based vision to act as an alternative to an unpopular rezoning proposal. Scott spent last summer studying sustainable development projects in Germany and worked with German architectural students to create a sustainable plan for waterfront development along Berlin's river Spree. In his work as a Community Organizer for Affordable Housing on Long Island, Scott helped faith based coalitions lobby the New York State Senate to pass a bill requiring 10% affordability on all new construction developments. He also worked with The Center for Urban Pedagogy and the Queens Museum to set up an exhibit about the mortgage crisis and to develop a Foreclosure Survival Guide to be used in community education efforts throughout Queens. Scott has a long relationship with Heifer International, and served as an Americorps volunteer at their Overlook Farm in Rutland Massachusetts, where he led workshops discussing global poverty and sustainable international development. Scott grew up on Long Island and currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife Jessica.
	Nicholas Kacher	Nick assists the Education Director in operating the Great Barrington office of the New Economics Institute, specifically in outreach to student and activist groups, and serves as a liaison between the New Economics Institute and BerkShares local currency. A graduate of Wheaton College (MA) class of 2011, Nick holds a B.A. in economics with a minor in African and African Diaspora studies. Nick’s academic interests include economic policy, steady state economics, the commons, and urban and regional economics. His previous nonprofit experience includes an internship with AHEAD, inc., an organization operating in Kisarawe, Tanzania that promotes local and technologically appropriate solutions to pressing social, public health, and economic problems in the area. Nick was born and raised in Waltham, MA, and graduated from Waltham High School class of 2007.
	Katharine Millonzi	Operations and Development Manager When she was sixteen and living on a farm school in Maine, Katharine volunteered to chop the head off a chicken with an axe. For a girl from Manhattan, this formative visceral experience of the food chain shook her body, mind and spirit to the core. To this day, it still makes the question of what to have for breakfast a loaded one for her, full of economic, ecological, social, political, and sensory nuance. Katharine has a breadth of experiences in the sustainability and social change sectors worldwide. An eco-gastronome and food systems thinker, she brings an integrative, multidisciplinary perspective to the relationship between culture and nature. After several years work in international public health, she enjoyed being part of several start-up business ventures - from an artisanal cheesemongers to a fair-trade botanicals company. She recently directed the Sustainable Food and Agriculture Program at Williams College, where she examined the role of institutional procurement within regional economic development. Katharine holds an MA in Food Culture and Communications from the University of Gastronomic Sciences, founded by Slow Food International. She also holds a BA from the University of London in Social Anthropology and International Development. Her 2007 Fulbright Fellowship in Italy offered her a platform from which to measure and assess the responses of traditional food producers to global economic policy and structures. Katharine is a trained massage therapist and herbalist who finds inspiration in ‘the peace of wild things'.
	Dmitriy Oziransky	Dmitriy is a Winter Intern at the New Economics Institute. He graduated Summa Cum Laude in the spring of 2011 from Stony Brook University with a B.A. in Economics. While in school Dmitriy performed an independent study on the correlation between cell phone use and crime in America. He is currently assisting with the global mapping project and the planning of the 2012 Rio Conference at the New Economics Institute. Dmitriy is an avid chess player and a member of the timebank in Brooklyn.
	Debbie Pierce	Debbie Pierce is a Spring Intern at the New Economics Institute. She graduated from the University of Michigan in May with degrees in Economics and Environmental Policy. She completed a thesis on sustainable water management in Las Vegas and Phoenix. After studying environmental policy and sustainable fisheries in Greece and Turkey, she became interested in the intersection of economics and environmental sustainability. Before moving to New York, Debbie worked at the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the Environment and the Matthaei Botanical Garden. Working at the garden sparked Debbie’s interest in sustainable food systems and health, especially at the community level. She plans to pursue a graduate degree in environmental economics with a focus on agriculture and water resources. In her spare time, Debbie likes to run, cook, and travel.
	Susan Witt	Education Director Ex-Officio Member of Board of Directors Susan Witt was the Executive Director of the E. F. Schumacher Society, the predecessor of the New Economics Institute. She helped found the Society in 1980 and led the development of its highly regarded publication, library, seminar, and other educational programs while at the same time remaining deeply committed to implementing Schumacher’s economic ideas in her home region of the Berkshires. She helped found the Community Land Trust in the Southern Berkshires in 1980 and has been responsible for many of the innovative financing and contracting methods that the Land Trust uses to create more affordable access to land. In 2006 she co-founded the BerkShares local currency program that has won unprecedented international media attention as a model for other regions. She created and administered the SHARE micro-credit program, the precursor of BerkShares, and in 1985 helped Robyn Van En form the first Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm in the United States at Indian Line Farm. Susan Witt writes and speaks on the theory and practice of building sustainable local economies. Her essays appear in Rooted in the Land edited by William Vitek and Wes Jackson (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1996); People, Land, and Community: Collected E. F. Schumacher Society Lectures edited by Hildegarde Hannum (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1997); A Forest of Voices: Conversations in Ecology edited by Chris Anderson and Lex Runciman (Mayfield Publishing Company, Mountain View, CA, 2000); Environmental Activists edited by John Mongillo (Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, CT 2001); The Money Changers: Currency Reform from Aristotle to E-cash edited by David Boyle (Earthscan Publications, London, UK, 2002); in the 1999 edition of Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered by Ernest Fritz Schumacher (Hartley and Marks Publishers, Point Roberts, WA and Vancouver, BC, 1999); The Essential Agrarian Reader edited by Norman Wirzberg (University Press of Kentucky, 2003); and What We See: Advancing the Observations of Jane Jacobs edited by Stephen Goldsmith and Lynne Elizabeth (New Village Press, 2010). Detailed biography of Susan Witt Archive of Susan Witt's articles and essays Article about Susan Witt from The Women's Times (PDF) Essay on Jane Jacobs by Susan Witt