Dr. John Lawrence, Dartmouth College class of ’76 and Geisel School of Medicine class of ’80 has been a practicing pediatric surgeon for over 20 years and owing in part to a longstanding interest in global health, has also completed ten surgical missions with Doctors without Borders since 2009 serving as a surgeon in the Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, Haiti, Syria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Liberia. He has served as president and vice president of the board for Doctors without Borders USA. In this conversation, we chat about his motivation for pursuing a career in medicine and his perspective on the current publich health issues we're facing - which are not so different than the issues he witnessed as a young physician 20+ years ago.

In this episode with Marc Sépama, class of 2017, Marc tells me about why supporting global health initiatives became his calling and how he's currently going about pursuing that work. Marc currently oversees a portfolio of global health organizations at Emerson Collective, a philanthropic investing organization founded by Laurene Powell Jobs. Before landing at the Emerson Collective, Marc worked at Helen Keller International, where he collaborated with Ministries of Health in West Africa to implement national health programs.

Sue AnderBois '05 has built a career centered on climate change policy, clean energy expansion, and supporting local food systems. She is currently the Director of Climate and Government Relations for The Nature Conservancy (RI Chapter), and also sits on TNC's North America Policy and Government Relations Cabinet. In her "spare" time Sue is also a member of the Providence City Council where she chairs the Council's Special Committee on the Environment and Resiliency, is a member of the Finance Committee, the Special Commission on Taxation and Revenue, and is a Parks Commissioner. She majored in Environmental Studies while at Dartmouth and also earned an MBA from the Yale School of Management.

In this episode we interview Oliver Edelson ‘18. Oliver currently serves as Legislative Director for Congressman Chris Pappas, first district of New Hampshire (NH-01), where he develops and leads the Congressman’s policy agenda. He also manages Rep. Pappas’s service on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Oliver has held several legislative positions on the Hill and most recently spent two years in the office of Congressman Mike Levin (CA-49). He has also worked on several campaigns, including serving as Policy Director for the Chris Pappas for Congress campaign during the 2020 election cycle. While at Dartmouth, Oliver led Plate of the Union, a food policy reform campaign during the 2016 election cycle. At Dartmouth, he majored in Environmental Studies; conducted aquaculture research; served as Student Director of Growing Change, a farm-to-school education program at DCSI; and participated in the College’s Food Sustainability Working Group. He also worked in the office of the President of the College and was the Captain of the Dartmouth Club Baseball team.

The renewable energy transition is here but it looks a lot different in each state across the U.S. Sean Garren '07 touches on what trends he's observing as Chief Program Officer for Vote Solar, a non-profit advocacy group working across the United States to use solar as a tool for climate progress and energy, environmental, and economic justice. Sean also dives into how he crafted a career at the intersection of sustainability and politics. Prior to Vote Solar, Sean was the Legislative Director at Fair Share, an economic justice non-profit, where he was lead lobbyist and set policy strategy for the organization. Previously, he ran the federal clean energy program as Clean Energy Advocate at Environment America, a national network of state-based, grassroots environmental groups.

Warren Valdmanis '95 makes the case for a better version of finance that prioritizes workers in the assessment of organizational value. In our conversation, Warren defines a "good job", explains why there seem to be so few of them these days, and what investors can do to create more of them. Warren is a Partner at Two Sigma Impact, a private equity firm focused on creating value at companies by investing in people and creating "good jobs". He is also the author of Accountable: The Rise of Citizen Capitalism, a book about how socially oriented investors are working to build a more just and sustainable version of capitalism. Prior to Two Sigma Impact, Warren was on the founding team of Bain Capital Double Impact, Bain Capital's first dedicated social impact investment fund. He graduated from Dartmouth cum laude and later earned an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Alex Bernadotte '92 walks us through how many efforts to bridge the college education gap miss the mark on supporting first generation and low income students during the undergraduate experience and beyond. Drawing on her own experience as a first generation college student, she emphasizes the importance of reducing the college drop out rate, both for society and for the lives of individual students. Alex is the founder and CEO of Beyond 12, a technology-enabled nonprofit that integrates personalized coaching with mobile technology to increase the number of traditionally underserved students who graduate from college and translate their degrees into meaningful employment and choice-filled lives. She has more than 18 years of executive management and strategic development experience in the nonprofit and private sectors including serving as executive director of The Princeton Review's Silicon Valley office; executive director of Foundation for a College Education; co-founder and vice president of marketing at educational travel company Explorica; director of operations at EF Education; and operations manager at the World Health Organization. Alex received her undergraduate degree from Dartmouth and earned a master's degree with a concentration in policy and organizational leadership from Stanford. She is an Ashoka Fellow, a recipient of the 2011 NewSchools Venture Fund Entrepreneur of the Year award, a Jefferson Award for Public Service winner, a Dartmouth College Social Justice Award and Stanford University Alumni Excellence in Education Award honoree, and a Fellow of the 22nd class of the Pahara – Aspen Education Fellowship. In addition, Beyond 12 was named one of the world's ten most innovative education companies by Fast Company, and the organization’s MyCoach mobile app won a Xammy Award for best social impact app from Xamarin, a Microsoft-owned mobile development platform.

In this episode, we chat with Rose Mutiso '08, Research Director at the Energy for Growth Hub. She walks us through her path to fighting climate change, which is focused on just energy transitions and championing emerging energy technologies in the African context. Rose is also the co-host of the Energy for Growth Hub’s podcast series - High Energy Planet and the co-founder and former CEO of the Mawazo Institute, which supports the next generation of female scholars and thought leaders in East Africa. Previously, Rose was a Senior Fellow in the Office of International Climate and Clean Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), where she led DOE’s engagement on technology and policy dimensions of energy access in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Prior to this, she served as an Energy and Innovation Policy Fellow in the office of U.S. Senator Christopher A. Coons, where she co-authored several pieces of legislation that were signed into law by President Barack Obama. She earned her BA and BE in Engineering Sciences with a concentration in Materials Science from Dartmouth College, and her PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.