Marcia Bernicat, a career member of the Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor,
is currently Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Oceans and International
Environmental and Scientific Affairs.
Ambassador Bernicat served as Ambassador to Bangladesh from 2015-2018 and to Senegal
and Guinea-Bissau from 2008-2011. Previously she was Deputy Assistant Secretary in
the Bureau of Human Resources, a position she held from 2012-2015. Domestically she
served in the Department of State as Office Director for India, Nepal, Sri Lanka,
Maldives and Bhutan in the Bureau of South Asian Affairs from 2006 to 2008; and from
2004 to 2006 as the Senior-Level Director and Career Development Officer in the Bureau
of Human Resources. Ms. Bernicat was Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in
Bridgetown, Barbados from 2001 to 2004, and Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy
in Lilongwe, Malawi from 1998 to 2001. She was Principal Officer at the U.S. Consulate
in Casablanca, Morocco from 1995 to 1998, Deputy Political Counselor at the U.S. Embassy
in New Delhi, India from 1992 to 1995, and Desk Officer for Nepal and India in the
Bureau of Near East and South Asian Affairs from 1988 to 1990.
Earlier in her career, Ambassador Bernicat was Special Assistant to Deputy Secretary
of State John Whitehead, Watch Officer in the Department’s Operations Center, Consular
Officer in Marseille, France, and Political/Consular Officer at the U.S. Embassy in
Bamako, Mali. She is the recipient of the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service
Award and numerous other Department awards.
A native of New Jersey, Marcia Bernicat received a Bachelor of Arts in History from
Lafayette College and a Master of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.
In 2018 she was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Public Service by Lafayette
College. Prior to joining the Foreign Service,
Ms. Bernicat gained private sector managerial experience working for the Procter and
Gamble Manufacturing Company on Staten Island, New York. Her languages are French,
Hindi, and Russian.
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Jim Berner
Former Science Director
Ӱ Native Tribal Health Consortium
Keynote speaker for the Chronic disease and cancer, contaminant surveillance and bio-monitoring
Dr. James Berner graduated from the University of Oklahoma Medical School in 1968,
completed an internship at Marion County General Hospital at Indiana University in
Indianapolis. He completed his military service in the Republic of Vietnam, and the
Pensacola Naval Hospital, then completed residencies in Internal Medicine at the University
of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, and in Pediatrics at the University of Oregon Health
Sciences Center, in Portland, Oregon. He joined the Indian Health Service in 1974,
and served as a staff physician in Sitka, Ӱ, at the Mt. Edgecumbe IHS Hospital,
and the Ӱ Native Medical Center in Anchorage. From 1984, until 2006, he served
as Director of Community Health, and as a part-time clinician in the Department of
Pediatrics. He assumed the role of Senior Science Director in the Department of Community
Environment and Health in 2006 and held that position until he retired in October
of 2019.
The publication of the Arctic Council’s first Arctic Human Health Assessment In 1998,
raised public awareness in Ӱ of the presence of industrial and agricultural environmental
contaminants in traditional food species, and in Arctic residents. The possible human
health effects, especially in pregnant women and infants, prompted him to seek funding
for the eventual creation of a maternal/ infant biomonitoring program for Yupik residents
of Yukon-Kuskokwim River Delta, from 1998-2013, utilizing grant funds from the EPA
and CDC. The Arctic warming trend resulted in the Arctic Council undertaking the
Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA), finished and published in 2005, with personnel
from the Ӱ Native Tribal Health Consortium as authors of many sections of the
Human Health chapter of the ACIA. The emerging climate-related environmental human
health threats documented in the ACIA was addressed with another EPA grant to fund
the Rural Ӱ Monitoring Program, which created a village-based environmental monitoring
capacity, using a partnership with the University of Ӱ Fairbanks (Ӱ).
Dr. Berner’s involvement with Arctic population health, environmental contaminants,
and Arctic climate and health interactions, resulted in his participation as a member
of the Arctic Council Arctic Monitoring Assessment Program’s Human Health Assessment
Group, the National Academy of Sciences Polar Research Board, and the Science Advisory
Panel of the North Pacific Research Board, as well as the Science Advisory Panels
for a series of NIH center grants at Ӱ for environmental research, and capacity
building. The development of a One Health focus at Ӱ over the last decade is a
culmination of the growing interest and capacity at Ӱ and the Ӱ Native worldview
of the interconnectedness of the health of the environment and human health.
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Dr. Nikoosh Carlo is the founder and chief strategist at CNC North Consulting. She
has extensive experience working to advance community-based solutions to climate change.
She helps clients develop a vision for their climate and Arctic priorities, navigate
building momentum to achieve change, and foster partnerships to drive forward movement.
Dr. Carlo has a special interest in advancing initiatives that support climate equity
and the health and well-being of Arctic residents and Indigenous peoples.
Dr. Carlo previously served as senior advisor for climate and Arctic policy to the
Governor of Ӱ (2017-18), a senior advisor at the U.S. State Department for the
U.S. Chairmanship of the Arctic Council (2015-17), and the executive director of the
Ӱ Arctic Policy Commission (2013-15).
Dr. Carlo is Athabascan Indian and has deep roots in the Interior Ӱ communities
of Fairbanks and Tanana, where she was raised. Dr. Carlo received a Ph.D. in neuroscience
from the University of California San Diego and a B.S. in psychology from the University
of Ӱ Fairbanks.
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Brooke Woods
Fisheries Policy Analyst and Outreach Coordinator
Tanana Chiefs Conference - Hunting and Fishing Task Force
Keynote speaker for the Food safety and security session
Brooke Woods is Koyukon Athabascan from Rampart, Ӱ, a small village on the Yukon
River. She currently lives in Fairbanks, Ӱ with her five children and attends
the University of Ӱ Fairbanks (Ӱ) pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Fisheries
Science. She received a Tribal Management Associate of Applied Science degree Spring of 2017.
She is currently employed with Tanana Chiefs Conference in the Hunting and Fishing
Task Force as the Fisheries Policy Analyst and Outreach Coordinator. Brooke also serves
as the Executive Chair for the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. The fish commission
was founded in 2014, Tribes and First Nations along the Yukon River and its Tributaries
are working as a unified voice for the conservation and restoration of Yukon River
Fisheries that protects traditional way of life and well-being.
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Marit H. Hoveid has her degrees from the University of Oslo (Cand. Polit.) and from
NTNU (Dr.Polit) in pedagogy. She has been a member of the EERA (European Educational
Research Association) council and executive committee for several years. Her research
interest revolves around questions related to teaching and learning processes. She
has edited several books and is the current editor-in-chief of Nordic Journal of Education
and Practice
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Halvor Hoveid has his degree from the University of Oslo in pedagogy and was recognized
as an associate professor in pedagogy in 2007 and a full professor in 2015 at the
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).
He has worked with teacher education for almost 30 years. His research is related
to philosophies and theories of education.
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Dr. Emily Jenkins, Ph.D., DVM, BSc Hon., is Professor, Department of Veterinary Microbiology,
Western College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon,
Canada, and previously served as the Wildlife Disease Specialist for the Government
of Canada. She teaches in parasitology, public health, One Health, and emergency management.
Her research takes a One Health approach to diseases that transmit among animals and
people via food, water, vectors, and the environment in the North.
Locally, she serves as chair of the Wildlife Health Research Fund and University Northern
Studies Committee. More broadly, she is Canadian representative to the Terrestrial
Working Group of the International Arctic Science Committee, a member of the Ӱ
CDC and Native Tribal Health Consortium One Health working group, and the Climate
Change and Infectious Disease working group, International Circumpolar Surveillance
of Emerging Infectious Disease, Arctic Council.
She also serves as Associate Editor of the International Journal for Parasitology
– Parasites and Wildlife and on the Editorial Advisory Board of Food and Waterborne
Parasitology.
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Susan Kutz
Professor
Department of Ecosystem and Public Health at the University of Calgary Faculty of
Veterinary Medicine
Keynote speaker
Dr. Susan Kutz is a Professor in the Department of Ecosystem and Public Health at
the University of Calgary Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and a fellow of the Canadian
Academy of Health Sciences.
Since her first foray into the Arctic in 1988, she has worked there continuously,
addressing issues at the animal-environment-human interface. In partnership with local
communities, she has developed community-based wildlife health surveillance programs
with the goal of early detection of change in wildlife populations, protection of
public health, and facilitating the incorporation of local and traditional knowledge
into wildlife co-management. Her research brings local, traditional, and scientific knowledge together to understand
the impacts of a warming Arctic on the health of muskoxen and caribou and the consequent
effects on food security in the Arctic.
She is recognized around the CircumArctic for her wildlife health expertise and recently
co-edited the first edition of the book Reindeer and Caribou Health and Disease. She
also pioneered the Northern Community Health veterinary program in the Sahtu Settlement
area, NWT, where she and her team have delivered annual veterinary services to five
Dene communities for over a decade while at the same time providing young veterinarians
with unique cross-cultural experiential learning opportunities.
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Arja Rautio, MD, Ph.D., VP Research University of the Arctic, Professor in Arctic Research, Thule
Institute and Faculty of Medicine, University of Oulu, Finland.
Her research interests are on population studies, Indigenous health and wellbeing,
research ethics, and One health and climate change.
The on-going projects are EU-funded:
- (H2020-BG-2016-2017) Permafrost thaw and the changing Arctic coast, science for socio-economic
adaptation, Nunataryak,
- (H2020-FP-2014-2020, Nro 825762) Metabolic effects of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals:
novel testing METhods and adverse outcome pathways, EDCMET
- (ENI-2017-387477) Development of think tank functions of the Northern Dimension Institute,
and Arctic Council project on One Health.
Dr Rautio is working as a national key expert in the Human Health groups of the Arctic
Monitoring Assessment Programme (AMAP) and the Arctic Council's Sustainable Development
Working Group (SDWG). She has been a member of the Social and Human Sciences Working
Group of the International Arctic Science Committee. At the moment she is a board
member of International Union of Circumpolar Health and Chair of Nordic Society for
Circumpolar Health.
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Dr. John Walsh is the Chief Scientist of the International Arctic Research Center
and President’s Professor of Global Change at the University of Ӱ, Fairbanks.
He is also the Co-Director of the Ӱ Center for Climate Assessment and Policy.
His research has addressed arctic climate and weather variability, both as observed
historically and predicted for the future.
Walsh was a lead author for the 2014 U.S. National Climate Assessment and for the
Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Prior to
moving to Ӱ in 2003, he spent 30 years on the faculty of the Department of Atmospheric
Sciences at the University of Illinois.
He has co-authored a textbook, Severe and Hazardous Weather.
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Brooke Woods
Fisheries Policy Analyst and Outreach Coordinator
Tanana Chiefs Conference - Hunting and Fishing Task Force
Keynote speaker for the Food safety and security session
Brooke Woods is Koyukon Athabascan from Rampart, Ӱ, a small village on the Yukon
River. She currently lives in Fairbanks, Ӱ with her five children and attends
the University of Ӱ Fairbanks (Ӱ) pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Fisheries
Science. She received a Tribal Management Associate of Applied Science degree Spring of 2017.
She is currently employed with Tanana Chiefs Conference in the Hunting and Fishing
Task Force as the Fisheries Policy Analyst and Outreach Coordinator. Brooke also serves
as the Executive Chair for the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. The fish commission
was founded in 2014, Tribes and First Nations along the Yukon River and its Tributaries
are working as a unified voice for the conservation and restoration of Yukon River
Fisheries that protects traditional way of life and well-being.
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