Executive Committee

The Executive Committee is charged to handle the affairs of the society between meetings and consists of five officers.

President: Ezra Markowitz

Ezra Markowitz is an assistant professor of environmental decision-making at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He studies the intersection of decision-making, persuasive communication, public engagement with science and environmental sustainability. He is an author of "Connecting on Climate: A Guide to Effective Climate Change Communication." Ezra teaches courses on environmental decision-making, conservation social science, and public engagement for scientists. He holds a PhD in environmental science, studies and policy from the University of Oregon.

President-elect: Daniel Benkendorf

Daniel Benkendorf is a professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York City. His research interests lie at the intersection of consumer behavior, environmental sustainability and gender. His past work has explored the ways in which outdoor experiences relate to well-being, how pursuit of the muscular ideal in men can have negative environmental implications and how hope can inspire pro-environmental behavior. He teaches conservation psychology, social psychology and positive psychology courses at FIT.

Past President: John Fraser

John Fraser, PhD, AIA, is president and CEO of the New York City-based interdisciplinary nonprofit social science think tank NewKnowledge Organization Ltd., where as a conservation psychologist, architect and educator, he focuses on how people's experience with media and community influences their learning, attitudes and motivations for engagement with solving the problems that face society.

Secretary: Reuven Sussman

Reuven Sussman manages human dimensions of energy efficiency programs at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) in Washington, D.C. He is co-chair of the annual Behavior, Energy and Climate Change conference (BECC). Reuven was a behavior change consultant, university instructor and researcher at the U. Victoria in Canada. Currently, he studies energy efficient behavior and programs that encourage energy efficiency through behavior change.

Treasurer: Nicole Sintov

Nicole Sintov is an assistant professor of "Behavior, Decision-Making, and Sustainability" in the School of Environment and Natural Resources at The Ohio State University. She holds a BS in psychology/ecology from the University of California, San Diego, and a PhD in psychology from the University of Southern California. She studies the influence of interpersonal interactions on environmental behaviors, as well as the roles of identity and status in environmentally relevant decisions. She teaches sustainability psychology courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Membership Chair and Council Rep: Nancy Piotrowski

Nancy Piotrowski works as a professor, researcher, consultant, advocate and psychological services provider. Trained as a clinical psychologist, she has 25-plus years of professional experience working at the local, state, federal and international levels. She is interested in the transtheoretical model of change, expectancies, and how models of addiction may help influence science in the area of environmental, population and conservation psychology.

Chair of Awards Committee: Sonya Sachdeva

Sonya Sachdeva is a computational social scientist with the U.S. Forest Service in the greater Chicago area. She is part of a Forest Service research unit that studies the human component of natural resource management within urban ecosystems. She uses wide-ranging methods like field studies, behavioral experiments and automated content analyses to understand the sociocultural factors that shape environmental values and people’s relationship to nature.

Chair of Communications Committee: Sabrina Köhler

Sabrina Köhler obtained her masters degree in psychology at the University of Mannheim in Germany. She is now keen on starting a PhD on a topic that combines her interests in psychology and global climate change. She is particularly interested in how perceptions of global warming and climate change risks influence adaptation behavior, and in addition, how this knowledge can then be used for effective policy-making. 

Student Committee Chair: Zoey Rogers

Zoey Rogers is a clinical psychology doctoral (PsyD) student at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California. She is completing her doctoral internship at the University of San Francisco's Counseling Center and plans to return to her hometown of Seattle, Washington, next year. Her research interests include understanding people's motivation to live a sustainable lifestyle as it relates to sense of place and using research to serve as a platform for social and environmental justice. She is particularly interested in applying the research around ecological grief and the impact climate change has on mental health to clinical work.

Program Chair: Daniel Benkendorf

Daniel Benkendorf is a professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. His research interests lie at the intersection of consumer behavior, environmental sustainability and gender. His past work has explored the ways in which outdoor experiences relate to well-being, how pursuit of the muscular ideal in men can have negative environmental implications and how hope can inspire pro-environmental behavior. He teaches conservation psychology, social psychology and positive psychology courses at FIT.

Fellows Chair: Elise Amel

Elise Amel holds a PhD in industrial-organizational psychology, is a professor of psychology at the University of St. Thomas and has directed the environmental studies program. She co-created the Sustainable Communities Partnership, which links St. Thomas courses across disciplines to city-identified, high-priority sustainability projects created and leads culture change as director of the Office of Sustainability Initiatives. She has served as president for the Society of Environmental, Population, & Conservation Psychology, is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and has co-authored the popular textbook, "Psychology for Sustainability."