New England Women in Energy and the Environment (NEWIEE) is pleased to announce the 2011 NEWIEE Awards Honorees
NEWIEE Achievement Awards
Nancy Hazard
Nancy Hazard has promoted sustainability and climate change solutions for over thirty years. Her varied career has include work as a builder, teacher, director of the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) and director of the Tour de Sol, America’s green car festival and competition, and co-creator of the Greening Greenfield campaign. For 15 years, she ran a design/build residential construction business called Hazard & Sun which specialized in solar/energy efficient renovations and new construction and the teaching of basic carpentry/building skills to women. She joined NESEA in 1989, building the Tour de Sol from a regional 6-car event one of international significance which involved 50 cars annually and a budget of half a million dollars. Each year, the Tour de Sol was recognized in more than 300 articles throughout the world. In 2006 she left NESEA to form WorldSustain, an energy consulting business. The following year, Ms. Hazard co-created the Greening Greenfield campaign in collaboration with the Greening Greenfield Energy Committee and the Town of Greenfield. In addition to knowledge of energy and climate change issues, she has experience in project management, community organizing and fundraising, with special expertise in building collaborative campaigns that include local, state, and federal governments, corporations, educational and environmental non-profits, and concerned citizens.
Denise Nappier
Denise Nappier has used her position as the Connecticut State Treasurer to advocate for environmental, climate change, and a general social conscience and citizenship of corporations. Managing a multi-billion dollar pension fund, Ms. Nappier has been key in corporate governance reform regarding environmental issues. Treasurer Nappier is one of the nation's leading institutional investors working for corporate reform on issues including executive compensation, conflicts of interest in accounting practices, independence and diversity of board members, and disclosure of financial risks of climate change. She proposed and co-chaired the Institutional Investor Summit on Climate Risk, held at the United Nations in 2003, 2005, and 2008.
Prior to her election as state treasurer, Ms. Nappier served as treasurer of the City of Hartford, Connecticut for 10 years. Nappier is a member of the boards of both the National Association of Corporate Directors and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems.
Dr. Karen L. Weber
As the Executive Director of Foundation for a Green Future, Inc. and Coordinator of Boston GreenFest, Dr. Karen Weber strives to bridge diverse cultural communities. She also aims to provide opportunities to help others educate their peers about environmental sustainability and social justice issues. Dr. Weber has extensive knowledge of climate change, its impacts, and local, regional and international resources addressing causes and solutions, which she shared extensively through Boston Greenfest and the SustainAbility week initiatives. Her personal knowledge on green roofs and their ability to impact climate change in a positive way has been shared with a growing number of constituencies, and she willingly and proactively shares her network of experts on energy and environmental issues with interested parties. Dr. Weber has been operating her for-profit company, Earth our Only Home, Inc., since 2006 to bring eco-friendly solutions to commercial and residential customers. Her goal is to help GREEN our planet from top to bottom and bottom to top using plants — adding green roofs, living walls, trees, organic raised bed gardens, rain gardens and more, particularly in our urban centers. Dr. Weber’s professional involvements exemplify the many ways she has influenced and led the green movement both in the New England region and abroad.
NEWIEE Leadership Award
Dr. Mildred S. Dresselhaus
Dr. Mildred S. Dresselhaus is currently one of twenty-three Institute Professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), with appointments in the Department of Electric Engineering and computer science and the Department of Physics. Her research has covered a wide range of problems in the physics of solids with special attention to nanoscience, and carbon-based and other nanostructures of particular relevance to energy-related applications. She served as Director of Science in the US Department of Energy in 2000-2001 and as chair of the American Institute of Physics Governing Board 2003-2008.
A leader in promoting opportunities for women in science and engineering, Dresselhaus received a Carnegie Foundation grant in 1973 to encourage women's study of traditionally male dominated fields, such as physics. In 1973, she was appointed to The Abby Rockefeller Mauze chair, an Institute-wide chair, endowed in support of the scholarship of women in science and engineering.
She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering.
