Speakers

Dr. Barbara Sattler is Professor Emeritus at the University of San Francisco and an international leader in environmental health and nursing. She has been an advisor to the US EPA’s Office of Child Health Protection and the National Library of Medicine for informational needs of health professionals on environmental health. She is a founding member of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments.

Through her founding role with the California Nurses for Environmental Health and Justice, she has been engaged in educating and involving nurses regarding a wide range of environmental health issues including climate-related extreme heat, storms, flooding, and fire-related human health risks; health risks associated with food and agriculture.

Dr. Sattler is a Registered Nurse with an MPH and DrPH from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. She is a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing.

Sahar is an associate professor of nursing at California State University East Bay. She earned her PhD in Occupational Environmental Health Nursing from UCSF and chairs the Faculty and Wildfire & Disaster Preparedness work groups.

Throughout a career spanning over three decades, Dr. Perea-Ryan has dedicated herself to serving LatinX cannery and farm workers within the underserved Central Valley of California, initially as a nurse and subsequently as a Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP).

As a professor at Stanislaus State, she is actively engaged in various academic pursuits including curriculum development and assessment, the establishment of internship and practice opportunities within the Central Valley, and the instruction of courses such as Transcultural Nursing, Health Disparities, Health Policy, and Women’s Health.

Dr. Perea-Ryan’s research endeavors focus on health disparities, particularly among LatinX and farm workers, and advocating for the integration of Social and Environmental Determinants of Health into patient-centric care, educational frameworks, and policy formulation.

Sarah is an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing at California State University, Sacramento. Her professional background is in community and public health nursing, and she is passionate about equitable access to drinking water and climate justice.

Erika Kimball is a nurse, sustainability leader, and the founder of KSH, a consultancy that partners with healthcare organizations to improve environmental stewardship. Erika is passionate about upskilling nurses to lead sustainability innovations and improvements in the clinical space, and she educates, engages, and mentors nurses on the topic.

Arohi Sharma advocates for policies that promote regenerative agriculture to mitigate climate change, protect soil health, conserve and reduce water use, and restore biodiversity. Before joining NRDC, Sharma was in graduate school, where she researched how to incentivize multi-stakeholder partnerships to help mitigate climate change and worked for the Ethiopian Government to help craft the nation’s first sustainable agricultural development strategy.

Prior to graduate school, Sharma served as a legislative staffer on Capitol Hill for the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee and Senator Cory Booker. She holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of California, San Diego and a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. In 2020, Sharma was awarded the John E. Bryson fellowship for her work on water and agriculture. She is based in NRDC’s Santa Monica office.