Jenifer Altman Foundation announces new Executive Director

Letter from Michael Lerner, President, Jenifer Altman Foundation

Dear EGA Colleagues:

I am delighted to announce that Ann Blake has accepted our invitation to become the new Executive Director of the Jenifer Altman Foundation.

Ann succeeds Shorey Myers who, we are delighted to say, now holds a senior position in the environment program at Bloomberg Philanthropies in New York. I am grateful to take this opportunity to share some of Ann's experiences that qualify her so well to continue JAF's 30-year commitment to environmental health and justice.

Ann comes to JAF from 30 years in the environmental health and justice field. After completing a Ph.D. in molecular genetics and neural development, Ann worked for 10 years as a RCRA haz mat inspector for California EPA's Department of Toxic Substances Control, and as Pollution Prevention Coordinator for the Northern California region.

In 2002, Ann launched her own consulting practice. For the last 20 years, Ann has worked with governments, researchers, nonprofits and companies in over a dozen industry sectors to find safer alternatives to hazardous chemicals and materials in global manufacturing. Ann's emphasis has been on reducing toxic exposures for manufacturing workers and immigrant women in service industries. JAF funded a project of hers in 2006 to promote safer cleaning products for Latina hotel cleaners in San Francisco.

Ann was part of a consulting team that helped implement the City of San Francisco's landmark 2003 environmental code that incorporated the Precautionary Principle. Ann has also worked with Blue Green Alliance to create an online tool for workers to help understand chemical exposures in the workplace and find safer alternatives. She has been on the legislatively-appointed Green Ribbon Science Panel that supports California EPA's Safer Consumer Products program since 2009, and continues to engage with Cal/EPA and UCLA Law on issues of alternatives assessment in California chemicals regulation.

Ann is also an active member of the board of the Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry, recruiting industry partners for the Center's cross-disciplinary Greener Solutions graduate course. Most recently, Ann has been part of the leadership team at the Garfield Foundation-funded Cancer-Free Economy Network, and held CFEN's multi-network Climate, Toxics, Health and Equity Initiative. In 2017 Ann co-authored "Industrial Perennial Crops for a Post-Petroleum Materials Economy" in the Springer Handbook of Ecomaterials with Eric Toensmeier, author of The Carbon-Farming Solution.

Ann grew up in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, the daughter of two academic social scientists. Her mother did some of the earliest research on women industrial workers in Asia in the 1970s, and was an early Singapore feminist and pioneering social worker. Her father was a Berkeley-trained labor economist who spent his career on developing economies in SouthEast Asia. Both of Ann's parents devoted a large part of their careers at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN ESCAP) in Bangkok, Thailand. Ann graduated from the International School Bangkok, then completed a bachelor of science in biology at Mount Holyoke College, before going on to complete her Ph.D.

Speaking of her new appointment, Ann wrote, "I am deeply honored to accept this new role at Jenifer Altman Foundation and delighted to continue to work with inspirational colleagues in the US and globally to create just, equitable, resilient communities on a vibrant, thriving planet."

We are honored and grateful that Ann will now lead and continue JAF's 30-year commitment to environmental health and justice.

With gratitude,

Michael Lerner
President
Jenifer Altman Foundation