Who We Are

Stuart H. Hurlbert (President), is Professor Emeritus of Biology at San Diego State University. His teaching and research have been primarily in the areas of lake ecology, biostatistics, and man-environment relations. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, member of several other scientific societies, and winner of the National Academy of Sciences 2003 Award for Scientific Reviewing. He encourages environmental scientists and their professional societies to show greater courage in addressing U.S. population growth, its consequences, and the urgent need to slow it down. Dr. Hurlbert graduated from Amherst College in 1961 and received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1968.

Leon Kolankiewicz (Vice President), is a consulting environmental scientist and planner. He has managed Environmental Impact Statements (EIS's) on projects ranging from dams and reservoirs to flood control facilities, roads, parks, power plants, oil drilling, and mines. He has assisted the Fish and Wildlife Service prepare management plans at more than 50 national wildlife refuges in many states. Receiving his B.S. at Virginia Tech and M.Sc. at the University of British Columbia, during his career he has worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Alaska Department of Fish and Game, National Marine Fisheries Service, Orange County (CA) Environmental Management Agency, the NGO Carrying Capacity Network, as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Honduras, and as a consultant.

Paul Nachman (Treasurer), (PhD, Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago, 1978), is a retired physicist living in Bozeman, Montana. He has been active in environmental and conservation policy work, always as a volunteer, since the mid 1970s, when he was the principal Chicago-area activist in the successful national effort that persuaded Congress to improve the wilderness protections for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Minnesota. Over the last two decades, he has focused on the core environmental problem of human overpopulation and then more specifically on the myriad downsides of immigration to the U.S.. Nachman is also a volunteer in an applied-optics research group at Montana State University.

Reed F. Noss is Provost's Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Central Florida. He received his M.S. degree from the University of Tennessee and his Ph.D. from the University of Florida. He served as Editor-in-Chief of Conservation Biology, President of the Society for Conservation Biology, and is an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is ranked among the 500 most highly cited authors in all fields. Noss conducts research on: vulnerability of species and ecosystems to sea-level rise; climate adaptation; disturbance ecology; ecosystem conservation; and related topics.

David Schindler, D. Phil., is Killam Memorial Professor Emeritus in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta. His research on the ecology and biogeochemistry of lakes and rivers has earned him several national and international awards, including the first Stockholm Water Prize, the Volvo Prize, the Tyler Prize, and the NSERC Gerhard Herzberg Gold Medal for Science and Engineering. Schindler is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Royal Society of London, and a member of the US National Academy of Sciences. He received his B. Sc. from North Dakota State University and his doctorate from Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. He holds honorary doctorates from eleven US and Canadian universities.

Joyce Tarnow, has been a population activist since Earth Day 1970. She organized the Miami Chapter of Zero Population Growth and served on its national board from 1972 to 1974. She was one of the founders of Floridians for a Sustainable Population in 1994 and has been serving as its President since 1996. She has resided in Florida since 1962 when Florida's population was 12 million less than it is now in 2013.

Joyce passed away on February 21, 2014, after a long bout with cancer and serving as SEPS treasurer and FSP president to the end. A beautiful tribute to her and her work was published by Leon Kolankiewicz. Without benefit of a college education, this long-time feminist, population activist and environmentalist did more for people and the environment than most environmental scientists with M.S. and Ph.D. degrees accomplish. A 2009 article, "Where in the World is Joyce Tarnow," an obituary in the South Florida Sun Sentinel and another in the Miami Herald give further information on her life and accomplishments – and of how this was a woman you did not want to get on the 'wrong side' of! – S. Hurlbert

Diana Hull, (Ph.D. in Epidemiology, Demography and Behavioral Science, University of Texas School of Public Health, Health Sciences Center, Houston, Texas, 1975) first practiced as Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. She has since been active in the population stabilization movement as researcher, writer, editor, and administrator. She has written on effects of migration and changed environments on physical and mental attributes, immigration politics, environmental impacts of population growth, and multiculturalism. She was president of Californians for Population Stabilization during 2000-2010, a period when its active membership increased ten-fold, and currently is West Coast Editor of The Social Contract, a quarterly journal dealing with public issues.

Diana passed away on October 1, 2017, completing a life rich in accomplishments and contributions. From a poetic obituary in the Santa Barbara News-Press: "Diana would like to let you know that at 93, her work here is done. She received a call, a sort of offer you can't refuse, for an appointment from which she will not be returning. … We were blessed to learn many valuable life lessons from such a brilliant, passionate and loving person… In lieu of flowers we ask that you contribute to Sarah House," the end-of-life care facility where she passed her last days. An In Memoriam piece by Wayne Lutton describes her contributions to the population stabilization movement. For a sampling of her intellect, read: her 1981 book chapter, "By land and sea: Hispanic press at the southern borders of the United States," an early and prescient examination of the consequences for the U.S. of the 1965 Immigration and Nationalities Act and of the earlier rise to power of Fidel Castro in Cuba; and her 1999 article in defense of the environment, "Cry the Beloved Country: A Post-Earth Day Requiem." Diana might like you to remember her by reading and acting, not by waxing nostalgic!

Lindsey Grant writes on population, resources and the environment.  A retired U.S. Foreign Service Officer, he served as Director of the Office of Asian Communist Affairs, National Security Council staff member, Department of State Policy Planning Staff member, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Environment and Population Affairs. He was Department of State coordinator for the Global 2000 Report to the President and Chairman of the Interagency Committee on International Environmental Affairs. For seven books he has written or edited, see the "From Board Pens" webpage. Many of his articles on population issues can be found in the Forum Series of Negative Population Growth Inc..

Robert Hardaway is Professor of Law at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, where he teaches Evidence, Civil Procedure, and sometimes courses based on his book "Population, Law, and the Environment". He has taught at Hasting Law School in California, and George Washington University Law School in Washington D.C. He received his B.A. degree from Amherst College in Economics (1968) and his J.D. degree from New York University Law School (1971). He is a former Navy Judge Advocate, and also practiced law in Colorado with a private firm, and as a Deputy Public Defender and County Deputy District Attorney. He is the author of twenty-two books on law and public policy, as well of dozens of law review articles and opinion editorials

Michael Maher is professor and head of the Department of Communication at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette LA. He has researched media coverage, or non-coverage, of the population/environment connection. His articles have appeared in Population and Environment, SEJournal (the newsletter of the Society of Environmental Journalists), and in communication journals and books. Maher was a Fulbright Professor at the University of Regensburg, Germany, in 2007-2008. His doctorate is from the University of Texas; his master's degree is from the University of Maine, and his bachelor's degree is from the University of Louisiana.

David Pimentel is Professor Emeritus of Entomology at Cornell University. He received his Ph.D. from that university, did postdoctoral research at the University of Chicago and Oxford University (England), and was awarded a distinguished honorary degree by University of Massachusetts. His research spans the fields of energy, population ecology, biological pest control, sustainable agriculture, land and water conservation, and environmental policy. Pimentel has published more than 700 scientific papers and 40 books. He has served on the President's Science Advisory Council and advisory committees for the National Academy of Sciences, U.S Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Office of Technology Assessment of the U.S. Congress, and the U.S. State Department.

J. Kenneth Smail is Professor of Anthropology (Emeritus) in the Department of Anthropology at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. He retired in 2004 after a 40-year teaching career, the last 31 at Kenyon. He did his undergraduate work at DePauw, holds Master's degrees from Pittsburgh, Indiana, and Yale, and took his Ph.D (also from Yale) in an interdisciplinary program in Primate and Human Paleobiology. Over the past 30 years, his published work has focused on two principal areas: (1) several essays during the latter stages of the Cold War on "positive deterrence" and development of the "peace hostage" concept; and (2) more recently by a series of "neo-Malthusian" papers calling attention to the rapidly growing global crisis posed by excessive human numbers in an ecologically finite world.

Madeline Weld is president of Population Institute Canada (PIC). PIC strives to inform the Canadian public and policy-makers about population matters and promotes sustainable populations for all countries. To this end, it advocates for the stabilization of Canada's population and increased family planning assistance in Canada's foreign aid. Madeline has a B.Sc. in zoology from the University of Guelph (Guelph, Ontario, Canada; 1977) and an M.S. (1979) and Ph.D. (1983) in physiology from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. From 1984 to 2001 she taught and did research at the University of Ottawa. Since 2001, Madeline has worked at Health Canada, where she is currently a toxicologist evaluator with the Food Directorate.

Jo Wideman served on the front lines of the pro-environment immigration-reduction, population-stabilization movement at Californians for Population Stabilization for 16 years, most recently as its executive director. She has assisted SEPS exhibitor booths at scientific meetings and Earth Day events. Her previous management/public relations experience includes the American Red Cross, the Cold Spring School District Governing Board, Globespan/Virata Corporation, and D2 Technologies. She was an early member of ZPG in Albuquerque in the 1970s and has since held leadership positions in Santa Barbara on several nonprofit boards, including the Junior League, Community Arts Music Association, Arthritis Foundation, American Women for International Understanding, University Club, and the UCSB Art affiliates.

Edwin Lewis is Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at UC Berkeley. Trained at Stanford University in biology and engineering, he spent his career relating mathematics and physics to problems in the biological sciences, including environmental problems. His passion about human population issues grew in part from witnessing, at the eastern edge of the Los Angeles basin, transformation of a world of small urban centers surrounded by orchards and farms, all dependent primarily on local resources, to a land saturated by urban development, with a reach for energy and water that extends over most of the far-western U.S.