November 3rd

Rhiannon Bramer joined the United States Department of State as an economic coned Foreign Service Officer in 2015. Ms. Bramer completed her consular assignment in Lagos, Nigeria and served as the Environment, Science, Technology, and Health (ESTH) Officer in Islamabad, Pakistan. Ms. Bramer is currently assigned as the ESTH Officer at AIT Taipei, and recently graduated from AIT’s Chinese Language and Area Studies School. Before joining the Foreign Service, Ms. Bramer worked as a Program Specialist for the United States Agency for International Development, Office of Sudan and South Sudan Programs and in the non-profit sector programming and implementing wildlife conservation policy in Mongolia and South Sudan. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies from Marylhurst University and a Master of Arts in International Environmental Policy from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. Ms. Bramer’s languages French, Mongolian, and Chinese. She is a native of California and former United States Marine.

Education

－PhD, Government and Foreign Affairs, University of Virginia, USA (1993)

－MPA, Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, PrincetonUniversity, USA (1991)

－MA, East Asian Studies, National Chengchi University, Taiwan (1985)

－BA, Foreign Languages and Literatures, National Taiwan University, Taiwan (1981)

Experience

－Representative, Taipei Representative Office in the European Union and Belgium (2017-2020)

－Deputy Secretary General, National Security Council (2016-2017)

－Deputy Secretary General, Office of the President (2016)

－Ambassador to the Republic of Palau (2014-2016)

－Representative, Taipei Representative Office in Ireland (2010-2014)

－Director General, Department of North American Affairs, MOFA (2008-2010)

－Secretary / Deputy Director / Director, Political Division, Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States (TECRO in the US) (2004-2008)

－Secretary on Home Assignment / Section Chief / Assistant Director General, －Department of North American Affairs, MOFA (2001-2004)

－Second Secretary, TECRO in the US (1998-2001)

－Third / Second Secretary, Embassy of the R.O.C. (Taiwan) in the Republic of South Africa (1994-1998)

－Adjunct Associate Professor, National Taiwan Normal University (1993-1994)

－Executive Officer, Department of North American Affairs, MOFA (1993-1994)

－Administrative Officer on Home Assignment / Senior Officer, Department of －North American Affairs, MOFA (1986-1989)

－Administrative Officer, Taipei Representative Office in the United Kingdom (1985-1986)

－Senior Officer, Department of Protocol, MOFA (1985)

－Research Assistant, Institute of International Relations, National Chengchi University, Taiwan (1984)

Mr. W. Brent Christensen assumed the position of Director of the American Institute in Taiwan in August 2018.

Mr. Christensen has been in the United States Foreign Service for more than 30 years and has extensive experience in senior positions relating to Taiwan and China. Mr. Christensen was Deputy Director of the American Institute in Taiwan’s Taipei office. Prior to that, he was Director of the State Department’s Office of Taiwan Coordination, where he had a primary role in formulating U.S. policy toward Taiwan. He has served three assignments at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, the most recent being Environment, Science, Technology and Health Counselor.

Mr. Christensen has also served as a Senior Level Career Development Advisor in the State Department’s Human Resources Bureau. Prior to that assignment, he served as the Foreign Policy Advisor at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (APCSS). Other overseas postings include Hong Kong and South Africa. Mr. Christensen also served as a Congressional Fellow on the staff of Senator Olympia Snowe. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, he served as a captain in the U.S. Air Force.

Mr. Christensen is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service and holds the personal rank of Minister-Counselor. Mr. Christensen earned an M.A. in East Asian Studies from the George Washington University, a B.A. in Chinese language and literature from Brigham Young University, and has also received a DMD degree from the Oregon Health and Sciences University.

1981.4 Entered Ministry of Foreign Affairs

1996.7 First Secretary, Embassy of Japan in United Kingdom

1998.1　Counsellor, Embassy of Japan in United Kingdom

1998.8 Counsellor, Embassy of Japan in China

2001.4 Director, Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs Division, Foreign Policy Bureau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

2003.4 Director, Overseas Establishments Division, Minister's Secretariat, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

2004.4 Director, China Division, Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

2006.8 Minister, Embassy of Japan in China

2010.7 Consul-General of Japan in Shanghai

2013.7 Minister Plenipotentiary, Embassy of Japan in United States

2016.4 Director-General, Foreign Service Training Institute, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

2017.8 Ambassador of Japan to Bangladesh

2019.10 Japan - Taiwan Exchange Association chief-representative

1992－1995　Marketing Officer, Netherlands Trade & Investment Office, Taipei.

1995－1999　Second / Third Secretary, the Netherlands Embassy, Beijing.

1999－2002　Policy Officer, European Integration Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Netherlands, The Hague.

2002－2006　First Secretary, Netherlands Embassy in Skopje, North-Macedonia.

2006－2010　First Secretary, Permanent Representation of the Netherlands to the European Union.

2010－2013　Management Team Member, European Integration Directorate, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Netherlands, The Hague.

2013－2013　Commercial Advisor, the Netherlands Embassy, Beijing.

2013－2016　Consul General of the Netherlands Consulate-General, Chongqing.

2016－2020　Consul General of the Netherlands Consulate-General, Mumbai.

2020－Representative, the Netherlands Office Taipei.

Education

1991 Leiden University, MA in Sinology.

Before taking up his current assignment as the Representative of the Netherlands Office Taipei, Guido Tielman has worked with Dutch representations in Brussels, North-Macedonia, Chongqing and Mumbai and also for a few stints in The Hague. His expertise includes European Union related issues and promoting trade and investment in an Asian context.

It is almost 30 years to the day that Guido returns to Taiwan. From 1991-1992, he obtained a one-year scholarship at the Political Science Faculty of the National Taiwan University, having finished his master’s degree in Sinology at the University of Leiden prior to that. Subsequently, from 1992-1995, Guido worked for three years as marketing officer at the same

office where he has now taken up the position of Representative.

Guido is married to Rita Rozite, a Latvian national, and Mumbai has gifted them with a little baby boy called Tobias. They love travelling, and hiking in particular, and can’t wait to explore the many hiking trails in Taiwan.

William Charles “Chad” McIntosh was confirmed by the United States Senate on January 3, 2019, as President Donald J. Trump’s Assistant Administrator for Tribal and International Affairs, at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

He has 40 years of experience in environmental and public health protection, both as a regulator and as a regulated manufacturer.

Chad comes to EPA from the Ford Motor Company, where he was responsible for environmental permitting, compliance, and environmental metrics at the company’s manufacturing facilities. Chad was a member of Ford’s global environmental leadership team, and led the compliance groups in the United States, Canada and Europe.

Before joining Ford, Chad served as Natural Resources and Policy Advisor to Michigan Governor John Engler, who also appointed him to serve as Deputy Director at the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). At the DEQ, Chad led comprehensive environmental and regulatory reform in Michigan, including codifying the environmental and natural resources statutes, and improving the state’s wastewater infrastructure. Chad’s early career at DEQ included work in Air Quality, Hazardous Waste and Radioactive Waste Programs.

Chad McIntosh is a Registered Professional Chemical Engineer and an Attorney.

Dr. Jenna Jambeck is a Professor in the College of Engineering at the University of Georgia (UGA), Director of the Center for Circular Materials Management in the New Materials Institute and a National Geographic Fellow. She has been conducting research on solid waste issues for over 23 years with related projects on marine debris for 19. She also specializes in global waste management issues and plastic contamination. Her work on plastic waste inputs into the ocean has been recognized by the global community and translated into policy discussions by the Global Ocean Commission, in testimony to U.S. Congress, in G7 and G20 Declarations, and the United Nations Environment program. She conducts public environmental diplomacy as an International Informational Speaker for the US Department of State. This has included multiple global programs of speaking events, meetings, presentations to governmental bodies, and media outreach in thirteen economies including Chile, Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, South Africa, Vietnam, Jordan, Israel, South Korea, India, and China. She has won awards for her teaching and research in the College of Engineering and the UGA Creative Research Medal, as well as a Public Service and Outreach Fellowship. In 2014 she sailed across the Atlantic Ocean with 13 other women in eXXpedition to sample land and open ocean plastic and encourage women to enter STEM disciplines. She is co-developer of the mobile app Marine Debris Tracker, a tool that continues to facilitate a growing global citizen science initiative. The app and citizen science program has documented the location of over two million litter and marine debris items removed from our environment throughout the world.

Follow her work on Twitter @JambeckResearch, @DebrisTracker.

A formally trained atmospheric scientist in the NOAA Satellite Analysis Branch since 2011, I specialize in remote sensing of hazards and leading teams to deliver valued added maps and products. Stakeholders include numerous disaster management authorities and civil protection agencies that require satellite derived information for actionable decision making in emergency response, preparedness, and mitigation. I am also the NOAA Executive Secretariat representative to the International Charter Space and Major Disasters.

Education

－B.S. Environmental Science - Meteorology Option, Florida Institute of Technology, 2008.

－M.S. Atmospheric Science, University of Utah, 2011.

Employment

－August 2020 – Present, Supervisory Scientist, NOAA Satellite Analysis Branch

－May 2011 – August 2020, Physical Scientist, NOAA Satellite Analysis Branch

Recent Publications/Presentations/Research

－Advancing Satellite Based Detection of Marine Debris. E. Ramirez, Invited Keynote Presenter, L3Harris ENVI Analytics Symposium, August 2020.

－Measuring Oil Residence Time with GPS-drifters, Satellites, and Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS). O. Garcia-Pineda, Y. Androulidakis, M. Le Hénaff, V. Kourafaloub, L. R. Hole, H. Kang, G. Staples, E. Ramirez, L. DiPinto. Marine Pollution Bulletin, Volume 150, January 2020.

－Oil Slick Thickness and Characterization Assessments Using Multispectral Satellite Imagery. E. Ramirez. 2020. Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science Conference, Tampa, FL.

－Classification of Oil Spill by Thicknesses Using Multiple Remote Sensors. Garcia-Pineda O; Staples, G., Jones, C; Hu, C.; Holt, B., Kourafalou, V., Graettinger, G., DiPinto, L., Ramirez,E., Street, D., Cho, J., Swayze, G., Sun, S., Garcia, D., Haces, F. Remote Sensing of Environment, Volume 236, January 2020

－2019-2023. NASA ROSES Collaborator: Development and Implementation of Remote Sensing Techniques for Oil Spill Monitoring and Storm Damage Assessment in an Operational Context.

－Time Sensitive Remote Sensing; The Federal Oil Spill Team for Emergency Response Remote Sensing, FOSTERRS: Enabling Remote Sensing Technology for Marine Disaster Response. pp 91-111. I. Leifer, J. Murray, D. Streett, T. Stough, E. Ramirez, S. Gallegos. 2015

Ning Yen, co-founder and CEO of Indigo Waters Institute.

Ning is an ardent advocate for protecting the world’s oceans and tackling issues such as regulating distant water fisheries and marine debris. Ning leads cooperation with Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration, Ocean Conservation Agency, Tainan City Government on marine debris survey and policy. To bring the issue more visible to the public, Ning also devotes on science communications through holding documentary screenings and exhibition, and publishes numerous op-eds and articles for traditional media and new media platforms. In 2017, she played a major role in encouraging the adoption of the “Marine Debris Governance Platform” among Taiwan NGOs and the Environmental Protection Administration. She also helped draft the Action Plan of Marine Debris Governance in Taiwan.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ning-yen-16157575/

Chieh-Shen (Jason) Hu is the co-founder and the director of R&D of IndigoWaters Institute.

Jason has a master's degree in marine biology and has been working in marine debris and plastic pollution for more than 15 years. He has planned a wide range of monitoring programs for government and NGOs, including micro-plastic, single-use cups and derelict fishing gear, from river bank, shoreline to sea floor. Besides, he develops training program for citizen scientist surveyors, write scientific articles, and integrates the data into policy advice.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonhu615/

Dr. Julia Hsiang-Wen Huang is the Director-General of Ocean Conservation Administration, Ocean Affairs Council. She was born in Taipei, Taiwan. After receiving her master‘s degree from the Institute of Fisheries Science, National Taiwan University, she became a government officer. She worked in Fisheries Section, Bureau of Agriculture, Taipei County Government for five years. The major tasks included coastal fisheries resources conservation and fisheries statistics. Then she transferred to Fisheries Agency, Council of Agriculture for another eight years. She was responsible for distant water fisheries management and hence attended many international meetings, including staying three months in NMFS, and joining bilateral consultation with Japan Fisheries Agency. During that time, she got her Ph. D. from the Institute of Oceanography, National Taiwan University. After that, she started to teach and research in National Taiwan Ocean University since 2008. Her major researches are fisheries bycatch of Taiwanese distant water tuna longline fisheries and fisheries dynamics of Taiwan coastal and offshore fisheries. Meanwhile, she has conducted many interesting projects with her students, such as Tuvalu, Indonesia and Vietnam fisheries management. With her Taiwanese students, they work for marine awareness, marine debris, diving motivation, analysis of voyage data recorder database, Taiwan fisheries management strategy, etc. It is a great job to work for marine affairs with young people in the University. In 2018, a new agency, Ocean Conservation Administration, is established for conservation of ocean around Taiwan. She was invited to be the Director-General till now. She hopes to apply her experience on marine affairs and lead the team to do their best to achieve the purposes of “Clean Water,” “Healthy Habitat,” and “Sustainable Resources” for Taiwan.

Ingrid Giskes is the Director of the Global Ghost Gear Initiative (GGGI) and has been involved in the Initiative since its inception in 2015 by developing the policy agenda to elevate the issue of ghost gear and later to oversee and manage its complete portfolio of solutions projects, knowledge products, and more than 100 partners including 15 Governments.

Ingrid brings to bear extensive knowledge on Abandoned, Lost and Discarded fishing gear (or ghost gear) and years of experience leading multi-stakeholder efforts focused on this issue including at United Nations and at the national and corporate level. Her work has led her to spend time with artisanal fishers in Vanuatu and Indonesia, to regularly speaking at high-level policy and industry conferences and events including APEC, ASEAN, WCPFC, Our Ocean and UN Ocean Conference as well as in the media. Recently, Ingrid has also worked as International Consultant in the Fisheries Technology Team at FAO where she supported FAO’s activities on ALDFG including the implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines for the Marking of Fishing Gear (VGMFG), development of the Responsible Fishing Operations Umbrella Programme and co-chairing the GPML Steering Committee.

She holds a BSc in Germanic Languages and Philosophy, an MSc in Germanic Languages, a MSc in Education and a MSc in International Relations, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution. Previously, she undertook overseas development work in Cambodia, lectured at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou (China), worked for Amnesty International in Australia on refugee policy, and worked for World Animal Protection for 10 years in a variety of roles including as their International Head of the Sea Change Programme overseeing the ocean portfolio of 15 country offices and chairing the Global Ghost Gear Initiative.

A staff member of the California Coastal Commission since 2000, Eben Schwartz runs Marine Debris and Public Outreach programs for the Public Education Program.

Eben has a lengthy history of work on plastic pollution and marine debris, topics on which he has become one of the state’s leading authorities. As the leader of California Coastal Cleanup Day, California’s largest volunteer event, as well as the year-round Adopt-A-Beach Program, Eben has helped motivate hundreds of thousands of citizens to become active in the fight against plastic pollution. Eben works with hundreds of non-profit organizations, local government agencies, and corporate partners to coordinate beach and inland shoreline cleanups as well as develop long-term policies that will stop pollution at its source.

Eben serves as the Chair of the West Coast Marine Debris Alliance, an organization that he helped found in 2008, initially as part of the West Coast Governors’ Alliance on Ocean Health. From 2007-2010, Eben served as the Chair of the California Ocean Protection Council’s Marine Debris Steering Committee while it was drafting and adopting the first statewide Ocean Litter Strategy, and currently serves on the planning committee for that strategy’s update, which was adopted and published in April 2018.

Eben has traveled extensively to give talks and presentations about the challenges and potential solutions to marine debris and plastic pollution. A brief sampling include an address to The Economist’s Sustainability Summit in London in March, 2019, a keynote address to the United Nations Environment Programme’s NOWPAP Marine Litter Workshop in Okinawa, Japan in October, 2013, and multiple presentations to both the 5^th and 6^th Marine Debris Conferences in 2011 and 2018. In 2018, the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs invited Eben to join their Guest Speaker Program, for which he has traveled to Poland in 2019 and will be participating in virtual programs in Taiwan in the Fall of 2020.

Prior to his work with the Coastal Commission, Eben worked in conservation programs at the Sierra Club at both the local and national levels. In 2007, Eben was awarded an Aspen Institute Fellowship and served as one of the inaugural Catto Fellows, a program designed for emerging leaders in the environment and energy sector. Eben holds a BA from Johns Hopkins University.

Grayson Shor serves as a Foreign Affairs Officer at the United States Department of State in the office of Ocean and Polar Affairs’ (OPA) Marine Debris Team. He leads OPA’s marine debris work regionally in Taiwan, the Americas, Europe, and Africa and topically at ASEAN and the African Union. Grayson collaborates extensively across the U.S. government and with dozens of foreign governments, NGOs, and businesses to address the global issue of marine debris.

Grayson has been interviewed by, served as a panelist, and contributed content to various international reporting organizations and think tanks concerning emerging Circular Economy technologies and marine debris and waste management policies. Organizations which have quoted Grayson include Reuters, the Huffington Post, the Japan Times, The Taipei Times, 澎湃 (Peng Pai), the Sigur Center for Asian Studies, the Industrial Technology Research Institute, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars’ China Environment Forum.  Grayson has also given lectures to graduate students from the National Taiwan University, University of Washington, and the University of Maryland.  

Grayson is graduate of the M.A. International Affairs program at the George Washington University in Washington D.C. where he studied as a China Foreign Language and Area Studies fellow, National Security Education Program Boren fellow, and Asia Freeman Foundation grantee. He also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Physical Geography and Biological Anthropology from the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo.