Our guest tonight is Dr. Michael S. Wong, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Rice University. He is also professor in the Departments of Chemistry, Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Materials Science and NanoEngineering. He was educated and trained at Caltech, MIT, and UCSB before arriving at Rice in 2001. His research program broadly addresses chemical engineering problems using the tools of materials chemistry, with a particular interest in energy and environmental applications ("catalysis for clean water"). He has received numerous honors, including the MIT TR35 Young Innovator Award, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Nanoscale Science and Engineering Young Investigator Award, Smithsonian Magazine Young Innovator Award, and the North American Catalysis Society/Southwest Catalysis Society Excellence in Applied Catalysis Award. He is research thrust leader on multifunctional nanomaterials in the NSF-funded NEWT (Nanotechnology Enabled Water Treatment) Engineering Research Center. He is chair of the ACS Division of Catalysis Science and Technology (CATL), and serves on the Applied Catalysis B: Environmental editorial board. Previous experiences include chairmanship of the AIChE Nanoscale Science and Engineering Forum and Chemistry of Materials editorial board membership.
The focus of this podcast is recent work led by Dr. Youngkun Chung, one of Dr. Wong's postdoctoral research associates, which describes a new approach to filtering PFAS from water at 1,000 times the efficiency of methods such as activated carbon. Better still, the captured PFAS can be removed from this new filter medium in a process that renders it safe, and the medium ready for reuse. Topics covered include:
Our guest tonight is Bernadette Del Chiaro, Senior Vice President at the Environmental Working Group, a non-profit working to empower people with breakthrough research to make informed choices and live a healthy life in a healthy environment.
Bernadette leads EWG’s California operations, building the organization at the state level to continue its groundbreaking work on advancing critical environmental and public health priorities, through innovative policies, enhanced transparency and improved accountability of government agencies. Del Chiaro has 30 years of experience building non-profit organizations focused on the goals of clean energy and a healthier environment. Most recently, she served as the executive director of the California Solar and Storage Association. Under her leadership, it became the nation’s largest clean energy business association focused on consumer-facing solar energy solutions. Prior to that, she worked for nearly two decades for environmental non-profit organizations, including Environment California, where she championed the Million Solar Roofs Initiative, and the Toxics Action Center, where she helped neighborhood groups fight for their right to a clean environment. Del Chiaro has authored several reports on a variety of energy topics and has been widely quoted in many national, international and local media outlets. In tonight's episode we discuss the following:
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With Doug Koplow of Earth Track, Lew is the author most recently of the report, Taxpayer Costs for Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage, just out from Just Solutions and Earth Track. In addition to his extensive policy work, Lew's commentaries and feature articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Republic, Democracy Journal, Boston Review, Grist, and many other publications. Support the show
 We’re delighted to welcome back Poppy Alexander, a founding partner at the law firm Whistleblower Partners, a law firm dedicated to representing whistleblowers reporting fraud and misconduct in:
Poppy represents whistleblowers and government entities in qui tam lawsuits, as well as under the various agency whistleblower programs including those administered by the Internal Revenue Service, Securities and Exchange Commission, FinCEN, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and Department of Transportation. Poppy’s practice focuses on issues of international corruption and financial misconduct, with a specialty in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and money laundering cases. She writes and speaks regularly about emerging topics in financial fraud, including sanctions violations, SPACs, and cryptocurrency. We last spoke with Poppy back in July of 2022 when she had already established an impressive track record representing whistleblowers at Constantine Cannon. She graduated from Harvard Law School in 2012. She was the co-editor-in-chief of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review and an active participant in the Human Rights Clinic, working on issues related to corporate accountability for human rights violations in Africa and military abuses in Southeast Asia. She was awarded the Dean’s Award for Community Leadership in recognition for her contributions to the school community. Poppy has been named to the Super Lawyers Rising Stars list every year since 2016. Prior to law school, Poppy worked on election reform issues before beginning graduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied political and critical theory. We’ve invited Poppy to talk about her new work, and her new firm, Whisteblower Partners. Topics Discussed Include:
Further Reading / Topics Discussed in this Episode:
We’re pleased to have as our guest Melissa Valliant, Director of Communications for Beyond Plastics, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending plastic polution. She grew up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and graduated from Syracuse University with a plan to pursue magazine journalism. Somewhere along the way, she became hooked on environmental conservation and discovered a love for leveraging her communications abilities to make the world a better place. Melissa had her first letter to the editor published in a kids' science magazine at the age of 11 and has since been published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today, among others. Prior to her role at Beyond Plastics, she managed communications for Oceana's plastics campaign and worked for the National Aquarium in Baltimore.
Topics Discussed Include:
Doug founded Earth Track to more effectively integrate information on energy subsidies. For the past three decades, he has written extensively on natural resource subsidies for organizations such as the International Institute for Sustainable Development, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Stockholm Environment Institute. He has analyzed scores of government programs and made important developments in subsidy valuation techniques. He has provided input on subsidy reform legislation, served as a peer reviewer on subsidy papers from all over the world, and has published his own work in major journals and as book chapters. In recent years, his work has focused on subsidies to fossil fuels, nuclear power, and the impact of multi-sector natural resource subsidies on biodiversity and critical habitats.
Working collaboratively with other organizations, Earth Track focuses on ways to more effectively align the incentives of key stakeholder groups and to leverage market forces to help address complex environmental challenges. He holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a BA in economics from Wesleyan University. Topics Discussed Include:
Matt Renner serves as Vice President of Seneca Environmental, a tribally owned and controlled Earth-healing solutions company focused on helping commercial customers achieve ambitious climate goals while supporting the long-term well-being of the Seneca Nation and other Indigenous people. His work focuses on partnership development and customer acquisition to create unprecedented collaboration and profitably accelerate climate action.
Matt has worked as a nonprofit executive in clean energy, climate policy, and journalism for over a decade, focusing on the near-term social and economic impacts of climate change. He was the head of Climate Mobilization and now serves on their board of directors. He began his career as an investigative reporter and later became the Executive Director of the World Business Academy to focus on the transition to a climate-constrained economic paradigm. Matt has a BA degree in Political Science and Government from the University of California, Berkeley. Topics Discussed Include:
Our guest tonight is Paul Blackburn of Pipeline Fighters’ Hub. Paul provides legal services on pipeline and renewable energy matters. He has worked on crude oil pipeline issues since 2008, and has experience in renewable energy policy and development. Paul represented nonprofit clients in the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission hearing on the Keystone XL Pipeline, and in the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission hearing on expansion of Line 67, another Enbridge pipeline. He has provided policy analysis and strategic advice on a variety of pipeline matters and authored reports on pipeline safety and oil spill response.
Paul started his legal career in Washington, DC, at the law firm of Van Ness Feldman, where he assisted clients in renewable energy and coal-fired power plant development, a variety of regulatory, legislative, and litigation matters, and Native American commercial law. After leaving private practice, he began a career in the nonprofit sector, including employment by the Sierra Club, the National Environmental Trust, and Oceana in organizing and media. He also has experience in community wind and solar energy development. Paul holds a B.A. in Biology from Macalester College and a J.D. from Boston College Law School. In this episode we discuss topics including:
Our guest this episode is Erandi Trevino of Public Citizen, Houston. Erandi grew up in Houston and has been concerned about the pollution in her neighborhood since she was a young child.
Before joining Public Citizen in Houston as a Climate Policy and Outreach Specialist, she was an Advocacy Fellow with the Fulbright Association in Washington, DC, where she worked on education policy, nutrition, and financial regulations. During her time in DC, Erandi also volunteered for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. Earlier in her career, Erandi assisted the Permanent Representative of Mexico to the United Nations in New York. She has a law degree from Fordham University and degrees in International Relations and Latin American studies from Seton Hall University. Following her graduation there, she received a Fulbright Grant to teach English in Belo Horizonte, Brazil where she became fluent in Portuguese. In this episode we discuss the following topics:
Center for Houston's Future Houston Healthy Port Communities Coalition Environmental Defense Fund - Better Hubs - Expring Decarbonizing Industry Greater Houston Port Bureau's Project 11 On Breath Partnership's "What is Port Houston's Project 11?" Erandi's Contact Information Support the show |
AuthorsDina Rasor Archives
May 2026
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