MASMA_steering

Jan Aceti, president of Aceti Associates, co-founded MASMA in 2005. She has fourteen years of experience overcoming barriers to participation in recycling and waste reduction programs, including ten years as Recycling Director for the City of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 2001, as president of Aceti Associates, Jan has been using social marketing to build healthy, sustainable communities. She has conducted market research and designed and piloted social marketing strategies to promote recycling, water efficiency, energy efficiency, green buying, pesticide use reduction and radon mitigation. Jan has delivered workshops and talks on social marketing for over 1,000 program managers and activists. Consulting and training clients include the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, the Office of Continuing Professional Education at Rutgers University, the Northeast Waste Management Officials Association, the New England Environmental Educators Alliance, the National Estuarine Research Reserve System, the Tunxis Recycling Operating Committee (representing thirteen Connecticut municipalities), New Ecology, Inc., the Association of New Jersey Recyclers, several transportation management associations and numerous Massachusetts cities and towns. Jan is also a lecturer in social marketing in Tufts University's Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning. She holds a master’s degree in energy and resources from the University of California at Berkeley and a B.S. in chemistry from Allegheny College.

Susan Altman, Environmental Communications and Social Marketing Consultant
news.altman@comcast.net

Susan Altman co-founded MASMA in 2005. She has more than twenty years of experience in communications, marketing for social causes, and project management, including ten years in the environmental realm (including marine conservation, global climate change, marine conservation, pollution prevention, and sustainable food systems, among many areas). She serves on the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Climate Action Network (MCAN) and is the project manager for MCAN's Low Carbon Living (LoCaL) Program. She set up the Medford Environmental Alliance in early 2005 to act a communication and advocacy hub for a wide variety of organized and grassroots groups doing work on the city's environmental issues. In 2005 and 2006 she was on the board of the Mystic River Watershed Association, and she is a past president of the Harvest Community Markets board of directors. She holds a master's degree in environmental policy from Tufts University and an undergraduate degree in psychology from Vassar College.

Rivers Advocate for the Massachusetts Riverways Program, Russ Cohen conducts policymaking, riparian land protection, and related work, serving as the program’s primary specialist on the legal aspects of instream flow protection. He assists with the identification, protection and stewardship of riparian lands. He reviews proposed development projects and grant proposals involving rivers and riparian areas; and is the program's primary representative for the Blackstone, French/Quinebaug, Hudson (Hoosic), Housatonic, and Connecticut River watersheds.

Russ Cohen has received several awards for his rivers work, most recently an environmental merit award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2003. He received his bachelor's degree in land use planning from Vassar College, a master’s degree in natural resources, and a law degree from Ohio State University. An expert on native edible plants, he leads popular walks in many Massachusetts watersheds for many organizations, and wrote a book on foraging, Wild Plants I Have Known...and Eaten. Social marketing areas that interest him particularly include reducing littering and illegal dumping, increasing recycling, increasing water conservation, and reducing the use of lawn chemicals.

Judi Haber is president of causemedia, a comprehensive advertising agency based in Newton, Massachusetts, that believes that doing good means doing well. Since 1997 causemedia has developed strategic awareness campaigns for socially conscious companies and non-profit organizations. Judi has extensive experience in operations, management, and finances, as well as in communicating about important issues to diverse audiences.

Associate Professor, Public Health and Family Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, Jim Hyde directs the Tufts Masters Program in Health Communication, which was developed and is operated in collaboration with Emerson College's School of Communication. The program prepares students to develop, deliver and evaluate health promotion and disease prevention programs and campaigns, as well as to disseminate information and to participate in the formulation and implementation of health policy initiatives.

Suzanne Suggs is Assistant Professor, Institute for Communication and Health, Faculty of Communication Sciences, University of Lugano, Switzerland and the President of Health X Change, a health and wellness consulting company based in the U.S., Canada, and Switzerland. Her work focuses on the use of communication technologies, new media, and messaging strategies (tailoring and targeting) to improve health status, health outcomes, and facilitate behavior and social change. Her primary topical interests include physical activity, weight management, cancer prevention and wellness.

Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Lugano in August 2007, she was Assistant Professor in the Graduate Program in Health Communication, Department of Marketing Communication at Emerson College, and Adjunct Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Public Health and Family Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, Massachusetts. She has held positions as Research Assistant and Project Coordinator at the Oregon Center for Applied Science (Eugene, Oregon) and as Associate Director of Research at HealthMedia (Ann Arbor, Michigan). She earned her PhD in Health Studies from Texas Woman's University and a post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Evidence-Based Practice Centre, at McMaster University in Ontario Canada.

MASMA Steering Committee