Meet Our Team

The ANGLES Steering Committee provides strategic guidance for the network, including facilitation of network collaborations, meetings, and activities, and leading the implementation of network decisions and actions.

Aleta Rudeen Weller, Senior Research and Engagement Officer, School of Global Environmental Sustainability at Colorado State University
Committee Chair

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Aleta Rudeen Weller is the Senior Research and Engagement Officer at Colorado State University’s School of Global Environmental Sustainability. For the School, Aleta works to facilitate discourse and creative approaches to sustainability research, leadership, and engagement. She runs the School’s collaborative research programs for CSU faculty, creates opportunities for networking and dialogue across the University’s disciplinary and organizational boundaries, and helps form innovative, strategic partnerships to advance sustainability scholarship. Aleta runs the School’s selection and annual training of early career sustainability science leadership fellows and sits on the advisory committee of ANGLES, a network of higher education institutions doing similar leadership training across the U.S. and Canada. She is in charge of the School’s strategy for developing new interdisciplinary research activities, return on investment, messaging, and role in community and campus connections.

Aleta has an interdisciplinary background in communication, facilitation, conflict management and collaboration in natural resources. She has worked on a variety of projects that link science and management; has a research and applied background in collaborative process; and is a certified mediator. Aleta has a Master of Science degree from Colorado State University in Rangeland Ecosystem Science and a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Affairs from Northern Arizona University. Prior to coming on board at SoGES, Aleta was the Director of Outreach and Leadership Development for the Society for Range Management.

Aleta runs and is the point of contact for the following areas: research partnerships, networking, and ideas; Global Challenges Research Teams; Resident Fellows; Visiting Fellows; Sustainability Leadership Fellows; Dining with Sustainability dinners; and any novel ideas and proposals for engagement. Aleta also advises the SoGES Student Sustainability Center, serves as the School’s representative on CSU’s President’s Sustainability Commission, sits on the advisory committee of ANGLES, serves as CSU’s designated point of contact to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and serves on the Board of Directors for the Sustainable Living Association.

Nicole Motzer, Assistant Director for Interdisciplinary Science, National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC)

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As an interdisciplinary programs manager and researcher at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) in Annapolis, Maryland, Dr. Nicole Motzer facilitates opportunities and enhances capacities for young scientists and scholars collaborating at the intersection of social and environmental systems to solve complex challenges. Nicole has worked directly with hundreds of graduate students from across disciplines and around the world through first-of-their-kind programs, workshops, and trainings she regularly designs and leads. She particularly enjoys facilitating the development of interdisciplinary research ideas, teaching leadership skills and team science capacities, and coaching teams through the twists and turns of collaborative science. She is passionate about closing training and educational gaps in these areas, and is excited by the growth in innovative, graduate-focused networks and programs like ANGLES.

Nicole draws from her interactions with diverse individuals and teams to empirically and longitudinally test the effects of providing a genuine, team-based research experience for graduate students seeking to build interdisciplinary research capacities. When she is not focusing on the next generation of leaders and science, Nicole also serves as a Co-PI for several projects and awards, including a 2018 award from the National Science Foundation's Engineering Directorate and a collaboration supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation's Marine Conservation Initiative. She is also involved in multi-institutional efforts focused on the role of qualitative data in accelerating synthesis research and evaluating the outcomes and products of interdisciplinary research in standardized and transparent ways. For this work, Nicole was awarded a Spring 2019 Visiting Fellowship at Michigan State University's Center for Interdisciplinarity (C4I).

Nicole completed a doctorate in Geographical Sciences at the University of Maryland, College Park in 2017. Nicole’s strongly interdisciplinary background ranges from assessing the effects of nature-based tourism on poverty and inequality in southern Africa, to investigating how food system regionalization and ender dynamics shape rural development processes in the Rocky Mountain West, to surveying trees on Maryland’s Eastern Shore and mapping water quality and invasive species in the Florida Everglades. In her free time, Nicole enjoys gardening, birds, fiction novels, and yoga.

Carrie Ferraro, Associate Director, Coastal Climate Risk & Resilience Initiative

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As Associate Director for Coastal Climate Risk & Resilience (C2R2) Initiative, Carrie supports graduate students from throughout Rutgers University in designing and conducting impactful research that integrates natural, socio-economic, and engineered elements of coastal systems and engages multiple stakeholder communities in the co-design, co-production and dissemination of science. She also works with the Department of Marine & Coastal Sciences and the Rutgers Raritan River Consortium (R3C) to create opportunities for students and researchers to access and study the evolving status of the Raritan River and engage in place-based education. Through these efforts, she hopes to foster connections between students, researchers, and stakeholders.

Carrie grew up in central New Jersey, but has also lived in a number of other places, including Boston, Washington, D.C., San Diego and Glasgow, Scotland. She returned to New Jersey in 2003 in order to obtain my Ph.D. in Oceanography studying the active microbial population in aquatic environments using molecular markers. After graduating, she realized that instead of research, she preferred to share the science with a variety of audiences so she began working with researchers to communicate their science through the construction and implementation of innovative Broader Impact statements that fulfill National Science Foundation requirements. As part of this effort, Carrie co-developed a number of training programs for early career researchers focusing on effectively science communication and how to form meaningful collaborations and partnerships.