Whitney Foster has spent 40 years working on issues of economic and social development in the Middle East and Africa. He started his career as a Peace Corps Volunteer training teachers in Nigeria (1964-1966), received a Masters in African Studies from UCLA in 1968 and became a Peace Corps Administrator (Ghana 1968-'71, Morocco 1971-'73). In 1973 Foster joined the United Nations Development Program working successively in Tunisia, Egypt, Djibouti, the 2 Yemens, and in Juba in Southern Sudan. In 1982 his work with the United Nations brought him to the World Bank, where he became Resident Representative in Rwanda/Burundi, and then Niger. He also served as Country Coordinator for Burkina Faso. In 1996 he returned to Washington DC, working on institutional reform issues in the francophone countries of West Africa until his retirement in March of 2000. He was named as Director and Vice President of the International Conservation and Education Fund in October of 2004.

Mary C. Harris is a management and financial consultant from Alexandria VA. She is currently Trustee of the National Wildlife Federation Endowment, Inc., and development director for the global Trust for Lead Poisoning Prevention. She was previously a Managing Consultant with PA Consulting Group, London & Washington DC, and CEO of Public Management Consultants, Inc., Philadelphia. Harris was elected to the Board of Directors and voted Secretary of the International Conservation and Education Fund in October of 2004.

Karen Kasmauski is an award-winning photographer, journalist and author.  Born at a U.S. naval base in Japan, she received degrees in anthropology and religion from the University of Michigan, and began her career as a staff photographer at the Virginian Pilot/Ledger Star in Norfolk, Virginia. She has been a contributing photographer for National Geographic Magazine since 1984, having produced 24 major stories on topics such as the global effects of radiation, Japanese women, Japan's economic role in Asia, America’s obesity epidemic, the human genome, and human population. Her photographs of complex social issues were nominated for National Magazine Awards, and Nikon Photography listed her as one of their “Legends.”  Since being named a Contributing Photographer in Residence for National Geographic in 2002, Kasmauski has produced the Pulitzer Prize-nominated book Impact: on the Frontlines of Global Health, about her career-long coverage of global health issues. Her photographic exhibit based on the Impact book appeared in several venues and now resides permanently at the CDC in Atlanta. Kasmauski is a sought-after teacher and speaker for audiences in the health industry, travel industry and University and high school outreach programs, and is a member of the board of the Global Community Service Foundation which works to improve living conditions for people in Southeast Asia.  She is married and has two wonderful children.

Kelly Matheson has worked the last 15 years protecting the environment through teaching, the practice of law and, most recently, filmmaking. She began her career in advocacy instructing natural science at schools throughout the Western United States. Convinced that environmental destruction had to be stopped, Kelly pursued her JD at the University of Oregon where she specialized in environmental and natural resources law. Her first job as an attorney took her to Tanzania as a Law Fellow for Lawyers’ Environmental Action Team. Upon her return, she took on energy development in ecologically crucial areas of the Rocky Mountain West. Her first film, Wings Over the Wild, LightHawk In Mesoamerica tells the stories to volunteer pilots that fly environmental missions over the threatened landscapes of Central America. She lives in Bozeman, Montana and is currently working on a film about Tortuguero, Costa Rica and this community’s efforts to attain economic security while also protecting critically endangered sea turtles.

Katy Payne is a research associate at the Bioacoustics Research Program of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. For the last 22 years her research has focused on elephants, starting with the discovery that their powerful infrasonic vocalizations underlie the widespread social coordination of elephant societies. In 2000 Katy founded the Elephant Listening Project (ELP) to study African forest elephants. This little-known species which is threatened by poaching for bushmeat and ivory as loggers build roads into the Equatorial forest. Working in the Central African Republic, Ghana and Gabon, ELP uses remote sensors to record and monitor forest sounds -- animal calls, and, alas, gunshots and chainsaws. Gradually the methodology is being used for conservation purposes.

In 2004 Katy was in Bayanga in the Central African Republic during an uprising of loggers against conservationists. Sparked by misunderstanding, the event illustrated the intense need for the kind of communication and education work InCEF is doing, and ELP has given InCEF free access to its extended archive of acoustic and video elephant recordings.

Katy's African work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Geographic Society, World Wildlife Fund, the Wildlife Conservation Society, Conservation International, the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Foundation, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, and the International Fund for Animal Welfare and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. Katy is the author of Silent Thunder: In the Presence of Elephants, and a children's book, Elephants Calling. She has written several dozen articles for popular and educational magazines (e.g., National Geographic, Natural History), appeared in many NPR, BBC, and CBC radio interviews and several documentary films.

Robin Rains is the founder and Managing Director of The Vesterra Group, a real estate investment company which focuses on residential development, typically involving renovation, and located in economically emerging neighborhoods of Washington, DC. She spent twelve years as an institutional portfolio manager, responsible for over $14 billion in assets during her career. In 2000, she founded a business-to-business technology company that secured $7 million in venture funding. Robin earned a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies, with Honors in Urban Studies, and a Masters in Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She lives in Washington, DC.