The Honorable John Spotila is the Chief Executive Officer of R3I Solutions, LLC, a Washington D.C. based management consulting firm which excels at process improvement and clear communication. For eight years, John served President Clinton as General Counsel of the Small Business Administration and as Senate-confirmed Administrator of OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the White House. After success as President and Chief Operating Officer of a public company providing information technology to government, he formed R3I in 2005. John holds a Bachelor of Sciences degree in Languages from Georgetown University and a Juris Doctor degree from The Yale Law School.
Sheri Yi, MBA
Executive Vice President
Sheri Yi, a native of Beijing and an American citizen, has been a pioneer for over 25 years in promoting understanding and good working relationships between the United States and China. She is the founder and President of Culture to Culture International, a nonprofit organization which brings people together through customized U.S.-China cultural, educational and professional exchanges. Bilingual in English and Mandarin Chinese, Sheri earned an MBA in the United States and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the prestigious Beijing Foreign Languages University.
James Spotila, Ph.D.
Vice President
James R. Spotila is the distinguished Betz Chair Professor of Environmental Science at Drexel
University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A respected ecologist and physiologist, he has written an award winning book on sea turtles and more than 130 articles in leading scientific journals.
Dr. Spotila helped create the field of biophysical ecology and is the founding President of the
International Sea Turtle Society and of the Leatherback Trust, two organizations dedicated to conservation and research on sea turtles. He served for two years in the Clinton Administration as Chief Environmental Scientist of the department of the Army.
Frank Paladino, Ph.D.
Vice President
Frank Paladino is the Schrey Distinguished Professor of Biology at Indiana Purdue University in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He is a recognized authority on leatherback sea turtles and has worked for many years with James R. Spotila on conservation efforts to preserve them. Together, he and Dr. Spotila were instrumental in creating the important marine national park at Las Baulas in Costa Rica.
Dr. Paladino has conducted important research in the field of comparative vertebrate physiology and physiological ecology, ranging from studies of locomotion of birds to respiration of elephants and sea turtles and has published extensively.
George L. Shillinger, M.S., MBA
Vice President
George Shillinger is a widely accomplished conservationist working with the Tagging of Pacific Pelagics (TOPP) program in the Block Lab at the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University. His conservation work includes serving as Senior Research Fellow at Deep Search International, Eastern Tropical Pacific Seascape Research Fellow with Conservation International and as Acting Director of BirdLife International. He holds a master's degree in biology from Stanford and an MBA from Yale. He is currently a doctoral candidate in marine biology at Stanford
Our Senior Advisory Board
Neal Lane, Professor
Co - Chair, USA
Neal Lane is the Malcolm Gillis University Professor at Rice University. He holds appointments at Rice as a Senior Fellow of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, where he is engaged in matters of science and technology policy, and as a member of the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Prior to returning to Rice, Dr. Lane served as President Clinton’s Chief Science Advisor and as Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He was Director of the National Science Foundation and a member (ex officio) of the National Science Board from October 1993 to August 1998. Widely regarded as a distinguished scientist and educator, Dr. Lane’s many writings and presentations include topics in theoretical atomic and molecular physics and science and technology policy.
Xu Guanhua, Professor
Co - Chair, China
Xu Guanhua is a distinguished Academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He served as Minister of Science and Technology for China from 2001 through 2007. Earlier, he was Vice-President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Vice-Minister of the State Science and Technology Commision, Vice-Minister of Science and Technology and Chairman of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Division of Earth Sciences. Prof. Xu was born in Beijing, but his ancestral home is Shanghai. After
initially studying forestry, he spent many years doing earth science research and conducting work on remote sensing applications. He has received many awards for his work including the title of Outstanding Scientist. He was a member of the CPC Central Committee from 2002 to 2007 and the CPPCC National Committee from 1998 to 2003.
