Governance
The GEE-21 Board consists of experienced professionals from the fields of climate change, energy, environmental issues, and related disciplines.
Current Members
Ulrike Siddiqi
Ulrike Siddiqi serves as GEE-21 President and Chairman of the board. She follows her late husband, Dr. Toufiq Siddiqi. As co-founder, she served as Secretary/Treasurer for 24 years and has worked on all major issues of the organization.
For her first major Job in the US, Ulrike attended Indiana University Medical School receiving her Nursing Home Administration Diploma in 1977. After moving to Hawaii, she was the first treasurer of the newly founded “Friends of the East-West Center”. She received her MBA degree from the University of Hawai’i in 1981 and became the co-owner of a local wholesale baking /real estate company the same year. After the sale of the business in 1991, she dedicated her life to extensive travels with her husband, attending his professional assignments, and living in Asia and Europe until their full return to Honolulu in 2018.
She was instrumental to the founding of Shidler College of Business Alumni Association and active on its board for 20 years. As board member of Pan Pacific and Southeast Asia women’s association (PPSEAWA) she was elected as International Treasurer while supporting the organizational network of 19 international chapters, with head quarter in Honolulu.
Gundolf Kohlmeier
Dr. Gundolf Kohlmeier serves as GEE-21 Vice President (International) and is a Professor of Theoretical and Physical Chemistry at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt/Main (Germany). He served on the University’s Board of Directors of the Center of Environmental Studies for twenty years. He has been a visiting Professor at several academic institutions, including the University of California, Berkeley; the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego; the University of Paris, Orsay; the Australian National University; and the Center for International Studies at Stanford University.
Dr. Kohlmaier’s current research interests include strategies for sequestering carbon dioxide in natural systems, political implementations of a follow-up to the Kyoto Protocol, and a comparison of the climate strategies of the European Union and the six Asia-Pacific Partnership countries.
Gerald Marten
Dr. Gerald Marten, Vice President, is an Affiliate Professor at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the East-West Center. He is the Founder and leader of a project on Eco Tipping Points, which has developed and disseminated innovative strategies for environmental sustainability.
Dr. Marten has developed new ecological methods for eradicating disease-transmitting mosquitoes and is the Founder and Director of the EcoTipping Points Project, which has developed and disseminated innovative strategies for environmental sustainability. Before returning to Hawaiʻi, Gerald Marten served as a Professor in the School of Policy Studies at the Kwansei Gakuin University in Japan, as a Research Professor in the Department of Tropical Medicine at Tulane University in New Orleans, and a Research Associate at the East-West Center.
He has a Bachelor’s degree from the University of California in Los Angeles and a doctorate in zoology from the University of California at Berkeley. His books and scientific journal publications are available for free download, as is his public service list.
Ann Marten
Ann Marten serves as GEE-21’s Treasurer and Secretary and is a retired clinical social worker who has spent many years working with children, families, and adults in various settings. She has a Master’s degree in Social Work from the University of Hawai‘i and a BA in Anthropology from the University of British Columbia.
Ann has been able to live in Canada, Kenya, Mexico, and Japan, while following her husband around the world. Those experiences have made her aware of the disparity in the public’s ability to adapt to the necessity of mitigating the results of climate change between the global North and South.
Past Members
Toufiq A. Siddiqi
Toufiq A. Siddiqi served as Chairman of the Board of GEE-21(1999 – 2022) and held roles including Adjunct Senior Fellow at the East-West Center in Hawai‘i and Affiliate Graduate Faculty in the Geography Department at the University of Hawai‘i.
His work included Regional Advisor on Energy at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) in Thailand and 18 years at the East-West Center in Honolulu in multiple research capacities, including Senior Fellow. In 1979, he initiated a Program on the Environmental Dimensions of Energy Policies, among the first in Asia and the Pacific to address linkages between energy and environmental concerns.
Additional roles included serving as Past-President of the Hawai‘i Academy of Science, as Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and as a lead consultant to agencies of the United Nations system, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank, along with extensive publications on energy policy, climate change, and environmental issues.
Anukriti Lirio Hittle
Anukriti Lirio Hittle served as GEE-21 Treasurer and UN Liaison for the UNFCCC. She was the State of Hawai‘i’s first Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Coordinator and is now based in Washington, DC. She taught classes in the workings of the UNFCCC and led Washington University in St Louis’ observer delegation to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change for COP 20 (Lima), COP21 (Paris), COP22 (Marrakech), as an independent researcher for COP22 (Bonn), and represented the State of Hawai‘i in COP24 (Katowice), COP25 (Madrid) and COP26 (Glasgow). She was an adjunct fellow at the East-West Center, specializing in climate change policy and global governance issues. She has a Master’s in International Relations from Columbia University in New York and a Master’s in Forest Resource Management from Duke University.
William Bodde
William Bodde served as a GEE-21 Director for 12 years. He was a U.S. Ambassador to Fiji, Tonga, and Tuvalu and U.S. Representative to the South Pacific Commission, with senior policy work in the U.S. Department of State and appointment as the first Executive Director of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Secretariat in Singapore. Activities included lecturing widely in Europe, Asia, and the United States and serving as a visiting professor at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Shidler College of Business.
David Cope
David Cope served as a GEE-21 Director, with roles including Director of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology at the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, United Kingdom, Executive Director of the UK Center for Economic and Environmental Development, and Environmental Team Leader for the International Energy Agency. His career included appointment in 1996 as Professor of Energy Economics at Doshisha University in Japan, where he developed the university’s international program in energy and resource economics, along with affiliations as a graduate of Cambridge University and the London School of Economics.
Richard A. Figliuzzi
Richard A. Figliuzzi served as GEE-21 President and was CEO of the Hawai‘i-based Integrated Energy Systems, LLC, with a focus on developing distributed alternative energy generation in Hawai‘i, including commercial-scale solar PV and biomass-to-energy. Additional roles included VP and Director of the UNAUSA-Hawaii Division.
Amy Funk
Amy Funk served as a GEE-21 Director and worked for Air Project Specialist at the University of Illinois and Planning Commissioner for the city of Fairview Heights, Illinois where she co-founded Local Earth Advocates, who supports local government participation “Earth Hour,”. She contributed to a Carnegie Foundation-sponsored GEE-21 project on Water Security in South Asia. Academic background included a Master’s Degree in Administration from Central Michigan University and a B.S. in Environmental Science and Management from Indiana University, along with recognition through multiple awards from volunteer organizations focused on environmental and community issues.
Roy M. Green
Roy M. Green served as a GEE-21 Director. He was Chair of the Western Australia Government Taskforce for Greenhouse and Energy and member of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization. Career experience included leadership positions such as Chief Executive of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO). He served as an Australian Delegate to the Intergovernmental Oceanic Commission and Vice-Chairman of the OECD Committee on Science and Technology Policy.
Jack P. Suyderhoud
Jack P. Suyderhoud served as GEE-21 President and held roles including Professor of Business Economics at the Shidler College of Business, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Academic and professional work included earning a Ph.D. in economics from Purdue University, publishing in scholarly journals, serving as Associate Dean of the College of Business Administration (1996–2000), receiving multiple teaching and service awards, developing MBA programs in Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, and France, and administering the first Executive MBA Program in Vietnam.
Axel Timmermann
Axel Timmermann served as a GEE-21 Director and held roles including Professor in Physical Oceanography at the University of Hawai‘i and Lead Author for Working Group I of the Fifth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Work included research and publication on the dynamics of climate change in the Pacific Ocean, along with academic training including a Ph.D. in Meteorology from the University of Hamburg, Germany, and a Master’s Degree in Theoretical Physics from the University of Marburg, Germany, and recognition through the Rosenstiel Award (2007).
Kunbao Xia
Kunbao Xia served as a GEE-21 Director and held roles in environmental diplomacy since 1985, including Director and Director General for international cooperation at China’s National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA), Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and Vice Chairman of the Committee of Permanent Representatives of UNEP. He was promoted to Chief of the Capacity Building Branch, and Head of the UNEP China Office.