Evan Haigler (Executive Director):

Evan leads the Impact Carbon team in developing carbon finance for improved biomass cooking stove projects in less-developed countries. He coauthored the Voluntary Gold Standard Methodology for Improved Cookstoves and Kitchen Regimes, and worked as the lead project developer on the first Voluntary Gold Standard Cookstove Project. Evan’s research and publishing has focused on carbon methodology development and monitoring for improved stoves, and on assessing and valuing the associated social, health and environmental cobenefits. In collaboration with Dr. Kirk Smith, Evan recently published “Cobenefits of Climate Mitigation and Health Protection in Energy Systems: Scoping Methods” in the Annual Review of Public Health. Evan holds an MS in Environmental Health Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley and a BS in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Matt Evans (Managing Director):

Matt has worked in carbon asset development and social marketing in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He managed the validation and verification of the first Voluntary Gold Standard cookstove project. Matt was formerly the co-founder and Executive Director of  LiveClimate.org. Matt has worked in developing country enterprise growth with the Nonprofit Enterprise and Self Sustainability Team (NESST) in Santiago, Chile, where he specialized in enterprise monitoring and strategy development. He has worked in product management with the solar energy company SunPower and in social entrepreneurship with Ashoka: Innovators for the Public. Matt holds an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley and a BA in Economics and International Relations from Stanford.

Caitlyn Toombs (Program Associate):

Caitlyn manages Impact Carbon’s day-to-day relationship with our partners in Uganda, and assists with other Impact Carbon projects in Kenya and China. She has experience with poverty alleviation and community development, having managed volunteer outreach efforts and development initiatives in central Appalachia. Caitlyn has also worked in environmental advocacy, with specific focus on climate change legislation and clean energy solutions at both the federal and California state levels. Caitlyn holds a BA in Public Policy Studies and Cultural Anthropology from Duke University.

Jimmy Tran (China Monitoring & Evaluation Specialist):

Jimmy Tran is a Ph.D. candidate in the College of Natural Resources at the University of California, Berkeley. His dissertation addresses critical barriers to the widespread adoption of improved household energy technologies in poor regions of western China. His research involves conducting rigorous field experiments, surveys, and market analyses to demonstrate quantifiable health, environmental, economic, and social cobenefits from large-scale dissemination of improved cookstoves. Jimmy holds BS degrees in Biology, Finance, and Environmental Resource Management from Pennsylvania State University.

Mike Ssemwogerere (Uganda Business Development Manager):

Mike manages Impact Carbon’s business operations on the ground in Uganda. He works daily with Ugandan partner Ugastove to implement new business development initiatives, creating marketing and sales strategies to expand the improved stoves’ market penetration. Having worked in Business Development services for Deloitte and Touche, Mike has assisted companies such as Coca Cola East and Southern Africa, AVIS, and Hewlett Packard to build sales operations in Uganda. Mike holds an MBA from the Makerere University Business School.

Naveen Lakshmipathy (Project Manager):

Naveen spent two years in rural South India developing sustainable infrastructure services through small enterprises with the Small-Scale Sustainable Infrastructure Development Fund (S3IDF).  Prior to that, he worked as a policy analyst at the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, DC, where he helped promote policies to expand Internet access to rural and underserved communities. Naveen holds a Masters in Public Policy from the London School of Economics and a BA in Political Economy from the University of California, Berkeley.

Nap Hosang, M.D. (Director):

Nap is a founding member of the Center for Entrepreneurship in International Health and Development (CEIHD), now Impact Carbon. He is a faculty member at the School of Public Health, UC Berkeley, where is also on the steering committee of the campus-wide Center for Global Public Health, with a special interest in the management of maternal and child health outcomes in poor, rural communities. Dr. Hosang grew up in Jamaica and before coming to Berkeley was on the medical faculty at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica. Nap earned his medical degree in Jamaica, and his MPH and MBA from the University of California, Berkeley. He is also a practicing obstetrician/gynecologist in Northern California (with Kaiser-Permanente).

Kirk R. Smith, MPH, Ph.D. (Director):

Kirk is Professor of Global Environmental Health in the School of Public Health and director of the cross-campus Global Health and Environment Program at UC Berkeley.  Previously, Dr. Smith was founder and head of the Energy Program of the East-West Center in Honolulu. He is also Visiting Professor at the Post-Graduate Institute of medical Research in Chandigarh, India and holds an Honorary Professorship at Sichuan University. He sits on a number of journal editorial boards and has published seven books and more than 220 scientific articles. For this work, he was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1997 and awarded the Heinz Prize in Environment in 2009. He has worked in developing countries on energy/environment/health issues since 1978 and has extensive experience related to energy, air pollution monitoring, co-benefits of energy projects for health and climate protection, health effects of indoor and outdoor pollution, and risk assessment, mostly focusing on household energies. He earned his MPH and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.