Our Team

Dr. Stan Meiburg

Executive Director

In 2022, Dr. Stan Meiburg became the Executive Director of the Center for Energy, Environment and Sustainability at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. This followed five years at Wake Forest as the Director of Graduate Studies in Sustainability and a 39-year career with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. From 2014 to 2017, Dr. Meiburg served as EPA’s Acting Deputy Administrator, the agency’s second highest position.

Before becoming Deputy Administrator, Dr. Meiburg served in senior career positions as EPA’s Deputy Regional Administrator in the Southeast and South Central regions of the United States, as well as in EPA offices in Research Triangle Park and in Washington, DC. He received EPA’s Distinguished Career Service Award, EPA’s Gold Medal for his work on the Clean Air Act Amendments, the Commander’s Award for Public Service from the Department of the Army, and the Distinguished Federal Executive award, the highest civilian award for a Federal senior executive. He was a member of the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission from 2017 through 2021 (Chair 2019-2021), and is a member of the Roundtable on Science and Technology for Sustainability of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, and a Senior Advisor to The Water Institute. He also teaches in the Department of Politics and International Affairs at Wake Forest.

Dr. Meiburg holds a B.A. degree from Wake Forest University, and masters and doctoral degrees in political science from The Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Miles Silman

Founding Director

Dr. Miles Silman is the Andrew Sabin Family Foundation Presidential Chair in Conservation Biology at Wake Forest University where he is the Founding Director of the Andrew Sabin Family Center for Environment and Sustainability (formerly the Wake Forest Center for Energy, Environment, and Sustainability (CEES), which he helped found) and Board President of the Centro de Innovación Científica Amazónica (CINCIA—the Center for Amazonian Scientific Innovation).  He is an ecologist whose basic research interests are in community structure and ecosystem function, and particularly the roles of species interactions structuring the world that we see and inhabit. Dr.Silman has been working in the Western Amazon and Andes of Peru for the last 33 years to study and protect the planet’s last best forests, including the installation of large-scale forest plot networks to understand regional effects of climate change, as well as team-building to focus research on pressing conservation issues.

Dr. Silman’s conservation projects include work on tropical agriculture, soil remediation and reforestation after illegal and artisanal scale mining, monitoring and assessing deforestation, wildlife population biology and the mitigation of wildlife-human conflict, and the generation and application of conservation technology. A major effort has been to put what has been learned about Andean and Amazonian forests to use in private- and public-sector restoration and ecosystem service projects that change land use by generating revenue for conservation while creating economic and social value for people living in the region. Dr. Silman is the Founding Director of the Wake Forest Center for Energy, Environment, and Sustainability, co-founder of the Andes Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research Group (ABERG), PI and Board President of the Centro de Innovación Científica Amazónica (CINCIA—the Center for Amazonian Scientific Innovation), and co-designer of the Wake Forest Master of Arts in Sustainability Graduate Program and the Wake Forest Environment and Sustainability Major.

Kate Hanley

Associate Director of Strategy

Kate Hanley is the Associate Director of Strategy for the Sabin Center, which she joined after completing Wake Forest’s M.A. in Sustainability. Prior to that, Kate spent over a decade in the world of brand strategy, guiding innovation pipelines and communications strategies for brands in the health and wellness, durable goods, consumer packaged goods, and spirits categories. She previously practiced law for several years, which included both private practice and a clerkship on Colorado’s Supreme Court. Kate received her B.A. in History and English from the University of Notre Dame and her J.D. from the University of Denver.

Gillian Hagamen

Operations Coordinator

Gillian Hagamen is the Operations Coordinator for the Sabin Center. She joined Wake Forest in 2021 as the Program Coordinator for the Program for Leadership and Character. Prior to Wake Forest, Gillian worked at the University of Texas at Austin as a Program Coordinator in the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering where her work focused on recruiting and supporting undergraduate students, especially women and underrepresented minorities. Her nearly 20-year career also includes work with the Seattle Mariners, Girl Scouts of Western Washington, and NatureBridge. Gillian received her B.A. in American Studies from Colby College.