Board of Directors

IBI Board

In June 2008, members of the IBI established roles for the organization – including staff and board duties. Our board currently has 12 members. Please see below for more information.

IBI also has a dedicated Advisory Committee consisting of 28 members with 5 sub-committees that focus on Policy, Biochar Production/Technology/Classification, Utilization in Soils, Commercialization, and Socio-Economic Evaluation. The members collectively speak seventeen languages and hail from twelve different countries including Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Kenya, Mongolia, Paraguay, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, and the United States. They represent a wide range of institutions and organizations including the academia/research community, small businesses, large corporations, non-profit organizations, and on-the-ground practitioners/farmers.

Current IBI Board Members include those listed below (click on a name for more information). We thank our former board members for all their support and hard work.

Kathleen Draper is IBI’s Board Chair and has been in the biochar industry for more than a decade.…She has co-authored two books about biochar (BURN: Using Fire to Cool the Earth and Terra Preta: How the World’s Most Fertile Soil Can Help Reverse Climate Change and Reduce World Hunger) and written and spoken about biochar to audiences around the globe. She is the US Director for the Ithaka Institute for Carbon Intelligence, a non-profit, open source organization focused on the use of biochar in climate farming, agroforestry as well as other industrial uses of biochar. She is also a co-founder of C-interest, a materials company working to commercialize biochar based composites.. She has a Master’s degree in Managing for Sustainability. Prior to becoming involved with the biochar world, she worked for an international consulting firm working on various internal and external areas including project and knowledge management, human resources, and more.Read more

David Wayne is IBI’s Treasurer.  He was born in the UK, obtained his school education and bachelor’s…David Wayne is IBI’s Treasurer.  He was born in the UK, obtained his school education and bachelor’s degree (in chemistry) in Johannesburg, South Africa, continuing studies in Chemical Physics at Queen’s University Ontario and Cambridge, England.  After short spells of postdoctoral research in Southampton, the Smithsonian Institution in Massachusetts and the Herzberg Institute in Ottawa, he joined Shell Research, working on various topics including flame radiation, transport properties in liquids, lubrication and finally, biochar.Read more

Tom Miles is interested in the thermal conversion of biomass for…beneficial use. He has expertise in the conversion of wood, straws, stalks, and manures to energy, biochar, and ash. T. R. Miles, Technical Consultants, Inc., Portland, Oregon, sponsors and hosts internet discussions on biomass energy and biochar. He is on the board of the US Biochar Initiative and a coordinator of the Pacific Northwest Biochar Working Group. He designs systems for biomass processing and handling including densification, carbonization, gasification, power generation, and residue and nutrient management including biochar and composting.Read more

Lucia Brusegan is IBI’s Vice Chair of the Board. For more than 30 years Lucia has been active in the strategic definition …and implementation of projects that promote sustainable development of communities, paying attention to the people and the environment in which they live. Since 2007, she’s been active in Africa for the introduction of biochar systems and in carrying out small-scale demonstration projects that translate scientific knowledge into good practices, according to a systemic and circular approach that goes from the identification of waste biomass streams, to the introduction of the appropriate pyrolytic technology and to the production and application of biochar to the soil. She’s also member of the Board of the Italian biochar association ICHAR.Read more

Professor Claudia Kamman is Head of Institute within the Department of Applied Ecology and Soil…Fertility and Plant Nutrition, and holds a Professorship for Research into Climatic Effects on Special Crops at Hochschule Geisenheim University, Germany.Read more

Veronica is a Fellow of Chartered Certified Accountants (FCCA) UK and holds a Bachelor degree…in Commerce (Honours) from the University of Cape Coast, Ghana. She worked extensively in poverty reduction, women economic empowerment, agriculture and soil improvements, climate change mitigation and community developments. She is responsible for facilitation and Implementation of biochar research outcomes at the grassroots levels (2009 to date) to reduce deforestation, increase food production, reduce indoor and outdoor air pollution and mitigate climate change with fossil fuel substitution and carbon storage. Veronica was involved in coordinating project activities of Agricultural and Environmental Benefits of Biochar (BeBi) from 2009 to 2013 and BiocharPlus projects (2014 to January 2017) corporation projects of ACP Science and Technology. She built capacities of stakeholders on biochar systems in Ghana and was co-responsible for project communications for stakeholders both in Ghana and Africa. She adapted the Elsa biochar cook stoves for women use and train farmers in the use of biochar for soil amendment in Ghana. As a result of her tremendous work in integrated biochar, food and energy systems, Veronica has been selected by the biochar community to be a Member of the Steering Committee of the Africa Biochar Partnership for promoting biochar systems in Africa. She is currently implementing biochar systems for energy access, land reclamation, climate smart agriculture and socio economic development in Ghana.Read more

Graduated with honors from the Department of Botany of the “University of Adelaide”. Subsequently,… he obtained a PhD in Plant Ecology, School of Environmental & Earth Sciences at the same university and a post-doctorate at the University of New South Wales, at the School of Biological and Environmental Sciences (BEES). Between 2008 and 2010 he was a research associate at the University of Bonn, Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation (INRES) and Soil Science. Currently, he is a professor at the Universidad Científica del Sur, coordinates courses on ecosystem services and ecological restoration. His research and publications focus on carbon and soil chemistry and on understanding how and why these vary from the continental to the global level.Read more

Having led and successfully completed several pioneering research work on biochar concrete and air…filter, my vision is to help promote the use of biochar as a sustainable building material that reduces the carbon intensity of the building industry. I can contribute by proposing and drafting a set of industry guidelines or standard on biochar building materials – including feedstock selection, biochar production procedure and biochar concrete testing protocol. In the academic domain, I am keen to help universities start their own biochar building material research programs, and promote the application of mathematical modeling to predict various environmental functions of biochar, including electromagnetic shielding and air filtering.Read more

Johannes Lehmann professor of soil biogeochemistry and soil fertility management at Cornell University,…received his graduate degrees in Soil Science at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. Prior to his appointment at Cornell, he coordinated a research project on nutrient and carbon management in the central Amazon where he started work on Terra Preta soils. During the past 10 years, he has focused on nano-scale investigations of soil organic matter, the biogeochemistry of black carbon and the development of biochar and bioenergy systems. Dr. Lehmann is co-founder of the International Biochar Initiative, and member of the editorial boards of Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems and Plant and Soil.Read more

Dr. Hailong Wang is a distinguished professor in environmental science at Foshan University, China. …Prior to his professorship in China, he was a senior scientist at Scion, a Crown Research Institute of New Zealand. His research focuses on application of biochar and its impacts on the ecosystems, and remediation of contaminated environments. Dr. Wang is a Highly Cited Researcher, an Executive Editor for BIOCHAR and Carbon Research, and the Director of The Biochar Engineering Technology Research Center of Guangdong Province. As a Director of the China National Biochar Technology Innovation Alliance, and the Chairman of the Biochar Industry Technology Innovation Alliance of Guangdong Province, Dr. Wang works closely with the biochar industry. Read more

Heloise is co-founder and CEO of HUSK, specialized in transforming agricultural by-products into biochar …based fertilizers in emerging markets. HUSK has created a viable, impactful and scalable solution to address the vicious cycle of poverty, soil degradation and climate change and has been making biochar from rice husk since 2019 with the first biochar production facility in Cambodia. HUSK is now looking to replicate across SE Asia and other global regions. HUSK was one of the first companies outside the US and Europe to certify biochar based carbon removal credits with the European Biochar Certificate C Sink. http://www.huskventures.com Prior to HUSK Heloise has 20 years working in social innovation and sustainability in 20 countries in Europe and Latin America and has co-founded two social enterprises, a magazine specialized in Education and Sustainability as well as working as a consultant and researcher for public and private entities. She has led research and consulting projects for various international organizations including the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), System B in Latin America (BCorps) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), foundations and NGOs and universities. She has published three books and several articles on social innovation as a researcher at ESADE, covering trends and cases of good practices in social innovation and social entrepreneurship over the years. Since 2014 he has been researching the evolution of social entrepreneurship ecosystems. Educational qualifications: Graduated from Oxford University (BA, MA) in Modern Languages with a Master of Science (MSC) in Environmental Policy and Rural Resources from Imperial College and certified with the Chartered Institute of Environmental Managers (CEnv). Read more

Nadav Ziv is the CEO and R&D manager of Earth Biochar ltd. Education: BSc in Medical Sciences, MSc in Biochemistry …and PhD in Medical Neurobiology. Earth biochar begun as a backyard solution for farm waste. Today Earth biochar is part of OR recycling park, the biggest organic recycling facility in Israel. Earth biochar produces the CompoChar, a biochar soilless growing media for agriculture and gardening. Read more