Board of Directors

Roger Christie, Chairman of the Board. Roger Christie is the grandnephew and adopted son of Rachel Carson. He is a software engineer in Massachusetts.

Robert K. Musil, Ph.D., M.P.H., President & CEO. Bob Musil joined the Rachel Carson Council as CEO in 2014 and is the former long-time Executive Director and CEO of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Physicians for Social Responsibility. He is a Senior Fellow and Adjunct Professor at the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University where he teaches environmental politics. He is the author of three environmental books and has led environmental and environmental health campaigns nationally and internationally on climate and clean energy, toxic chemicals, clean air and water, and factory farming. Musil is also a leader in national peace campaigns on nuclear weapons and non-proliferation, the military budget, the arms trade and the Iraq War. He is Chairman of the Board of the Council for a Livable World, the Scoville Peace Fellowship, and the Population Connection Action Fund.

Martha Hayne Talbot, Vice President. Marty Talbot is a biologist, conservationist, ecologist, and explorer with experience in environmental research and advising in about 60 countries, including over 6 years of pioneering research on plainsland ecology in East Africa. She is past President of the Society of Women Geographers, Vice President of the Rachel Carson Council, Fellow of the Explorers Club, Member of the National Council of Defenders of Wildlife, Member of the Advisory Council for the National Parks Conservation Association, Council Member of Rachel’s Network, and Co-founder and Honorary Director of the Student Conservation Association (SCA).

Claudia Joy Wingo, MPH, RN, DMH, FNHAA, Secretary. Claudia Joy Wingo is an environmental health educator who serves as Department Chair of Health Promotion at Maryland University of Integrative Health (MUIH) and faculty at Georgetown University in the Department of Biochemistry, Cellular, and Molecular Biology. As a longtime member of the RCC executive board and a Governing Councilor for the ICTHP section of the American Public Health Association, she has long had an interest in complementary, integrative, and environmental health. Trained in Australia as an ethnobotanist and clinical herbalist, she has been in active practice for the last 45 years and has a special interest in remedial ecology and ecotherapy.

Richard J. Mandel, Treasurer. Rich Mandel is currently responsible for providing expertise to the Veteran’s Health Administration’s (VHA’s) Environmental Programs Service national office on the replacement of VHA’s existing asset and service management system. Previously he served as Holy Cross Hospital’s Safety & Environmental Manager responsible for identifying and recommending strategies to ensure compliance with Joint Commission occupational safety and health and environmental standards. Previous experience includes conducting Institutional /Facility/ Operational safety audits at National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) centers in support of the Office of Safety and Mission Assurance, directing NASA – Goddard Space Flight Center’s Safety and Environmental Programs. Rich Mandel has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Rachel Carson Council since 2003 and served as a member of the Montgomery County Maryland Solid Waste Advisory Committee from 1993 – 1995. Mandel holds an M.S. in Environmental Pollution Control from The Pennsylvania State University and is a Certified Healthcare Safety Professional (CHSP).

Ross A. Feldner, Ross Feldner is the owner of New Age Graphics, a full service graphic design firm in Silver Spring, MD. He also serves as a guide at the Patuxent National Wildlife Refuge and editor of the Friends of Patuxent newsletter as well as serving on the Friends of Patuxent Board of Directors. Feldner also serves as Vice President of the Rachel Carson Landmark Alliance which supports Rachel Carson’s historic house in Silver Spring, MD where she wrote Silent Spring.

Marilyn Fioravanti, R.N. Marilyn Fioravanti is a practicing critical care and eICU nurse in Virginia with Inova Health Systems in its innovative distance medicine program covering Alexandria, Loudon, Mount Vernon, and Fair Oaks Hospitals. She was previously an ICU nurse for twenty years on-site at Georgetown Hospital in Washington. She is also a long-time community environmental and environmental health activist with the RCC and other organizations.

Alexandra Wisner, M.E.M. Alexandra Wisner served as the Associate Director of the Rachel Carson Council from 2018-2020 where she co-authored Clear Cut and Bad Business, groundbreaking RCC reports on the wood pellet industry. Ms. Wisner received her bachelor’s degree magna cum laude from Duke University and her Master of Environmental Management (M.E.M.) from the Yale School of the Environment where she studied environmental peace building in post-conflict regions. She currently works at USAID in the Bureau for Africa. Although she works on international issues, as a native of the low country in North Carolina, she is passionate about environmental justice in the Southeastern United States.

Emily McAuliffe, Emily McAuliffe is Deputy Director for Public Engagement, The Council on Environmental Quality, The White House. Ms. McAuliffe previously served as Special Advisor for External Affairs in NOAA’s Office of Communications. She has also worked as a Legislative Assistant on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, Subcommittee on Environment. She graduated from Duke University where she studied public policy. While at Duke, she spent two summers as a Stanback Fellow at the Rachel Carson Council which fueled her continuing passion for the intersection of policy, environment, and social justice.


John H. More, Ph.D., J.D., (1945-2022). Former Secretary. John More was a leading environmental attorney and former professor of classics at Brown University. More was a founder of the Rhode Island Sierra Club and worked with Natural Resources of Maine to protect wetlands and oppose a natural gas pipeline. In law partnership with Lee Rogers, he had been involved in gas pipeline issues and toxic landfills. He was also a leader in community-based activities in the District of Columbia including the Washington Interfaith Network (WIN), a multi-racial interfaith grassroots organization concerned with affordable housing and neighborhood redevelopment and green jobs. A graduate of Yale and Harvard Graduate and Law Schools, More formerly practiced with Covington & Burling and Shaw Pittman.