Advisory Board
We are grateful for the contributions of our advisors, many of whom are from our community or have a long-standing relationship with Barrington.
Dr. Julio Friedmann is Chief Scientist and Chief Carbon Wrangler at Carbon Direct. He recently served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Fossil Energy at the Department of Energy under the Obama administration where he was responsible for DOE’s R&D program in advanced fossil energy systems, carbon capture, and storage (CCS), CO2 utilization, and clean coal deployment. More recently, he was a Senior Research Scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University SIPA, where he led the Carbon Management Research Initiative. He has held positions at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, including Chief Energy Technologist, where he worked for 15 years.
Dr. Friedmann is one of the most widely known and authoritative experts in the U.S. on carbon removal (CO2 drawdown from the air and oceans), CO2 conversion and use (carbon-to-value), hydrogen, industrial decarbonization, and carbon capture and sequestration. In addition to close partnerships with many private companies, NGOs, Julio has worked with the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and government agencies foreign and domestic. His expertise also includes oil and gas production, international clean energy engagements, and earth science.
A former Barrington Native, Dr. Friedmann received his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), followed by a Ph.D. in Geology at the University of Southern California. He worked for five years as a senior research scientist at ExxonMobil, then as a research scientist at the University of Maryland. He is also a composer, pianist, and avid cyclist.
Dr. Julio Friedmann, Scientist, Carbon Wrangler
Claudio Napoli, Cinematographer, Photo Journalist
Claudio divides his time working between Italy and the US. Growing up in Naples, Claudio absorbed his father’s passion for fine arts and photography. Video and photography soon became Claudio’s main focus. His career has been centered on video and film, starting off in the graphic and motion graphic field for Italian local and national tv channels.
During the 90s he left Naples and moved to Rome becoming a partner at Proxima, at the time the Italian leading company for visual effects in cinema. Between 1996 and 2010 Claudio has worked on many important film productions collaborating with directors like Tornatore, Angelopoulos, Parenti, D’Alatri, Verdone, Zeffirelli and Monicelli. He has been nominated for a David di Donatello in the Best Visual Effects category for 6 consecutive years. He won the award in 2006 for Romanzo Criminale/Crime Novel directed by Michele Placido.
Since 2010 Claudio has been working on more personal video and photographic projects, while continuing the production of motion graphic commercials and corporate videos. He collaborated with WaterFire and Barrington resident Lisa Lowenstein on projects to develop community building and is the director and publisher of On Off Mag, an online video blog-zine.
Barnaby Evans, Founder WaterFire, Artist, Community builder, Environmentalist
Mary Dondero, Artist, Curator, Educator
Dondero’s work is exhibited both nationally and internationally and is held in both private and public collections, such as in the permanent collection of Naestved International Print Studio in Denmark, Bridgewater State University, the Newport Art Museum RI, Healing Arts at RI Hospital, and the Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion in New Hampshire.
She has exhibited her work at the prestigious and historic landmark, the St. Botolph Club in Boston, and her artwork is regularly exhibited at Atelier Newport, in Newport RI.
In 2005, Dondero presented her photo-installation, Dust at the Southeast Society of Photographic Educators Conference at George Mason University in Virginia. This was an installation where the images could only be seen if the viewer became involved by wiping the dirt off of the photograph. Once revealed an appropriated image of a Cambodian, Khmer Rouge prison appeared.
In 2016 the Newport Art Museum presented Dondero’s Small Points in Time as a solo exhibit. This exhibit was predominantly of her large-scale paintings and abstract pastel drawings representing her main creative focus. The exhibition received favorable reviews in Art New England, The Newport Mercury and Providence Journal.
For the past twelve years Dondero has served as Exhibition Curator at the Bristol Art Museum, in Bristol RI, where she also serves as a board Director. In this capacity Dondero has established the Museum’s permanent collection of works on paper, and has actively promoted both regional and national artists. A few of the noteworthy exhibits she has organized are Word Transformed, Summer Dreams & Myth, Contemporary Women, and Kaleidoscope.
Additionally, In 2003 Dondero was one of the founding artists for Imago Gallery, in Warren, RI, an artist co-op. In 2007 she assisted the organization in establishing Imago Foundation for the Arts a 501-c-3 organization. IFA is recognized as a place where artists explore their creativity within a brick and mortar exhibition space with the additional business focus on art programming that serves the public.
Dondero is currently a full-time tenured faculty member in the Department of Art and Art History at Bridgewater State University, in Massachusetts. During her 2011 sabbatical from teaching Dondero was awarded “Artist in Resident” at Zion National Park in Utah. This resulted in a body of work titled “Perception, Time & Memory”, with one of the resulting paintings now held in the permanent collection at Zion Human History Museum, Springdale, Utah.
Dondero earned her
B.F.A. at Roger Williams University in Bristol RI
M.A.T. from Rhode Island School of Design
M.F.A. from U-Mass Dartmouth.
Her studio is located in Warren Rhode Island.
Barnaby Evans is an artist, designer, developer, thought leader and consultant who uses his experience in many fields and media to create original solutions in planning, public art, public space, environmental resiliency and urban interfaces. Originally trained as a scientist focusing on environment and ecology, Evans creates original artworks and design solutions involving major urban interventions, site-specific sculpture installations, photography, landscape, architectural and design projects, writing, and conceptual works. Evans combines his technical and ecological expertise, an awareness of spatial psychology, his sensitivity as an artist and a design philosophy to create unique solutions to public art and urban issues.
Evans created WaterFire in Providence in 1994 as part of an effort to rebrand and re-establish Providence as a destination. Frustrated by the intense negativity of the local residents about their capital city and recognizing that the just finished award-winning river relocation plan and park would need pump priming to be an effective change agent, Evans designed WaterFire as a city-scale intervention that combines a design approach with aesthetics, land art, installation, site specific work, music, ritual and spectacle.
Barnaby Evans created WaterFire in its first version in 1994 in Providence and in its second version in June of 1996 for the International Sculpture Conference and the Convergence International Arts Festival in Providence. Evans also created WaterFire Houston in 1998 and Evans has created installations of WaterFire in Rome, Singapore, Houston, Columbus, Tacoma, Kansas City, and Sharon. Evans is actively engaged in projects in Venice, Berlin, and Paris and is currently exploring art installations for a number of cities.
Evans is also deeply involved in environmental issues, climate resiliency strategies and solutions and interventions related to sea level rise.
Elina Guralnik, Applied Epidemiologist
Elina Guralnik is an applied epidemiologist whose work has focused on emerging diseases’ surveillance, child and maternal health and public health consulting. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Health Services Research, with a concentration in Health Informatics, at George Mason University.
In her work, she hopes to bridge three disciplines– epidemiology, data science, and health policy- to continue making an impact in our understanding of population health dynamics. She also hopes to influence policies that promote innovation and strengthen the U.S. public health system. She holds an undergraduate degree in Biology (Rutgers) and a Master’s in Public Health in Epidemiology (George Mason University).
Louise Sloan, Editor, Author, Activist
Louise Sloan is a writer and editor. Her articles and essays have appeared in numerous publications including the New York Times, the Boston Globe Magazine, Out, and Glamour. Her work has won national awards including the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism. Her book, “Knock Yourself Up,” a memoir and report on becoming a single mother by choice, received international media attention, including Nightline, Newsweek, and 60 Minutes.
She is a member of the LGBTQ community and her work for Glamour and Ladies Home Journal on LGBTQ issues won a National Lesbian & Gay Journalism Association award and was nominated for a GLAAD award. She has been involved in antiracist and racially inclusive journalism since the 1980s, including the creation in 2003 of a nationally distributed Black Community HIV magazine that morphed into Real Health, an ongoing quarterly.
Louise and her son, now 16, moved to Barrington from Brooklyn, NY, in 2015. Her first date with her now-husband was that same year—a walk on Barrington beach. The family of three lives in Barrington with their two dogs, Roxy and Snowball.