U.S. Department of State Panel Event

Monica Bansal directs USAID’s Green Cities Division, where she oversees a portfolio covering ocean plastic pollution reduction through comprehensive municipal solid waste management, air pollution, and climate change. She is a former USAID Foreign Service Environment Officer, first serving as Climate Change Office Director in USAID/Dominican Republic, where she helped create one of the Agency’s few urban country strategies and designed a comprehensive urban resilience program. She then served as Director of the Agency’s Energy Division, where she specialized in integrated energy planning, energy efficiency, and scaling up renewable energy. She has supported and led energy, urban, and environment program development across the globe, including in Afghanistan, Mexico, Georgia, South Africa, Nigeria, Ukraine, India, Mozambique, Ghana, Haiti, among others. Prior to joining USAID, she was a transportation planner for Washington DC’s metropolitan planning organization, where she led long-range transportation decarbonization planning. She holds an M.S. in Urban Planning from Columbia University and a B.A. in Environmental Thought and Practice from the University of Virginia.

Shekira Ramdass is a Foreign Affairs Officer who advises the U.S. Department of State’s Special Representative for City and State Diplomacy on the most effective strategies for engaging governors and mayors on key foreign policy priorities. She also assists the Special Representative in keeping local elected officials informed of fast-breaking events and developments that affect U.S. foreign policy and impact local communities. Prior to Shekira’s current role, she served as the Chief of Staff to the Department’s Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of International Organization Affairs. She provided authoritative advice, leadership, and guidance on bureau engagement related to U.S. participation in human rights, economic and social affairs, and peacekeeping operations.

Shekira is a proud alumna of the Department of State’s Pathways Internship Program, first serving as a program analyst in the Bureau of Global Talent Management, then traveling overseas to fulfill an assignment in Baku, Azerbaijan. While abroad, she served as an economic officer specializing in micro and macro-economic issues in the Caspian region. Following her overseas assignment, Shekira was recruited by the Assistant Secretary for Economic and Business Affairs to support the Bureau’s foreign policy initiative called Providing Opportunities for Women’s Economic Rise or POWER. The initiative encouraged collaboration between the U.S. private sector and U.S. missions overseas to establish professional networks and business environments that promote commercial activities and advance women’s economic empowerment. Prior to joining the U.S. Department of State, Shekira was a Public Health Fellow for The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

Shekira holds a M.A. in International Affairs from George Washington University, and a B.A. in International Affairs and Asian Studies from Mary Baldwin University. She is fluent in French and is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society.

Carol Lynn MacCurdy joined ENV October 2021 to focus on sustainable cities and multilateral work, including supporting the launch of the new global instrument on plastic pollution. She has designed two key programs now underway: the EAP-funded Green Buildings Program and the Western Hemisphere’s Cities Forward Program and is currently working on a green urban recovery concept for Ukrainian cities. Before this assignment, she had already spent ten years in OES/ECW working on water-related issues. Her accomplishments there included the development and launch of the US Water Partnership, the Water Smart Engagements Program, the Ambassador's Water Expert Program, and the USASCP Integrated Urban Services Program. Prior to OES, Carol Lynn spent 23 years in the Foreign Service, serving in London, Moscow, Peru, the Caribbean, the White House, the Andean Desk, the Russia Desk, the Eastern European Desk, the Economic Bureau, and in the Public Affairs Bureau. She rose through the ranks to Senior Foreign Service as a public diplomacy officer before her retirement in 2008. Other employment included work at The Solutions Journal and two years at the Defense Intelligence Agency. Carol Lynn has a BA and MA in International Relations and has basic Russian, French and Spanish, retaining greatest fluency in the latter. She spent her youth in South Africa, learned Spanish in Mexico, is married to former NSC advisor Russ Travers, and has two grown children.

Steve Decina leads on the Environment Chapters of the G7 and G20 for the U.S. Department of State. In addition to negotiating across topics ranging from environmental crime to plastic pollution in these fora, he represented the United States in negotiations on nature-based solutions and biodiversity at the United Nations Environment Assembly in 2022. Prior to his work in the Office of Environmental Quality, Steve was a AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow in the Office of Conservation and Water, where he worked on combating wildlife trafficking, and at the U.S. Environment Protection Agency where he covered indoor air quality. Steve earned a Ph.D. in the Biogeosciences Program at Boston University in 2018, working with Drs. Pamela Templer and Lucy Hutyra on the effects of urbanization on nutrient cycling. Steve has been a teacher for twenty years and runs a summer science camp for youth in foster care with colleagues at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

Host or Publisher Boston University URBAN Program