Meet Our Education Advisors
The SolPods Education Advisory Committee brings together experienced educators and academic leaders who are dedicated to advancing student success and sustainability learning. With deep expertise in research, pedagogy, and global issues, they provide guidance on curriculum design, mentorship models, and educational strategy. Their insights ensure SolPods programs not only inspire, but also equip students with the skills and opportunities to thrive as future sustainability leaders.
Pamela Zeiser, Ph.D.
With a career spanning more than 20 years in higher education, Pamela A. Zeiser, Ph.D., is currently Director of Undergraduate Research at the University of Nevada, Reno. Previously a Professor of Political Science at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, she supervised numerous undergraduate research projects presented at academic conferences and published in undergraduate journals, supported Honors theses and portfolios, and worked closely with student services to ensure students thrive both in and beyond the classroom. As a first-generation college graduate, Dr. Zeiser possesses both deep expertise and a personal commitment to expanding opportunity for all students.
Dr. Zeiser taught courses on global issues, including the environment; international relations, including the Sustainable Development Goals; and comparative politics, including environmental issues in other countries. She is the author of Global Studies Research, which pioneers an integrative research method for interdisciplinary International Studies majors. Other areas of published research include global health, pedagogy/andragogy, and social media ethics. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the University of Nevada, Reno, and both a Master’s degree in International Studies and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Claremont Graduate University.
Dinah Koehler, Ph.D.
Dr. Dinah Koehler has built a 30-year career at the intersection of corporate action and environmental and social impact. She began as Environmental Manager at Tetra Pak, where she helped establish Hungary’s packaging waste management system in partnership with local and national government, Coca-Cola, and Pepsi. Through customer education, consumer engagement, and supplier coordination, her work positioned Tetra Pak as a leader in corporate environmentalism in post-communist Hungary, supporting brand protection and business expansion across Eastern Europe. She also initiated an office paper recycling program with the Budapest Municipality that was later privatized by the local paper industry. She subsequently gained environmental management experience across multiple sectors, including forestry/pulp and paper, automotive, chemical weapons, and health care.
Over the past 25 years, her work has focused on the financial implications of environmental risk. This led her to pursue a doctorate in environmental risk assessment and management at Harvard University. She was awarded the Academy of Management’s Best Dissertation Prize. Following her PhD, Dr. Koehler managed a USD 4 million research program at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency examining corporate environmental behavior and its financial impacts.
She later returned to the private sector, focusing on the financial materiality of environmental performance at Deloitte and UBS Asset Management. Her work earned multiple awards and included leading a multiyear USD 1.8 million research project for PGGM to develop impact measurement methodologies for public equities. At UBS, she played a key role in raising over USD 2.5 billion in assets under management. A passive climate-aware strategy she co-designed now exceeds USD 45 billion in AUM. After co-founding Net Purpose, a start-up dedicated to impact measurement data, she has been advising startups and small business in environmental and impact data and climate risk financial impacts. She teaches graduate-level courses at Harvard Extension School and the University of Connecticut Business School.
She has published in policy, management and scientific journals, including the first article in Science Magazine on the role of science in investment decisions. She holds a doctorate from Harvard School of Public Health, a Masters from The Fletcher School at Tufts and a B.A. from Wellesley College. She conducted post-doctoral research at The Wharton School, Center for Risk.
Michael Kraten, Ph.D., CPA
Dr. Michael Kraten is an executive business educator and professional advisor. He maintains specialties in entrepreneurship, resilience, emerging technologies, behavioral accounting, sustainability, educational gaming, strategic planning, valuation, risk management, and forensic analysis. He has more than forty years of management consulting experience and has been registered or licensed as a Certified Public Accountant throughout that time. In 2025 and 2026, he received TXCPA Houston’s Outstanding CPA of the Year and Presidential Citation Awards, as well as the TXCPA’s state-wide Outstanding Accounting Educator Award for large universities.
He began his career in the assurance and consulting practices of Deloitte. After serving as a Consulting Partner at BDO Seidman, then the seventh largest global accounting firm, he co-founded a series of boutique consulting practices. His consulting work has taken him to Bolivia, Canada, Great Britain, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Japan, the Middle East, the Netherlands, South Africa, and Vietnam, including corporate training activities with the national energy companies of Bolivia, Iraq, and Vietnam.
He has served on the faculties of the Universities of Houston, Connecticut, and Massachusetts in the U.S., Maastricht University in the Netherlands, and elsewhere. He has also presented his work at Baylor University, Dartmouth College, Deloitte University, Harvard Law School, Johns Hopkins University, Texas A&M Law School, and Yale University. He has authored or co-authored more than thirty peer reviewed articles, as well as numerous podcasts, newsletters, and book chapters for Wiley, Routledge, Henry Stewart, Kaplan, and others. He has also authored a book on Business Planning and Entrepreneurship for Business Expert Press. For ten years, the Social Science Research Network ranked him in the All-Time Top 10% of global researchers. His top-ranked article “Libor Manipulation” was published in the Journal of Banking and Finance several months before the global banking scandal exploded in the public business press.
He earned a PhD in Behavioral Accounting from the University of Connecticut and a MPPM in Public and Private Management from Yale University. He also earned a BBA in Public Accounting from Baruch College, CUNY.