About Us

Laura Garcia Cancino is a Senior Legal Researcher at CCSI, with a focus on leveraging law and metrics to address climate change challenges and accelerate the energy transition. Her expertise also encompasses the role of extractive industries in sustainable investment. Prior to joining CCSI, her work at the International Energy Agency (IEA) centered on energy efficiency and demand-side measures’ pivotal role in reducing fossil fuel dependence and driving the energy transition. With a comprehensive legal background in Latin America, she has additionally served as in-house counsel for a multinational oil and gas explorer, managing E&P and dispute resolution matters. Her legal insight extends from her former position as an Associate of an international law firm’s Energy, Mining, and Infrastructure team, offering strategic guidance to multinational companies engaged in developing large-scale projects in the mining, oil and gas, power, and renewable sectors. She holds a J.D. from Universidad del Rosario in Colombia, an Advanced Degree in Mining & Energy Law and Sustainable Development from Universidad de los Andes, where she graduated first of her class, a Master of Science in International Energy from the Paris School of International Affairs at Sciences Po, where she served as a Board Member of the Sciences Po Energy Association, and an LL.M. in Energy and Environmental Law from Georgetown University Law Center, where she graduated with honors. She is also a co-founder of coMpower, a nonprofit association that promotes the participation and empowerment of young women in the energy sector in Colombia.

Prior to joining the Sabin Center, Cynthia served as Chief of the Investor Protection Bureau for the New York State Office of the Attorney General. Under her leadership, the Bureau recovered over $850M on behalf of New York investors and achieved groundbreaking results in electronic trading and cryptocurrency matters. Previously, she was a litigation partner at the firm Bleichmar Fonti & Auld LLP.

Cynthia serves as a Trustee and Chair of the Audit Committee of Wave Hill, a public garden and cultural center in the Bronx. She is a graduate of Columbia Law School, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, and Duke University, where she received the William J. Griffith University Service Award.

Martin graduated from Columbia Law School in 2019, where he was a James Kent Scholar (2017-2019) and a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar (2016-2017). At Columbia, Martin served as Articles Editor for the Columbia Human Rights Law Review, worked as a Research Assistant at the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, and spent a semester in the Law and Finance MLS program at Oxford University through Columbia’s Global Alliance Program. Before law school, Martin worked as a community organizer in the coalfields of southern West Virginia. He received his Bachelor of Arts from Washington University in St. Louis in 2014.

Perrine Toledano oversees the development of a coordinated, integrated, and impactful program of research across CCSI’s thematic areas of interest. With her deep expertise in natural resource governance, she leads research, training, and advisory projects on the impact of the energy transition on extractive industry investments and resource-rich countries, as well as on the deployment of large-scale investments in renewable energy, zero-carbon industrialization, and economy-wide decarbonization. She jointly developed curricula for a masters and an executive course on extractives and sustainable development taught at Columbia University, and she is co-editor of two volumes published by Columbia University Press (Rethinking Investment Incentives: Trends and Policy Options and The New Frontiers of Sovereign Investment). Perrine serves on several advisory boards and expert working groups. Prior to joining CCSI, she worked as a consultant for such organizations as the World Bank and Revenue Watch Institute (now NRGI), as well as private sector companies, including Natixis Corporate Investment Bank and Ernst and Young. Her experience includes auditing, financial analysis, IT for capital markets, public policy evaluation, and cross-border project management. She has a Masters of Business Administration from ESSEC in Paris, France, and a Masters of Public Administration from Columbia University.

Caroline Flammer is a Professor of International and Public Affairs and of Climate at Columbia University with joint appointments at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) and the Climate School. She is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and a Research Member at the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI). Caroline is an expert in sustainable investing and the recipient of numerous prestigious awards. Her research examines whether and how sustainable finance and impact investing can help finance a more sustainable world. Moreover, her research examines how, and under which conditions, firms can incorporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations into their activities to enhance their competitiveness while strengthening—instead of undermining—the very system in which they operate and hereby play a critical role in addressing climate change, inequality, global health, and other grand challenges related to society and the natural environment. The Web of Science ranked her among the top-100 Highly Cited Researchers in the economics and business profession in terms of impact over the past 10 years. At Columbia, she teaches the graduate courses “Social Impact: Business, Society, and the Natural Environment”, “Sustainable Investing Research Consulting Project”, and “Sustainable Finance II: System-level Investing”. Furthermore, she serves as the Director of SIPA’s Sustainable Investing Research Initiative (SIRI) which aims to foster scholarship, education, and dialogue on the interplay and interdependencies between investment and major challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, poverty, and social inequalities. Among other roles, Caroline serves as the President of the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability (ARCS), a global multi-disciplinary network of scholars fostering rigorous academic research on corporate sustainability, and as the Chair of the Academic Advisory Committee of the United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), the largest network of responsible investors to date. She is an Associate Editor for both Management Science and the Strategic Management Journal. For further information: http://www.columbia.edu/~cf2870/.

The founder and faculty director of the groundbreaking Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and one of the foremost environmental lawyers in the nation, Michael Gerrard is an advocate, litigator, teacher, and scholar who has pioneered cutting-edge legal tools and strategies for addressing climate change. He writes and teaches courses on environmental law, climate change law, and energy regulation. He was the chair of the faculty of Columbia University’s renowned Earth Institute from 2015 to 2018.

For three decades, before joining the Columbia Law School faculty in 2009, Gerrard practiced law in New York, most recently as the partner in charge of the New York office of Arnold & Porter, where he remains senior counsel. As an environmental lawyer, he tried numerous cases and argued many appeals in federal and state courts and administrative tribunals. He also handled the environmental aspects of diverse transactions and development projects and provided regulatory compliance advice to an array of clients in the private and public sectors. Several publications rated him the leading environmental lawyer in New York and one of the leaders in the world.

Camille Pannu’s practice draws on principles of community lawyering and uses transactional law tools to achieve environmentally just outcomes for low-income communities. Her research focuses on structural racism, poverty, and environmental inequality in low-income, rural, and unincorporated communities, and her work examines how groups leverage power through corporate law and local government to assert control over shared environmental resources and essential infrastructure.

Pannu joined the Columbia Law faculty as associate clinical professor on July 1, 2022, where she is the founder and director of the Just Transition Clinic, which uses transactional and policy advocacy strategies to address the disproportionate impacts of climate change on low-income communities of color, with particular attention to the circumstance of workers and shifts to sustainable production.

Shiva Rajgopal is the Kester and Byrnes Professor of Accounting and Auditing at Columbia Business School. He has also been a faculty member at the Duke University, Emory University and the University of Washington. Professor Rajgopal’s research interests span financial reporting, earnings quality, fraud, executive compensation and corporate culture. His research is frequently cited in the popular press, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Bloomberg, Fortune, Forbes, Financial Times, Business Week, and the Economist. He teaches fundamental analysis of financial statements for investors, managers and entrepreneurs and a PhD seminar on accounting regulation.

Key awards include 2006 and 2016 American Accounting Association (AAA) Notable Contribution to the Literature award, 2006 and 2016 Graham and Dodd Scroll Prize given by the Financial Analysts Journal, and the 2008, 2012 and 2015 Glen McLaughlin Award for Research in Accounting Ethics.

He is the Departmental Editor of the Accounting track of Management Science. He is also an Associate Editor at the Journal of Accounting and Economics and an ex-editor at Contemporary Accounting Research. He was on the editorial board of The Accounting Review from 2003-2011.

Adam Sobel is a professor at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Engineering School. He studies the dynamics of climate and weather phenomena, particularly in the tropics. In recent years he has become particularly interested in understanding the risks to human society from extreme weather events and climate change. He is author or co-author of over 150 peer-reviewed scientific articles; a popular book, Storm Surge, about Hurricane Sandy; and numerous op-eds.