Ona Ferguson is a Senior Associate at the Consensus Building Institute, where she designs and facilitates [1]meetings about environmental [2] and public policy issues, including land use, climate change, coastal and estuary management, Superfund sites, and organizational and strategic planning.
Recent experience includes managing a multi-year collaborative research project on strategies for managing the Hudson River Estuary shoreline to promote ecosystem health, co-facilitating the Cambridge Climate Congress and dialogue among city leadership and citizens, a national assessment of stormwater management challenges and opportunities for a research branch of NOAA, designing and co-leading a two-day federal policy dialogue on adaptive management and marine renewable energy, co-facilitating the community advisory group [3] that works with the EPA and GE to oversee the dredging of PCBs from the Hudson River, and leading a strategic planning effort for the newly formed MA Division of Ecological Restoration.
Ona has developed and taught courses on negotiation [4], leadership, facilitation and communication skills for policy makers, non-profit sector staff and volunteers, and the private sector, and she manages an ongoing series of courses on resolving land use disputes [5] sponsored by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy [6]. Ona has conducted multiple stakeholder assessments [7], including a study to identify current climate change related initiatives and opportunities in Massachusetts and a feasibility study of the potential for negotiated rulemaking of off-road vehicle use on Cape Hatteras National Seashore [8]. Ona has a Masters of Environmental Management degree from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, where she studied Land Use Law and Policy, and a B.A. from Smith College.
