Our PeopleAffiliate Bios

Peter Shelley, Vice President & Massachusetts Advocacy Center Director
Sean Mahoney, Vice President & Maine Advocacy Center Director
Melissa Hoffer , Vice President & New Hampshire Advocacy Center Director
Chris Kilian, Vice President, Vermont Advocacy Center Director and Clean Water & Healthy Forests Program Director
Cynthia Giles , Vice President & Rhode Island Advocacy Center Director
Priscilla Brooks, Marine Conservation Program Director
John D. Crawford, Science Program Director
Seth Kaplan, Clean Energy & Climate Change Program Director
John Davenport, Senior Counsel
John Pike, Senior Counsel
E. Michael Thomas, Esq., Senior Counsel

Peter is CLF Vice President and Director of CLF's Massachusetts Advocacy Center. He was awarded a Pew Fellowship in Conservation and the Environment in 1996 and the David B. Stone Medal by the New England Aquarium in 2003.

Before CLF, Peter served for five years as an Assistant Attorney General for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources. Peter has a BA from Hobart College and received his JD with honors from Suffolk University Law School.

Sean Mahoney is Vice President and Director of CLF's Maine Advocacy Center. Prior to joining CLF, Sean was at Verrill Dana LLP for 10 years, where he represented a variety of commercial and non-governmental entities in all aspects of state and federal environmental litigation and permitting.

Since 2005, Mahoney has served as board chair of GrowSmart Maine, leading the organization through the development of the groundbreaking report, Charting Maine's Future: An Action Plan for Promoting Sustainable Prosperity and Quality Place, co-authored with the Brookings Institution. He also serves as a board member of the Falmouth Conservation Trust, the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, and Konbit Sante, a Portland-based organization dedicated to delivering health care services in Cap Haitien, Haiti.

Mahoney, a resident of Falmouth, received his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law and his undergraduate degree from Bowdoin College. Prior to his work at Verrill Dana he was at Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco, was a Judicial Law Clerk for the U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont and served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Sri Lanka. Mahoney has been recognized as a leading lawyer in his field by a number of organizations, including the respected legal research and publishing firm, Chamber & Partners.

From 2001 to 2005, Cynthia served as head of the Bureau of Resource Protection at the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). Cynthia worked for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in a variety of capacities from 1991 to 1997.

Her responsibilities included overseeing enforcement of federal laws regulating toxics and protecting air, drinking water and surface water. She also chaired a regional ozone compliance initiative, developing strategies for reducing smog-causing emissions from stationary sources. Prior to joining EPA, Cynthia was an Assistant United States Attorney. She holds a BA from Cornell University, as well as a JD from the University of California at Berkeley and an MPA from the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government.

Melissa Hoffer is Vice President and Director of CLF's New Hampshire Advocacy Center. Melissa joined CLF in February 2007 after practicing for over seven years at WilmerHale in Boston , Massac husetts , where she was named a junior partner in 2003. At WilmerHale, Melissa worked on a wide variety of environmental matters, specializing in litigation and enforcement. Her experience includes cases involving state and federal hazardous waste cleanup, liability, and management, the Clean Water Act, zoning, wetlands, and carbon sequestration. As a member of the firm’s Nanotechnology Practice Group, she was a frequent speaker on potential environmental regulatory issues related to nanotechnology. In 2006, Melissa was named a “Massachusetts Super Lawyers Rising Star” by Boston Magazine and placed 3rd in an international human rights speech competition in Caen, France.

Prior to her work in the private sector, Melissa served as a law clerk for the Honorable Magistrate Judge Joyce London Alexander, Boston Federal District Court. Before entering the field of law, she had a career in education. Melissa received her J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law, Certificate in Environmental Management from Tufts University Graduate School, M.Ed. from the University of Massachusetts, and B.A. from Hampshire College.

Chris is CLF Vice President, Director of CLF's Vermont Advocacy Center, and Director of the Clean Water & Healthy Forests Program at CLF, which focuses on protection of New England's water and land resources. Prior to his work at CLF, Chris spent eight years with the Vermont Natural Resources Council.

In 1998, Chris received the Charlie Shaw Conservation Partnership Award from the National Wildlife Federation. He received his BA in Political Science from the University of Rochester and his law degree and Masters in Environmental Law from Vermont Law School, cum laude.

Priscilla is a Staff Economist and the Director of CLF's Marine Conservation Program, which focuses on protecting marine habitat and wildlife and building healthy fishing communities. Before joining CLF in 1994, Priscilla performed extensive research on seafood marketing and trade, as well as aquaculture economics.

In addition, she has worked on recreational fishing boats and research vessels in waters from Labrador to the Caribbean. Priscilla holds a BS from Cornell University as well as an MS and PhD in environmental and resource economics from the University of Rhode Island.

John Crawford serves as Director of the Science Program at CLF. John works to build the scientific foundation for CLF's advocacy and directs our program on marine ecosystem conservation in the Gulf of Maine. He has taught biology at Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania and has made substantial contributions to the scientific research literature in biology. He holds a BS from Duke University, a PhD from Cornell University, and an honorary MS from the University of Pennsylvania where he was a member of the tenured faculty for a decade. He was nominated to the research faculty of the Boston University Marine Program, fall of 2004.

Seth is a Senior Attorney at CLF and Director of the Clean Energy and Climate Change Program. In this role, he focuses on fostering renewable energy, working for climate protection, and reducing the environmental impact of fossil fuel power plants. A native of Rhode Island, Seth worked as a real estate and environmental attorney in New York City before his return to CLF, where he had previously worked as a law student. Seth is a graduate of Wesleyan University and Northeastern University School of Law.

John is Senior Counsel of CLF Ventures. From 1984 until his arrival at CLF in 1999, John was Vice President and Associate General Counsel at Liberty Financial Companies, Inc., where he was primarily responsible for legal oversight of its acquisitions and investment companies. John began his career as an associate in the Wall Street law firm of Chadbourne & Parke, moving to Boston in 1972 to join Nutter, McClennen & Fish, where he was a junior partner. John graduated from Amherst College in 1958 and from Columbia Law School in 1961.

John is serving in various areas of law, including CLF Ventures' Brownfields Initiative. John received his BA from Williams College and LLB from Harvard Law School. He served as Law Clerk for Justice R. Ammi Cutter of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and was an attorney at the law firm of Ropes & Gray, where he was a partner practicing Corporate and Real Estate Law and Chairman of the Real Estate Department.

Michael has served as Senior Counsel to CLF Ventures since March 2002. As such, he is working with CLFV to combine the organization's broad substantive expertise with his experience as a mediator and third party neutral to collaborate in resolution of complex environmental, energy and land use issues. Mr. Thomas currently conducts a practice as third party neutral, mediator and attorney at law. He has worked at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and in two large law firms for the previous twenty years.