Affiliated Faculty
MUSIC Affiliated Faculty are university faculty members, senior scholars, and experienced practitioners who are not regular members of the Environmental Policy and Planning group faculty at MIT. They have a substantive working relationship with MUSIC, which can be ongoing or intermittent, that includes advising interns, developing research proposals. and participating in field-based projects. Affiliated Faculty are selected because their expertise and skills complement those of the regular MUSIC Faculty.
Patrick Field, B.A., M.C.P, is Managing Director of North American Programs at the Consensus Building Institute (CBI), Associate Director of the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program, Training and Curriculum Director for the Western Consensus Council, Helena, Montana, and Trainer for USGS Seminars on Joint Fact Finding.
CBI is a nonprofit dedicated to improving the art and science of consensus building for the public sector in the United States, Canada, and worldwide. Mr. Field leads up North American programs for the organization. He has facilitated hundreds of public meetings, workshops, citizen advisory meetings, technical workshops, and policy and management meetings. He has helped build agreement among state and federal agencies, communities, and citizens for the $250 million cleanup of the Massachusetts Military Reservation Superfund site. He co-mediated a comprehensive agreement to resolve issues of air quality and cancer risk in four rural Maine communities surrounding a paper mill. He is currently co-mediating the Superfund cleanup of a major industrial site in southwestern Connecticut, facilitating a national pilot on reducing air toxics in Cleveland, Ohio, and co-mediating a regulatory negotiation for the National Park’s Fire Island National Seashore.
Mr. Field has also designed numerous teaching materials and taught over a thousand commercial, non-profit, local, state, provincial, tribal, and federal officials in negotiation and consensus building. He holds a Masters in Urban Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is co-author of the award winning book, Dealing with an Angry Public. He was born and raised on a ranch in rural western Colorado and currently resides in Watertown, Massachusetts.
Dr. Stanley Ponce
Dr. Stanley Ponce has been a Federal land and water resource manager for nearly 30 years. He has been widely recognized for his innovative leadership style, strategic vision, and ability to develop programs, establish partnerships, and motive people.
Currently, Stan is serving as the Acting Regional Biologist and is responsible for the overall management and direction of the biology program within the Central Region of the USGS, including oversight of five biology Science Centers. Before joining the Regional team, he provided executive leadership in developing the policy framework for the USGS’ Fundamental Science Practices and represented the Survey on the Interagency Cooperative Conservation Team within DOI.
During his career Stan has served as a Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretaries of Water and Science and Fish, Wildlife and Parks within the Department of the Interior; Research Director for the Bureau of Reclamation; Chief of the Water Resources Division for the National Park Service; Associate Regional Director for Resources (Natural and Cultural) in the Rocky Mountain Region of the National Park Service; Director of the Watershed Systems Development Group with the U.S. Forest Service; and an Associate Professor of Earth Resources at Colorado State University. He has extensive experience in developing national water resources policy, managing complex scientific and engineering programs, and building coalitions.
He received his Ph. D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Utah State University, M.S. in Watershed Science and Forest Engineering from Oregon State University, and B.S. in Forestry and Natural Resources from the University of Missouri.
He is also a registered Professional Hydrologist and has received the Department of the Interior’s Meritorious Service Award.
Professor Ric Richardson
M Arch in Advanced Studies and Master of City Planning from MIT, Professor and Acting Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of New Mexico
Ric recently completed a major project mediating negotiations among ranchers, oil and gas executives, federal and state agencies, and local citizens to prepare consensus-based conservation strategies for a threatened bird species in Southeastern New Mexico. The negotiated agreement is a first of its kind to avoid listing a species as endangered.
Ric’s research and consulting are in resolving environmental and land use disputes, managing community growth and land use planning, and instituting citizen participation in urban design and development. Concurrent with his faculty position, Ric maintains a consulting practice with Consensus Builder in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and was a founder of New Mexico’s Community Zoning Institute and the US West Rural Economic Assistance Link (REAL). Ric has received teaching and research awards and is often invited to speak at public and academic seminars.
His recent publications include “Governing Western Mineral Resources: The Emergence of Collaboration,” in The Natural Resources Journal , “Negotiating Community Consensus in Preparing Environmental Impact Statements,” in Mediating Environmental Conflicts ; “Alternative Dispute Resolution: A Continuum Of Control,” in Mediation vs. Community Organizing: Paths for Community Change; "Missing Pieces of the Smart Growth Puzzle," in the Albuquerque Tribune’s Insight and Opinion, “Sha Tin New Town 1975 - 1997,” with Jeffery Cody in Space and Society; and “Albuquerque, New Mexico - A City at the Crossroads”, in Space and Society.
At the University of New Mexico, Ric teaches Negotiation and Public Dispute Resolution, the Advanced Planning Studio, Community Growth and Land Use Planning, and the “Planner as Mediator” module in Planning Theory and Process.