Our Team

Tensie Whelan, Director

Tensie Whelan (NYU ‘80), Clinical Professor for Business and Society, is the Founding Director of the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business, where she is bringing her 25 years of experience working on local, national and international environmental and sustainability issues to engage businesses in proactive and innovative mainstreaming of sustainability.

Divya Chandra, Associate Research Scientist

Divya Chandra is an Associate Research Scientist at the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business and is developing and executing monetization methods used in the application of the ROSI methodology across a diverse set of Industries.

Alyssa DeFalco, Assistant Director

Alyssa DeFalco (NYU ‘19) is the Assistant Director at the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business, where she manages the everyday workflows of CSB, helps execute thought leadership programming, and prepares communication materials and strategy. Alyssa is currently an MBA Candidate at NYU Stern.

Elyse Douglas, Senior Research Scholar

Elyse Douglas (Stern ‘83) is a Senior Research Scholar at the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business and has responsibility for monetization methods used in the application of the ROSI methodology.

Eliza Heeks, Associate Director

Eliza Heeks is the Associate Director at the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business, where she manages day-to-day operations and oversees activities in education, career development, and outreach and engagement.

Marianna Koval, Director of Invest NYC SDG Initiative

Marianna Koval is the Director of the Invest NYC SDG Initiative at the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business, where she manages a team engaging in the private sector to drive financing toward creating a more sustainable, inclusive and resilient New York City. Using the UN SDGs as a guiding framework, the team is developing investable projects to advance NYC’s sustainability goals in waste, food and health, climate resilience, renewable energy, the built environment, and sustainable mobility.

Randi Kronthal-Sacco, Senior Scholar of Marketing & Corporate Outreach

Randi Kronthal-Sacco (Stern ‘83) is a Senior Scholar of Marketing and Corporate Outreach at the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business. Ms. Kronthal-Sacco leads CSB’s research in the areas of marketing and brands including the Sustainability Market Share Index™ and is responsible for corporate outreach.

Maggie Paruta, Administrative Aide

Maggie Paruta (Stern '20) is the Administrative Aide at the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business, where she researches, prioritizes, and follows up on issues and concerns and supports the CSB team on internal and external projects and engagements.

Rithu Raman, Research Associate

Rithu Raman (Stern '13) is a Research Associate within the Corporate Research & Engagement team at the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business where she manages and executes ROSI collaborations with companies across a variety of industries.

Sophie Rifkin, Director of Corporate Research & Engagement

Sophie Rifkin is the Director of Corporate Outreach and Engagement at the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business, where she oversees our ROSI methodology research partnerships with companies. Sophie also is an adjunct professor at NYU Stern, teaching coursework in sustainability strategy.

Tracy Van Holt, Research Associate Professor

Tracy Van Holt is a Research Associate Professor at the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business, where her research focuses on identifying social-environmental connections to design equitable, sustainable, and profitable business strategies and examines how companies are working to solve sustainability and wellbeing challenges.

Center for Sustainable Business | Our Team

Meet the Team