About

My role as Community Lead enables me to apply my extensive background to support the programmatic vision for the lab. Before joining the Lab, my experience working in international settings with NGOs and policy think tanks allowed me to envision programming that builds supportive environments for marginalized communities. With this motivation of working with local communities, I worked with Heartland Alliance, a human rights organization in Chicago, to provide direct services to shelter members. This role allowed me to work in a multi-faceted role to improve our internal standard operating procedures and increase our partnerships for our members' needs. I look forward to contributing to the Lab’s focus on creating ripples of change in eradicating climate change. I received my B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University. I currently reside in Long Beach, CA.

I am climate campaign activist and organizer, with nearly two decades of leadership experience building digital campaigns and convening communities of practice in the climate advocacy space for the purpose of coordinating and sharing knowledge. I live in the Texas Gulf Coast, where I have a front row seat to the impacts of our rapidly changing climate on our environment, and on the imbalance of economic and racial justice in our most vulnerable and under resourced communities. I believe the work of the Lab is critical to building the capacity we need to be successful in our fight for the climate, and am proud to serve as Co-Director of the Lab. I also serve on the board of directors of Climate Access, and In Our Back Yards (ioby). I’m a graduate of American University in Washington DC, and am an elected representative serving as City Councilman and Mayor Pro Tem of my small community on the outskirts of Houston.

I am a movement builder, community organizer, trainer, facilitator, and Licensed Clinical Social Worker Candidate living in San Francisco, Bay Area. A proud alum of the University of California, Davis, and Sciences Po, Paris. I am currently attaining my Master's Degree in Clinical Social Work from the University of Southern, California. Since 2009, I've been an organizer, facilitator, and trainer for over 8 years. Led and directed climate justice programs that advocate and mobilize frontline communities around equitable solutions to the climate crisis. Trained over 3,000 activists on justice and equity issues, organizational change, and strategic design. I specialize in the training curriculum, facilitation, organizing, justice, and equity training. In my spare time, you can catch me traveling the world, and cooking amazing meals.

As Co-Director I oversee all of the Lab's programmatic offerings as well as lead our organizational learning and evaluation work. Prior to joining the Lab team in 2015, I spent 6 years organizing on local and state-level climate and energy campaigns with the North Carolina Sierra Club and Union of Concerned Scientists. I'm currently based on Durham, NC where I am Board member for the Durham People's Alliance. Outside of climate advocacy, I spend a lot of time walking in the woods with my dog, tending to my houseplants/garden, reading novels with a strong cup of coffee, and dreaming about my next scuba diving trip.

I'm an impact-driven public health professional and environmental justice leader motivated to mitigate health, racial, and environmental inequities in Black and Brown communities. I'm the founder of Girl Plus Environment, a national non-profit organization designed to educate, engage, and empower Black and Brown girls, women, and non-binary individuals to stand up for environmental justice in their own neighborhoods. As a Detroit native, I've spent more than six years at the forefront of environmental justice. My strong dedication to the sector has earned my the William H. Sterner Memorial Award (2017), the Elmore Manufacturing Award (2018), as well as the New Horizons in Conservation Award (2021). I've led many environmental and health initiatives for cities and organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Bloomberg Associates, WaterAid International, and Greenlink Analytics. I hold a MPH in Global Health in Community Health and Development from the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University and undergraduate degree in Environmental Policy and Analysis from Bowling Green State University.

I am a climate justice organizer and movement builder dedicated to training, resourcing, and coaching youth climate organizers to scale up local movement networks. I attended Iowa State University to receive my double Bachelor's of Science in Animal Ecology and Environmental Studies and kept busy in my free time running a campaign pushing the university to close its on-campus coal plant and transition to 100% renewable electricity by 2030. Through my work as a youth climate organizer and the many important relationships of support I built through our work, I was inspired to continue working with young people to build up the youth climate movement and broader justice movement. I am dedicated to building organizer trainings, writing campaign-specific resources, and cultivating 1:1 coaching relationships with grassroots organizers and their local groups on the ground leading the fight against fossil fuels. In my free time, I love spending time at the park, hiking, and tending to my many houseplants. I currently live in so-called Denver, Colorado on occupied Ute, Arapahoe, and Cheyanne land.

I help to produce and manage the Climate Advocacy Lab's social science resources for its webinars, workshops, and website. I also oversee half of the Lab’s research programs, which involves designing, tracking, and analyzing a range of experimental and non-experimental projects with advocate collaborators. I work at the Lab to help the climate community build deeper, more inclusive, and more effective relationships centered around mutual learning. My research interests revolve around how people think about climate change, how they process information on the issue, and what gets in the way. Prior to joining the Lab, I worked as a postdoctoral associate in energy policy and survey methods at Duke University. I received a B.S. in Society & Environment from UC Berkeley and a Ph.D. in Environmental Politics from Duke University. I live in Durham, NC.

My research interests include persuasion, behavior change, statistical methods, and message design. My doctoral work investigates the role of hope in encouraging engagement with global warming, analyzing survey and experiment data. My research has also addressed the influence of political identity and values in global warming beliefs, and the effects of news coverage, social identity framing, and past behavior on attitudes and further behavior. In addition to a background in the environmental advocacy community, I have worked as a research consultant with the National Wildlife Federation, National Park Service, and the Environmental Protection Agency. I received a master’s degree in Communication from the University of Washington and a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Chicago.

I am entering the Climate Advocacy Lab to learn, connect, and develop relationships in the face of climate disaster and environmental injustice. I also engage with Uplift, a regional environmental justice organization in the Southwest where I work with finance and fundraising coordination. I am excited about decentralized and autonomous organizing, transnational Indigenous solidarity, and caring for ourselves throughout the climate crisis and a global pandemic. I am of mixed white settler descent and of the Maya Mam peoples of western Guatemala currently reside in the Southwest Region.

As an organizer and trainer, the approach I bring to my work blends participant-centered education, body-based wisdom, and lessons from working with a diversity of political campaigns, leaders, and community-based organizations. Having dedicated the last 8+ years to the climate justice movement, I am committed to building effective, healthy teams and sharp strategies that allow us to win bold solutions at the scale of the crisis. As the Community & Partnerships Manager, I cultivate relationships across the movement and look for opportunities to build shared learning, alignment, and power. Prior to the Lab, I served as the Statewide Organizing and Training Director at MN350 and co-led a national network of students that took on the fossil fuel industry by pushing colleges and universities to stop investing in coal, oil, and gas. I currently live in Minneapolis, MN. Two big joys in my life revolve around the kitchen: cooking nourishing foods and learning all about my family foods from Thailand, China, Laos and Vietnam.

I'm a people-centered environmentalist with a strong justice lens working towards a vision of resilient and regenerative communities in a climate-stable world. As the Lab's Program Manager, I oversee key areas of the Lab’s strategic program work including co-leading the Climate and Health Peer Learning Cohort, formalizing and bottom-lining the Insights program, driving the Lab’s weekly newsletter, and managing the Climate Justice Microgrants Program, granting to environmental and climate justice organizations to capture case studies documenting campaign wins and lessons learned. I hold a bachelor's degree in Biology of Global Health from Georgetown University and a Climate Change and Health Certificate from the Yale School of Public Health and I like to bring mindfulness, compassion, principled practice and integrity to my work and to my relationships.