Drummer and Water Conservation Administrator

Deb Lane has been playing the drums for most of her life. Formerly a member of the Santa Cruz World Beat Band, Pele Juju, she performs with artists throughout the Bay Area and beyond. In addition to her musical endeavors, Deb is a leader in water-use efficiency and works as a Water Conservation Administrator.

Vocalist, Drummer and Teacher

Debbie Fier, a vocalist, drummer, pianist, composer, percussionist and teacher, has performed throughout the U.S. and internationally and spent years as a mentor and teacher in the Institute of Music, Health and Education. Among other areas of endeavor, Debbie teaches drumming, body percussion and rhythm to children and adults, has been the musical prayer leader at Kehilla Community Synagogue for 20 years, is a sound therapy practitioner, and is a member of the Piano Technicians Guild. Her original compositions are available on four recordings — In Your Hands, Firelight, Coming Home and most recently: Waterways.

Founder | International Cultural Arts and Healing Sciences Institute

Amikaeyla, founder of the International Cultural Arts and Healing Sciences Institute, is an educator, author and award-winning singer/performer who has served as a Cultural Arts Ambassador for the State Department working on inter-cultural literacy and restorative justice programs with political refugees, war survivors, and at-risk populations worldwide. She has also studied the healing effects of music with many traditional healers and cultural artists and was invited by HH the Dalai Lama to sing at the commemorative Golden Buddha performance in India.

CEO and Co-Founder | Bioneers

Kenny Ausubel, CEO and co-founder (in 1990) of Bioneers, is an award-winning social entrepreneur, journalist, author and filmmaker. Co-founder and first CEO of the organic seed company, Seeds of Change, his film (and companion book) Hoxsey: When Healing Becomes a Crime helped influence national alternative medicine policy. He has edited several books and written four, including, most recently, Dreaming the Future: Reimagining Civilization in the Age of Nature.

Co-Founder and Chief Relationship Strategist | Bioneers

Nina Simons, co-founder of Bioneers and its Chief Relationship Strategist is also co-founder of Women Bridging Worlds and Connecting Women Leading Change. She co-edited the anthology book, Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart, and most recently wrote Nature, Culture & The Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership. An award-winning social entrepreneur, Nina teaches and speaks internationally, and previously served as President of Seeds of Change and Director of Strategic Marketing for Odwalla.

Co-Founder and Lead Organizer | Sogorea Te’ Land Trust

Corrina Gould, born and raised in the village of Huichin (now known as Oakland CA), is the Tribal Chair for the Confederated Villages of Lisjan Nation and co-founded and is the Lead Organizer for Indian People Organizing for Change, a small Native-run organization; as well as of the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, an urban Indigenous women-led organization within her ancestral territory. Through the practices of “rematriation,” cultural revitalization and land restoration, the Land Trust calls on Native and non-Native peoples to heal and transform legacies of colonization and genocide and to do the work our ancestors and future generations are calling us to do.

Co-Founder and Chief Relationship Strategist | Bioneers

Nina Simons, co-founder of Bioneers and its Chief Relationship Strategist is also co-founder of Women Bridging Worlds and Connecting Women Leading Change. She co-edited the anthology book, Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart, and most recently wrote Nature, Culture & The Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership. An award-winning social entrepreneur, Nina teaches and speaks internationally, and previously served as President of Seeds of Change and Director of Strategic Marketing for Odwalla.

CEO and Co-Founder | Bioneers

Kenny Ausubel, CEO and co-founder (in 1990) of Bioneers, is an award-winning social entrepreneur, journalist, author and filmmaker. Co-founder and first CEO of the organic seed company, Seeds of Change, his film (and companion book) Hoxsey: When Healing Becomes a Crime helped influence national alternative medicine policy. He has edited several books and written four, including, most recently, Dreaming the Future: Reimagining Civilization in the Age of Nature.

Co-Founder | The Biomimicry Institute

Janine Benyus, a winner of countless prestigious awards, world-renowned biologist, thought leader, innovation consultant and author of six books, including 1997’s foundational text, Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, is widely considered the “godmother of Biomimicry.” In 1998, she co-founded the Biomimicry Guild, which morphed into Biomimicry 3.8, a B-Corp social enterprise providing biomimicry consulting services to a slew of major firms and institutions. In 2006, Janine co-founded The Biomimicry Institute, a non-profit institute to embed biomimicry in formal education, and over 11,000 members are now part of the Biomimicry Global Network. Among various other roles, Janine serves on the board of the U.S. Green Building Council, the advisory board for the Ray C. Anderson Foundation, the advisory board for Project Drawdown and as an affiliate faculty member at The Biomimicry Center at Arizona State University.

Co-Founder and Chief Relationship Strategist | Bioneers

Nina Simons, co-founder of Bioneers and its Chief Relationship Strategist is also co-founder of Women Bridging Worlds and Connecting Women Leading Change. She co-edited the anthology book, Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart, and most recently wrote Nature, Culture & The Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership. An award-winning social entrepreneur, Nina teaches and speaks internationally, and previously served as President of Seeds of Change and Director of Strategic Marketing for Odwalla.

Executive Director | Spirit Aligned Leadership Program

Tekatsi:tsia’kwa Katsi Cook (Wolf Clan member of the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation), an Onkwehonweh traditional midwife, lifelong advocate of Indigenous midwifery and Native women’s health throughout the life-cycle (drawing from the longhouse traditionalist teaching that “woman Is the first environment”), is Executive Director of the Spirit Aligned Leadership Program. Her work over many decades has spanned a range of worlds and disciplines at the intersections of environmental reproductive health and justice, research, and policy. Katsi’s groundbreaking environmental research of Mohawk mother’s milk revealed the intergenerational impact of industrial chemicals on the health of her community, and she is a major figure in a movement of matrilineal awareness and “rematriation” in Native life.

Internationally Touring Folk Ensemble

Rising Appalachia, the brainchild of Atlanta-raised sisters Leah Song and Chloe Smith, rooted in the rich musical traditions of their family and region, is an internationally touring folk ensemble with a passionate global following. Eschewing industry norms, they have independently forged their own exemplary, deeply ethical, value-driven path for 16 years, producing seven albums and conducting tours around the world while simultaneously immersing themselves in community-building, cultural exchange programs, and music gathering and sharing everywhere they go. Their most recent album (their first of carefully curated cover songs) is: Folk & Anchor.

Climate Action Fellow | Student Environmental Resource Center

Shreya Chaudhuri, a senior at UC Berkeley, majoring in Environmental Science and Geography with minors in Global Poverty & Practice and Data Science, runs Project Planet, a nonprofit for decolonial environmental education, including teaching the class Decolonizing Environmentalism at Berkeley that she created. As a Climate Action Fellow at the Student Environmental Resource Center and UC Office of the President, Shreya advances equity in UC Climate Policy and leads the Decolonial Environmental Network on campus. She is also on the council for the Students of Color Environmental Collective, and, for her senior thesis, Shreya studied Indigenous ecological knowledge and climate resilience on her family’s ancestral tea farm in India.

Chief Operating Officer & Philanthropic Lead | One Small Planet

Bradley Smith, an environmental scientist by training and community bridge-builder and facilitator by experience, is the Chief Operating Officer & Philanthropic Lead at One Small Planet. He has worked on climate and resilience issues at the local government level, international outdoor and traditional education, and operating his own business as a death doula for a decade, and is now focusing his efforts on resourcing a “movement of movements.”

Artist and Land Conservationist

Haley Mellin, PhD, is an artist focusing on painting and land conservation. In 2017, she founded Art into Acres, a non-profit supporting permanent land conservation on behalf of the arts. Indigenous-led and community-led protected areas are the focus, and the initiative has supported the designation of about 70 million acres of new protection. Haley initiated the first environmental council and carbon emissions calculations at U.S. art museums, and juried the inaugural National Endowment for the Humanities climate grants. She is the co-author of Conservation Imperatives published last year in Frontiers. Her painting is observational and done outdoors. Haley advocates for environmental justice for all life, and was mentored by Dr. Thomas Lovejoy, Chandra Pai and the South African artists rosenclaire.

Executive Director | For Freedoms & Center for Justice at UCLA

Claudia Peña, Executive Director of For Freedoms, an artist collective that centers art and creativity as a catalyst for transformative connection and collective liberation, serves on the faculty at UCLA School of Law and in that school’s Gender Studies Department. She is also the founding Co-Director of the Center for Justice at UCLA, home of the Prison Education Program, which creates innovative courses that enable faculty and students to learn from and alongside currently incarcerated participants. Claudia has devoted her life to justice work through community organizing, transformative and restorative justice, consciousness-raising across silos, coalition-building, teaching, advocacy through law and policy, and the arts.

Writer, Producer, Proud Earthling

Baratunde Thurston, a writer, communicator and Emmy-nominated host and Executive Producer of the PBS TV series America Outdoors, and creator and host of the How To Citizen podcast, is also a founding partner and writer at Puck. His newest creation is Life With Machines, a YouTube podcast focusing on the human side of the A.I. revolution. Author of the bestselling comedic memoir, How To Be Black, Baratunde also serves on the boards of Civics Unplugged and the Brooklyn Public Library and lives in Southern California. (baratunde.com)

Researcher, Writer and Workshop Leader

Shilpa Jain, a researcher, writer and workshop leader on topics including globalization, creativity, ecology, democratic living and innovative learning, has facilitated dozens of transformative leadership gatherings around the world and worked with hundreds of young leaders from 50+ countries. Her past positions include: Executive Director of YES! (for 11 years); Education and Outreach Coordinator of Other Worlds; and learning activist with Shikshantar: The Peoples’ Institute for Rethinking Education and Development in Udaipur, India.

Lawyer, Journalist and Author

Claire Hope Cummings is a lawyer, journalist, and author of Uncertain Peril, an award-winning critique of biotechnology and a vision for the future of food and farming. Her work has been widely featured in print, films, public radio and television, and, as a lawyer, she has represented a number of traditional Indigenous groups in defense of their sacred places. Her current work focuses on the complex relationships among natural and cultural systems and spirituality.

Host | Tech Won't Save Us podcast

Paris Marx, a tech critic and host of the “Tech Won’t Save Us” podcast, also writes the Disconnect newsletter and is the author of Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation. His work has been translated into more than a dozen languages, and he speaks internationally about the politics of technology.

Co-Founder | Tech Critics Network

Koohan Paik-Mander, a journalist, author and peace and environmental activist, is a co-founder of the Tech Critics Network and serves on the board of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. Her articles appear in The Nation, The Progressive, Foreign Policy in Focus, and other publications. Her article “Whales Will Save the World’s Climate — Unless the Military Destroys Them First” was named by Project Censored as one of the top 25 censored stories of 2021-2022. She is also co-author of The Superferry Chronicles: Hawaii’s Uprising Against Militarism, Commercialism and the Desecration of the Earth.

Program Manager | ETC Group

Soledad Vogliano is an Argentina-based Program Manager at the ETC Group, a small international research and action collective committed to social and environmental justice, human rights and the defense of the web of life. For the last 4 years, she has been developing ETC’s program on Digitalization, coordinating capacity building and strategic outreach locally and internationally. Before ETC, Soledad worked for years with Ecuadorian Indigenous and peasant movements on the defense of territories, biodiversity and rights. Also passionate about agroecological education, she has developed several initiatives for local food production and community-led communications.

Development Manager | Biomimicry Institute

Kat Sitnikova is Development Manager at the Biomimicry Institute, where she engages that organization’s supporters in advancing nature-inspired solutions to our most pressing environmental challenges. She is also an organizer and facilitator working at the intersection of self-awareness, community connection and nature-centric design who lives in a land-based intentional community rooted in cooperative living, shared decision-making, authentic relating, and holistic land stewardship.

Chief Editor | Biomimicry Institute

Andrew Howley, Chief Editor for the Biomimicry Institute, works to connect scientists, innovators, and conservationists with the public as well as to make the vast collection of materials from the Biomimicry Institute on AskNature.org (an ever-growing body of stories of life’s innovations and adaptations) widely available to inspire and guide sustainable innovation. Previously, Andrew spent 11 years at the National Geographic Society, connecting audiences with explorers and grantees through websites, blogs, social media, live-streamed interviews, and events; and he developed online content at America Online in the late '90s.

Technical Manager | The AskNature Hive at the Biomimicry Institute

Lily Urmann, a naturalist and educator, is a Visiting Instructor at Pratt Institute where she teaches "Biology for Biomimicry,” the host of the podcast "Learning from Nature," and the Technical Manager of the AskNature Hive at the Biomimicry Institute. Her previous positions include: Commons Director at Biomimicry Frontiers; Director of Denver Programs for The Kiva Center; and Program Coordinator at the ASU Biomimicry Center. She has also led workshops at the Natural History Institute, the Desert Botanical Garden, the Highland Center for Natural History, the California and American Horticultural Society, and Girls Exploring Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (GESTEM).

AskNature Program Director | Biomimicry Institute

Camilo Garzón, the AskNature Program Director at the Biomimicry Institute, leads its platform, program, and publication efforts to expand access to nature-inspired innovation. A writer, editor, filmmaker, multimedia producer, interdisciplinary artist, and award-winning poet, he works in a wide range of disciplines and media, including science storytelling on such varied topics as: culinary biodiversity; leaf-cutter ants; the decolonization of space exploration; and Colombian volcanology, paleontology, and Indigenous hydraulic systems. Camilo has collaborated with many organizations, including: SFMOMA, Scientific American, NPR, and the National Geographic Society. He is also the founder and Creative Director of Cuentero Productions.

Executive Director | Amazon Watch

Leila Salazar-López has worked for 25+ years to defend the world’s rainforests, human rights and climate through grassroots organizing and international advocacy campaigns. She has been the Executive Director of Amazon Watch since 2015, leading that organization’s work to protect and defend the bio-cultural and climate integrity of the Amazon rainforest in solidarity with Indigenous and forest peoples.

Founder and CEO | Mongabay

Rhett Ayers Butler is the founder and CEO of Mongabay, a non-profit news organization that covers issues at the intersection of people and nature via a network of about 1,000 journalists in more than 80 countries. Beyond Mongabay, Rhett has advised a range of organizations and institutions, while his writing and photography have appeared in hundreds of publications. Rhett's work has been recognized with the Heinz Award and the Parker/Gentry Award, among other honors.

Director | The Borneo Project

Jettie Word has dedicated her career to empowering rural communities globally, advocating for environmental justice and addressing threats to livelihoods and resources. Since 2014, she has led The Borneo Project, which works to advance Indigenous managed forest protection in Sarawak. Previously, she worked with the Oakland Institute, supporting community-driven land rights campaigns in Papua New Guinea and Senegal. She began her journey in social justice at a community education program in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

Executive Director | Rainforest Action Network

Ginger Cassady, Executive Director of Rainforest Action Network (RAN) and board member of Amazon Frontlines, has, for more than 25 years, been a leader at the intersection of environmental and social justice, leading global campaigns to hold some of the world’s largest corporations and financial institutions accountable for their impact on communities, human rights and our planet. Her vision and drive have scaled innovative philanthropic initiatives — such as RAN’s Community Action Grants, providing core funding for Indigenous and frontline communities — to create transformational, systemic positive social change.

Founder | Catharsis Holistic Healing

Ashira Darwish, who began her career as a journalist in Palestine and then worked for 15 years as TV and Radio journalist and researcher for the BBC, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, is the founder of Catharsis Holistic Healing, a trauma therapy project in Palestine, which uses the Ashira Active Meditation approach that she pioneered to help people suffering from continuous trauma. Her personal journey of healing from full body paralysis with a severed spinal cord in 2012 has given her a deep insight into the process of recovery, allowing her to offer a highly specialized and culturally sensitive approach to trauma healing.

Founder | Santa Cruz Permaculture and the UCSC Right Livelihood College

David Shaw, a whole systems designer, facilitator, educator, and musician, founded Santa Cruz Permaculture and the UCSC Right Livelihood College, a partnership with the “Alternative Nobel Prize.” He supports communities locally and globally to transform their shared future through strategic dialogue and collective action.

Program Manager | Chapter 510

Jahan Khalighi, a spoken word poet, youth educator and community arts organizer, leads creative writing workshops for personal and collective transformation in a wide range of settings, from juvenile detention centers to classrooms, from community centers to boardrooms. He currently manages programs at Chapter 510, a youth creative writing and publishing program in Oakland, CA. Jahan has performed widely, including at: TEDxSonoma, YBCA, Mission Cultural Center, Bioneers and Esalen; and some of his work has been published in Whoa Nelly Press.

Member Chief | Onondaga Council of Chiefs

Oren Lyons, a Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan who serves as a Member Chief of the Onondaga Council of Chiefs and the Grand Council of the Iroquois Confederacy (i.e. the Haudenosaunee peoples), is an accomplished artist, social and environmental activist, and author; a Professor Emeritus at SUNY Buffalo; a leading voice at the UN Permanent Forum on Human Rights for Indigenous Peoples; and the recipient of many prestigious national and international prizes including The UN NGO World Peace Prize. Oren also serves on the boards of several major nonprofit organizations and social enterprises; is founder and Principal of One Bowl Productions, a purpose driven film and TV production company; and is an All-American Lacrosse Hall of Famer and Honorary Chairman of the Iroquois Nationals Lacrosse Team.

Writer, Producer, Proud Earthling

Baratunde Thurston, a writer, communicator and Emmy-nominated host and Executive Producer of the PBS TV series America Outdoors, and creator and host of the How To Citizen podcast, is also a founding partner and writer at Puck. His newest creation is Life With Machines, a YouTube podcast focusing on the human side of the A.I. revolution. Author of the bestselling comedic memoir, How To Be Black, Baratunde also serves on the boards of Civics Unplugged and the Brooklyn Public Library and lives in Southern California. (baratunde.com)

Author and Activist

Jose Barreiro (Hatuey), an author and activist, is a Taino elder and a journalist who has covered Indian Country issues and themes for four decades. Among many other achievements, Barreiro directed several major multi-year exhibitions at the Smithsonian-National Museum of the American Indian between 2006 and 2017, including: "Taino: Native Heritage and Identity in the Caribbean," and “The Great Inka Road: Engineering an Empire." A resident of Akwesasne Mohawk Nation, Barreiro retired from the Smithsonian Institution, as a Scholar Emeritus, in 2017, but serves as an advisor to several Indigenous community projects in Guatemala, Cuba and Peru.

Senior Director, Restorative Justice | Equal Justice USA

Cymone Fuller, who began her career as a community organizer and spent many years focused on systemic reforms in the youth criminal justice legal system, currently serves as the Senior Director of Restorative Justice at Equal Justice USA, where she supports the spread of community-held restorative justice diversion initiatives across the country.

Executive Director | Louisiana Center for Children's Rights

Kristen Rome, JD, a Louisiana-based attorney, doula, and writer, currently serves as Executive Director of the Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights, a client-centered nonprofit law office that represents youth in the juvenile and criminal legal systems. A proud native of New Orleans and a graduate of Spelman College in Atlanta, Kristen received her Juris Doctor from Loyola University of New Orleans’ College of Law. (lakidsrights.org)

Transformative Healing & Restorative Justice Manager | Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth (CFSY)

Kempis ‘Ghani’ Songster who spent 30 years in prison starting at age 15, is the Transformative Healing & Restorative Justice Manager for the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth (CFSY), which seeks to: “Catalyze the just and equitable treatment of children in the United States by demanding a ban on life without parole and other extreme sentences for children…and create opportunities for formerly incarcerated youth to thrive as adults and lead in their communities.” A founding member of Right to Redemption, the Redemption Project, and the Coalition to Abolish Death by Incarceration (CADBI), as well as a co-founder and director of Ubuntu Philadelphia, Ghani has emerged, since his release in 2017, as an outspoken voice in Philadelphia’s movement to create transformative, restorative responses to harm and violence, including as leader of Philadelphia’s first Restorative Justice Diversion program for youth, Healing Futures.

Internationally Touring Folk Ensemble

Rising Appalachia, the brainchild of Atlanta-raised sisters Leah Song and Chloe Smith, rooted in the rich musical traditions of their family and region, is an internationally touring folk ensemble with a passionate global following. Eschewing industry norms, they have independently forged their own exemplary, deeply ethical, value-driven path for 16 years, producing seven albums and conducting tours around the world while simultaneously immersing themselves in community-building, cultural exchange programs, and music gathering and sharing everywhere they go. Their most recent album (their first of carefully curated cover songs) is: Folk & Anchor.

Researcher, Writer and Workshop Leader

Shilpa Jain, a researcher, writer and workshop leader on topics including globalization, creativity, ecology, democratic living and innovative learning, has facilitated dozens of transformative leadership gatherings around the world and worked with hundreds of young leaders from 50+ countries. Her past positions include: Executive Director of YES! (for 11 years); Education and Outreach Coordinator of Other Worlds; and learning activist with Shikshantar: The Peoples’ Institute for Rethinking Education and Development in Udaipur, India.

Executive Director and Director of Policy | Carbon Cycle Institute

Torri Estrada, who has worked to advance solutions to social and environmental justice, climate, and environmental issues for 30+ years, is the Executive Director at the Carbon Cycle Institute, where he directs its policy and climate justice work. Torri’s previous roles include: Program Director at the Marin Community Foundation; Program Officer at the Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program; co-founder and a Senior Policy Fellow with the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water; and Program Director at Urban Habitat.

CEO | The Climate Center

Ellie Cohen, a longtime, award-winning leader in catalyzing cross-boundary, collaborative, and just responses to the climate crisis, is CEO of The Climate Center and oversees the collaborative Climate-Safe California campaign which seeks to achieve state-wide net-negative emissions as soon as possible. Before joining The Climate Center, Ellie served for 20 years as President and CEO of Point Blue Conservation Science where she and the organization’s 160 scientists developed climate-smart conservation solutions for wildlife and people.

Senior Environmental Scientist | California Natural Resources Agency

Clesi Bennett, an Environmental Program Manager working on climate change issues at the California Natural Resources Agency, manages that agency’s nature-based solutions portfolio, including its Climate Targets and Climate Smart Lands strategies. Clesi, who has been with the agency since 2017 working on issues related to climate change, coastal zone management, environmental justice, and outdoor access, previously worked on coastal resilience, sustainable agriculture, and energy in the non-profit and academic sectors.

Director of Government Affairs | The Trust for Public Land

Juan Altamirano, the Director of Government Affairs for the Trust for Public Land, oversees that organization’s policies that enhance public access to land and parks and works to forge partnerships with government agencies and stakeholders to advance initiatives that protect and expand public spaces. His extensive background in public policy and his passion for conservation have driven a number of successful campaigns across various levels of government.

Wildchoir’s purpose is to invoke the power of music to activate humanity towards radical love and action - from the stage to the streets. Grounded in a commitment to social justice, ecological regeneration, and healing for all beings, Wildchoir’s music illuminates the joy, pain, and beauty of what it means to be human.

Writer and Community Activist

Anneke Campbell, a writer and community activist who has worked as a midwife, nurse, English professor, yoga teacher and death educator, co-authored (with Thomas Linzey): We The People: Stories from the Community Rights Movement in the U.S. and edited Nina Simons' book, Nature, Culture and the Sacred: One Woman Listens for Leadership. Anneke also publishes essays and articles and writes and co-produces the Bioneers newsletter: Leading From The Feminine: Weaving The World Anew and has facilitated grief sessions at the conference for the past 5 years.

Executive Assistant | Bioneers

Asha Kohli, a life coach, movement artist, and practitioner of herbal medicine with ancestral lineages in the Andes and India, facilitates grief circles, embodiment immersions, and communal rituals. She is the founder of Kohlibri Creative, a healing arts project that weaves artistry and ancient ways to guide others in their journey of self-healing and empowerment through artistic expression and earth-based rituals.

Public Health and Lifestyle Medicine Professional

Nisha Arcadia Shah, MDiv, MPH, RDN, a public health and lifestyle medicine professional, social movement and eco-chaplain, literary activist, and doctoral student in transformative studies, works on projects supporting literary, health, and social change initiatives and specializes in lifestyle research. She is also an avid land walker, backyard farmer, voracious reader, nature lover, and library volunteer.

Co-Founder | Tree-Range Farms

Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin, co-founder and CEO of Tree-Range® Farms, a pioneer of the “Poultry-Centered Regenerative Agriculture System,” founder of the Regenerative Agriculture Alliance, and owner of Salvatierra Farms LLC, a 63-acre regenerative poultry farm in Northfield, MN, is an award-winning agroecology innovator who began working on economic development in Guatemala in 1988, then moved to the US and founded Peace Coffee, a Minnesota-based fair-trade coffee company, in 1995.

Artist

Carrie Ziegler, an international artist and leader in collaborative art initiatives, seeks to harness the collective power of art to drive social and environmental transformation. Through her Art in Action initiatives, she collaborates with local governments, organizations, and educational institutions to create multi-dimensional works that blend participant creativity with pressing societal issues, inspiring active engagement to bring communities together to create lasting change. The Chrysalis Project, now a global initiative, initially contributed to the passing of the Thurston County, WA, Climate Mitigation Plan, and the Plastic Whale Project played a pivotal role in the successful passing of a local ban on single-use plastic bags.

Founder | Biohabitats

Keith Bowers, FASLA, PLA, a landscape architect and restoration ecologist, is the founder of Biohabitats, a multidisciplinary organization with a mission to restore the Earth and inspire ecological stewardship through cutting-edge nature-based, regenerative design, operating at the crossroads of biodiversity conservation, climate adaptation, regenerative water strategies, and environmental justice.  Keith’s relentless advocacy for wild nature also led him to recently establish Biohabitats Purpose Trust, a non-charitable perpetual purpose trust with the explicit purpose of ‘restoring nature, protecting and conserving biodiversity, and inspiring love for wild places.’

President | Bioneers

Teo Grossman, President of Bioneers, previously worked on a range of projects from federal range management to state-level assessments of long-range planning to applied research on topics including climate change adaptation, ecosystem services, biodiversity, and ecological networks. A Doris Duke Conservation Fellow during graduate school, Teo holds an MS in Environmental Science & Management from UC-Santa Barbara.

Director of Sustainability and Strategic Sourcing | TCHO Chocolate

Laura Ann Sweitzer, who grew up on a farm in the Midwest and is passionate about sustainability, equity, and flavor in food, is Director of Sustainability and Strategic Sourcing at TCHO Chocolate, a Berkeley-headquartered Fair Trade, B Corp certified company, where she manages “TCHO Source,” the firm’s unique program for addressing challenges in the cocoa supply chain, working directly with farmers, cooperatives and scientists in Africa and South America. Prior to joining TCHO in 2014, Sweitzer spent 5 years working on coffee quality improvement projects in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

Founder | The Chocolate Rebellion

Gillian Goddard, a community organizer and chocolate-maker, founded the Alliance of Rural Communities, a non-profit focused on “circular economy” principles, regenerative farming, and sustainable rural livelihood creation, in 2014. In 2021, she founded the Cross Atlantic Chocolate Collective, which unites farming communities from Africa, the Caribbean, North America, the UK and Europe. Goddard’s work seeks not only to enhance the wellbeing of rural populations, but to explore complex issues around power, decolonization and emancipation in grassroots, commercial, and academic spaces.

Restorative Food Systems Director | Bioneers

Arty Mangan, Director of the Bioneers Restorative Food Systems program, worked as farm worker and local food entrepreneur. He has also worked with Indigenous farmers growing traditional crops and with Black farmers developing ecological agricultural trainings. His current focus is on the intersection of climate and regenerative agriculture. Mangan is a former board president of the Ecological Farming Association.

Rights of Nature Project Coordinator | Bioneers

Britt Gondolfi, JD (Houma Descendant), a community organizer and mother, has worked with the Bioneers Indigeneity Program since 2017 as a facilitator for the Intercultural Conversation Program. She joined the Bioneers Rights of Nature initiative as an intern while in law school and subsequently as a Special Projects Coordinator to bring together tribal organizers, youth, and allies to advocate for the “Rights of Nature” in Indian Country. Britt, who recently ran for State Senate in Louisiana on a women’s rights platform, is the author of the children’s book, “Look Up! Fontaine the Pigeon Starts a Revolution.”

Events and Gatherings Producer | Children of the Setting Sun Productions

Squi-le-he-le (aka Raynell Morris), a Lhaq’temish matriarch and enrolled Lummi tribal member, is the Events and Gatherings Producer at Children of the Setting Sun Productions and a board member of the Friends of Toki. A former Vice-President of the Sacred Lands Conservancy and Associate Director of Intergovernmental Affairs under President Clinton, Raynell was the first Native American staffer appointed to the White House. She also served as Chief of Staff for the Chairman of the Lummi Nation, and, as Director of Lummi Nation’s Sovereignty and Treaty Protection Office, she was a key strategist in the successful campaign to block a proposal to build North America’s largest coal port terminal on Lhaq’temish (Lummi) sacred ground. Her work for Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut (Toki/Tokitae), the famed orca, and to save her home waters, the Salish Sea, is the subject of the film, Resident Orca, being shown at Bioneers this year.

Law Clerk | Native Law Group

Juliette Jackson, J.D., LLM, an enrolled member of the Klamath Tribes, Law Clerk at Patterson Real Bird & Wilson LLP, Native Law Group, a firm focused exclusively on federal Indian and tribal law, has, over the course of her career, worked on public health policy and tribal environmental justice at several non-profits and government agencies, including a clerkship with the U.S. EPA Honors Law Clerk Program, where she drafted the section on Traditional Ecological Knowledge in a proposed national policy on sustainability. Juliette has also guest lectured at George Washington University Law School, Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law, University of Cuenca in Ecuador, and the Bioneers online course, Indigenizing the Law: Tribal Sovereignty and the Rights of Nature.

Co-Founder | Quiet

Sol Guy, an award-winning producer and director whose career in filmmaking, music, community-building, and support of artists seeks to demonstrate the power of art to heal and to catalyze social change, is the co-founder of Quiet, an artist-led community seeking a new approach to creative practice and support anchored in value alignment, artistic sovereignty, spiritual well-being, and reciprocity. Honored by National Geographic as an “Emerging Explorer,” Sol most recently directed the documentary about his family, The Death of My Two Fathers. He has also co-produced and directed a number of highly acclaimed projects in music, film, and TV, including the Oscar-nominated film Bobi Wine: The People’s President.

Founder | ReParentive Therapy

Pamela Rosin, MFT, the founder of ReParentive Therapy (an intergenerational trauma healing model), is an adjunct faculty member at the Integral Counseling Psychology Department at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) and a Certified Hakomi Therapist who utilizes experientially-based modalities and a synergy of Buddhist and Somatic psychologies to cultivate healing in her patients. In her therapy, teaching and leading of groups, Pamela draws from her extensive and varied background, which apart from her formal studies, includes professional acting, a decade as a bodyworker, and many years of teaching Shakespeare in prison.

Founder | Accelerate Resilience L.A.

Andy Lipkis, the founder of TreePeople and its President from 1973 to 2019, a renowned, groundbreaking figure in Urban and Community Forestry and Urban Watershed Management, has demonstrated how individuals, communities, and governments can collaboratively reshape urban forests, soil, and water infrastructure to create a more livable future. After retiring from TreePeople in 2019, Andy launched Accelerate Resilience L.A. to advance living infrastructure principles and climate resilience in Los Angeles.

CEO and Co-Founder | Spherical

Dawn Danby, whose life’s work has been dedicated to investigating the paradoxical roles of design and technology in supporting the integrity of Earth’s living systems, is CEO and co-founder of Spherical, an Oakland-based integrative research and design studio that has been working with Accelerate Resilience L.A. and a network of L.A. collaborators to develop the Living Infrastructure Field Kit, a freely available community-mapping and co-design platform that integrates visualization technology with community engagement to address watershed health, bioregional understanding, and climate resilience.

Co-founder and Resident Cosmographer | Spherical

David McConville, Ph.D., is co-founder of, and “Resident Cosmographer” at, Spherical, an Oakland, CA-based integrative research and design studio. Together with Accelerate Resilience L.A. and a network of L.A. collaborators, Spherical has developed the Living Infrastructure Field Kit, a freely available community mapping and co-design platform that integrates visualization technology with community engagement to address watershed health, bioregional understanding, and climate resilience.

Co-Founder | The Harry Potter Alliance

Andrew Slack is a narrative strategist and former sketch comedian whose campaigns have mobilized a number of celebrities, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, and Meryl Streep, to advance pro-democracy, climate, and Indigenous rights efforts globally. A co-founder of the Harry Potter Alliance (for which he was named an Ashoka Fellow), Andrew inspired 1 million+ fans to become first-time activists. His work has driven international action, influencing heads of state and legislative bodies to address some of the most pressing issues of our time. His videos, including Save Santa’s Home, based on a children’s book he co-authored about the climate crisis, have garnered 100 million+ views.

Co-Founder and Chief Existential Officer | The Climate Clock

Andrew Boyd, an author, humorist, and climate activist, is co-founder and CEO (Chief Existential Officer) of the Climate Clock, a global campaign that melds art, science, technology, and grassroots organizing to get the world to #ActInTime. Boyd also co-created the grief-storytelling ritual the Climate Ribbon; founded the art-activist toolbox Beautiful Trouble; and led the 2000s-era satirical campaign “Billionaires for Bush.” His most recent book is I Want a Better Catastrophe: Navigating the Climate Crisis with Grief, Hope and Gallows Humor.

Managing Director | Yellow Dot Studios

Staci Roberts-Steele is the Managing Director of Yellow Dot Studios, a non-profit media studio founded by Academy Award-winning writer, director, and producer Adam McKay that seeks to raise awareness and mobilize action on the climate emergency by creating entertaining, memorable, and scientifically accurate digital media and videos that challenge the decades of disinformation pushed by big oil. Previously Co-Producer at Hyperobject Industries, Staci has also acted in many shows including Parks and Recreation, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, 90210, and in the film Vice as well as produced numerous political and comedy videos at Funny or Die.

Woman Stands Shining

Pat McCabe, (aka “Woman Stands Shining”), of Diné ancestry, was adopted into the Lakota spiritual way of life. She is currently beginning the stewardship of a piece of land at one of the four sacred mountains of her people, as part of the “Rematriation Movement.” McCabe, a proud grandmother, has long spoken and taught widely, nationally and internationally, sharing cultural and spiritual insights.

Program Director, Bioneers Learning | Bioneers

patience kamau, born and raised in central Kenya, a self-described “peacebuilder-conservationist,” is the Program Director of the Bioneers Learning program, a new online course and connection platform for activists, innovators, and anyone seeking knowledge and tools to manifest solutions for people and planet.

Artist and Land Conservationist

Haley Mellin, PhD, is an artist focusing on painting and land conservation. In 2017, she founded Art into Acres, a non-profit supporting permanent land conservation on behalf of the arts. Indigenous-led and community-led protected areas are the focus, and the initiative has supported the designation of about 70 million acres of new protection. Haley initiated the first environmental council and carbon emissions calculations at U.S. art museums, and juried the inaugural National Endowment for the Humanities climate grants. She is the co-author of Conservation Imperatives published last year in Frontiers. Her painting is observational and done outdoors. Haley advocates for environmental justice for all life, and was mentored by Dr. Thomas Lovejoy, Chandra Pai and the South African artists rosenclaire.

Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief | Atmos

Willow Defebaugh, Brooklyn-based co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Atmos Magazine, an award-winning climate and culture media platform that tells stories about the environment through a lens of creativity, is also the author of The Overview, a deep ecology newsletter and book. A lifelong student of nature who graduated with a degree in creative writing from the University of Michigan, her work has been widely published, including in: Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Teen Vogue, V Magazine, Interview, i-D, BBC, The Guardian, them, and New York Magazine.

Performer, Educator, Folklorist, and Song-Leader

Benja Mertz, a performer, educator, public speaker, folklorist, and song-leader, is Board Chair of the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, an immigrant rights and anti-incarceration nonprofit organization. Also founder and Director of Joyful Noise! Gospel Singers in Sonoma County, Benja trained in song-leading through legendary programs such as Dr. Ysaye Barnwell's Vocal Community and Bobby McFerrin's CircleSong Schools and is part of a long tradition of writers and musicians at the forefront of social change in America.

| Weaving Earth

Sam Burris-Debosky, a farmer, carpenter, and rites-of-passage guide dedicated to imagining and building resilient, flourishing communities, co-founded and directed Village Farm at Stanley, in Aurora, Colorado, an urban farm dedicated to food-justice and education. Sam is working at this year’s Bioneers Conference as part of the Weaving Earth team to help host the Community of Mentors sessions.

| Weaving Earth

justine epstein, a guiding council (board) member and 3-year graduate of Weaving Earth and a co-facilitator for the Ancestors & Money coaching cohort, is an organizer, facilitator, rites of passage guide and naturalist dedicated to transmuting legacies and systems of ancestral harm through wealth redistribution, social justice movement organizing, ancestral healing, cultural rites of passage, embodied community, and deep ecology.

Author, Trainer, Practitioner

Kazu Haga, a trainer and practitioner of nonviolence and restorative justice who works with incarcerated people, youth, and activists from around the country and has over 25 years’ experience in nonviolence and social change work, is a core member of Building Belonging, the Ahimsa Collective, and the Fierce Vulnerability Network. Kazu is also a Jam facilitator and the author of Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm. He and his family are residents of the Canticle Farm community on Lisjan Ohlone land, Oakland, CA.

Co-Founder | The Biomimicry Institute

Janine Benyus, a winner of countless prestigious awards, world-renowned biologist, thought leader, innovation consultant and author of six books, including 1997’s foundational text, Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, is widely considered the “godmother of Biomimicry.” In 1998, she co-founded the Biomimicry Guild, which morphed into Biomimicry 3.8, a B-Corp social enterprise providing biomimicry consulting services to a slew of major firms and institutions. In 2006, Janine co-founded The Biomimicry Institute, a non-profit institute to embed biomimicry in formal education, and over 11,000 members are now part of the Biomimicry Global Network. Among various other roles, Janine serves on the board of the U.S. Green Building Council, the advisory board for the Ray C. Anderson Foundation, the advisory board for Project Drawdown and as an affiliate faculty member at The Biomimicry Center at Arizona State University.

Host | Tech Won't Save Us podcast

Paris Marx, a tech critic and host of the “Tech Won’t Save Us” podcast, also writes the Disconnect newsletter and is the author of Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation. His work has been translated into more than a dozen languages, and he speaks internationally about the politics of technology.

Co-Founder and Chief Existential Officer | The Climate Clock

Andrew Boyd, an author, humorist, and climate activist, is co-founder and CEO (Chief Existential Officer) of the Climate Clock, a global campaign that melds art, science, technology, and grassroots organizing to get the world to #ActInTime. Boyd also co-created the grief-storytelling ritual the Climate Ribbon; founded the art-activist toolbox Beautiful Trouble; and led the 2000s-era satirical campaign “Billionaires for Bush.” His most recent book is I Want a Better Catastrophe: Navigating the Climate Crisis with Grief, Hope and Gallows Humor.

Action Lead Program Manager | Narrative Initiative

Orion Camero, a queer visual storytelling educator and cultural organizer of Filipinx ancestry with roots in California’s Central Valley, is the Action Lead Program Manager for Narrative Initiative, a story-based social change organization focused on maximizing opportunities to nourish and grow narrative power, equip narrative changemakers, and bond communities to pursue long-term progress for social justice. Orion, a former Brower Youth Awards winner, Spiritual Ecology Fellow and Intercultural Leadership Institute Fellow, also stewards the California Allegory, an epic collaborative image that acts as a centerpiece for intersectional justice education and cross-movement pollination.

Founder | The Chocolate Rebellion

Gillian Goddard, a community organizer and chocolate-maker, founded the Alliance of Rural Communities, a non-profit focused on “circular economy” principles, regenerative farming, and sustainable rural livelihood creation, in 2014. In 2021, she founded the Cross Atlantic Chocolate Collective, which unites farming communities from Africa, the Caribbean, North America, the UK and Europe. Goddard’s work seeks not only to enhance the wellbeing of rural populations, but to explore complex issues around power, decolonization and emancipation in grassroots, commercial, and academic spaces.

Drummer and Water Conservation Administrator

Deb Lane has been playing the drums for most of her life. Formerly a member of the Santa Cruz World Beat Band, Pele Juju, she performs with artists throughout the Bay Area and beyond. In addition to her musical endeavors, Deb is a leader in water-use efficiency and works as a Water Conservation Administrator.

Vocalist, Drummer and Teacher

Debbie Fier, a vocalist, drummer, pianist, composer, percussionist and teacher, has performed throughout the U.S. and internationally and spent years as a mentor and teacher in the Institute of Music, Health and Education. Among other areas of endeavor, Debbie teaches drumming, body percussion and rhythm to children and adults, has been the musical prayer leader at Kehilla Community Synagogue for 20 years, is a sound therapy practitioner, and is a member of the Piano Technicians Guild. Her original compositions are available on four recordings — In Your Hands, Firelight, Coming Home and most recently: Waterways.

Founder | International Cultural Arts and Healing Sciences Institute

Amikaeyla, founder of the International Cultural Arts and Healing Sciences Institute, is an educator, author and award-winning singer/performer who has served as a Cultural Arts Ambassador for the State Department working on inter-cultural literacy and restorative justice programs with political refugees, war survivors, and at-risk populations worldwide. She has also studied the healing effects of music with many traditional healers and cultural artists and was invited by HH the Dalai Lama to sing at the commemorative Golden Buddha performance in India.

CEO and Co-Founder | Bioneers

Kenny Ausubel, CEO and co-founder (in 1990) of Bioneers, is an award-winning social entrepreneur, journalist, author and filmmaker. Co-founder and first CEO of the organic seed company, Seeds of Change, his film (and companion book) Hoxsey: When Healing Becomes a Crime helped influence national alternative medicine policy. He has edited several books and written four, including, most recently, Dreaming the Future: Reimagining Civilization in the Age of Nature.

Co-Founder and Chief Relationship Strategist | Bioneers

Nina Simons, co-founder of Bioneers and its Chief Relationship Strategist is also co-founder of Women Bridging Worlds and Connecting Women Leading Change. She co-edited the anthology book, Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart, and most recently wrote Nature, Culture & The Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership. An award-winning social entrepreneur, Nina teaches and speaks internationally, and previously served as President of Seeds of Change and Director of Strategic Marketing for Odwalla.

CEO and Co-Founder | Bioneers

Kenny Ausubel, CEO and co-founder (in 1990) of Bioneers, is an award-winning social entrepreneur, journalist, author and filmmaker. Co-founder and first CEO of the organic seed company, Seeds of Change, his film (and companion book) Hoxsey: When Healing Becomes a Crime helped influence national alternative medicine policy. He has edited several books and written four, including, most recently, Dreaming the Future: Reimagining Civilization in the Age of Nature.

Co-Director | Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN)

Christine Cordero, raised by a Filipino immigrant family in the working class town of Pittsburg, CA, is Co-Director of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN), organizing with immigrants and refugees for a healthy environment and thriving economy for all communities. For 20+ years, Christine has strategized, organized, and built coalitions across environmental health and justice, workers rights, and economic and racial justice issues. Previously, she was Executive Director at the Center for Story-based Strategy, training 2,000+ people and working with 200+ groups to reinvigorate narrative strategies for social justice. An alumnus of Rockwood Institute’s Leading from the Inside Out Fellowship, one of the nation’s leading executive leadership programs for experienced social change trailblazers, Christine is also an ordained priest of the Chozen-ji line of Rinzai Zen.

Executive Director | Urban Tilth

Doria Robinson, a 3rd generation resident of Richmond, California, current member of the Richmond City Council (District 3), and one of the most effective, exemplary community organizers in the nation, has been, since 2007, the Executive Director of Urban Tilth, a widely renowned community-based organization dedicated to cultivating a more sustainable, healthy, and just food system. Also co-founder of the Richmond Food Policy Council, former co-chair of the US Food Sovereignty Alliance Western Region, and member of the Climate Justice Alliance, Food Sovereignty Working Group, Doria (a Certified Permaculture Designer, Bay Friendly Gardener, Nutrition Educator and Yoga Instructor) has a strong background in farming, from working on the 350-acre Apostolic Temple of Truth Ranch on weekends in her youth to working on organic farms in Massachusetts while in college, and later at the legendary Veritable Vegetable women-owned organic produce distribution company.

Co-Director of the WATER Institute | Occidental Arts & Ecology Center

Brock Dolman co-founded (in 1994) the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center where he co-directs the WATER Institute. A wildlife biologist and watershed ecologist, he has been actively promoting “Bringing Back Beaver in California” since the early 2000s. He was given the Salmonid Restoration Federation’s coveted Golden Pipe Award in 2012: “…for his leading role as a proponent of "working with beavers" to restore native habitat.

Natural Resources Secretary | State of California

Wade Crowfoot, on the frontlines of environmental leadership throughout his long career in the public and non-profit sectors, California’s Natural Resources Secretary since 2019, leads efforts to conserve California’s environment and natural resources, overseeing an agency of 25,000+ employees spread across 26 departments, commissions, and conservancies charged with stewarding the state's forests, natural lands, rivers, water supplies, coasts, wildlife and biodiversity, as well as helping oversee its world-leading clean energy transition, including a commitment to conserve 30% of its land and coastal waters by 2030. Secretary Crowfoot has led efforts to navigate California’s record-breaking droughts, floods, and wildfires and has initiated a new era of partnerships with the state's Native American tribes.

Internationally Touring Folk Ensemble

Rising Appalachia, the brainchild of Atlanta-raised sisters Leah Song and Chloe Smith, rooted in the rich musical traditions of their family and region, is an internationally touring folk ensemble with a passionate global following. Eschewing industry norms, they have independently forged their own exemplary, deeply ethical, value-driven path for 16 years, producing seven albums and conducting tours around the world while simultaneously immersing themselves in community-building, cultural exchange programs, and music gathering and sharing everywhere they go. Their most recent album (their first of carefully curated cover songs) is: Folk & Anchor.

Marine Science Researcher

Asa Miller, 18, a marine science researcher and Greenburgh, NY’s Youth Poet Laureate, is an international leader in marine conservation who combines an acute knowledge of the issues facing marine ecosystems with the sensibility and creativity of a poet. He has conducted coral reef conservation in both his native Cuba and in Israel, each time working with teams whose collaborations transcended conflicts and borders. His documentary short “Coral Reef Restoration” has screened and won awards at 26 international film festivals. He is a winner of the Brower Youth, National Marine Educators Association Youth Leadership in Marine Conservation, and Blue Hatchling Youth awards.

President | Bioneers

Teo Grossman, President of Bioneers, previously worked on a range of projects from federal range management to state-level assessments of long-range planning to applied research on topics including climate change adaptation, ecosystem services, biodiversity, and ecological networks. A Doris Duke Conservation Fellow during graduate school, Teo holds an MS in Environmental Science & Management from UC-Santa Barbara.

More Than Human Life (MOTH) Program | Founding Director

César Rodríguez-Garavito, a Professor of Clinical Law, Chair of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, and founding Director of the More Than Human Life (MOTH) Program and the Earth Rights Advocacy Program (all based at NYU School of Law), is a human rights and environmental justice scholar and practitioner whose work and publications focus on climate change, Indigenous peoples’ rights, and the human rights movement. Editor-in-Chief of Open Global Rights, César has been an expert witness of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, an Adjunct Judge of the Constitutional Court of Colombia, a member of the Science Panel for the Amazon, and a lead litigator in climate change, socio-economic and Indigenous rights cases. He has conducted field research and environmental and human rights investigations around the world.

Program Director, Bioneers Indigeneity Program | Bioneers

Cara Romero (Chemehuevi), Program Director of the Bioneers Indigeneity Program, previously served her Mojave-based tribe in several capacities, including as: first Executive Director at the Chemehuevi Cultural Center, a member of the tribal council, and Chair of the Chemehuevi Education Board and Chemeuevi Headstart Policy Council. Cara is also a highly accomplished photographer/artist.

U.S. Poet Laureate

Joy Harjo, the 23rd U.S. Poet Laureate and member of the Muscogee Nation, is the author of ten books of poetry, several plays, children’s books, two memoirs, and seven music albums. Her honors include Yale’s 2023 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry, National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the Ruth Lily Prize from the Poetry Foundation, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Tulsa Artist Fellowship. She is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and Chair of the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, and is the inaugural Artist-in-Residence for the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she lives.

Co-Founder and Chief Relationship Strategist | Bioneers

Nina Simons, co-founder of Bioneers and its Chief Relationship Strategist is also co-founder of Women Bridging Worlds and Connecting Women Leading Change. She co-edited the anthology book, Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart, and most recently wrote Nature, Culture & The Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership. An award-winning social entrepreneur, Nina teaches and speaks internationally, and previously served as President of Seeds of Change and Director of Strategic Marketing for Odwalla.

Co-Executive Director | Women’s Earth Alliance (WEA)

Kahea Pacheco (Kanaka ’Ōiwi), Co-Executive Director of the Women’s Earth Alliance (WEA), is a passionate advocate for Indigenous people’s rights and climate justice that puts aloha ʻāina at the heart of solutions. She joined WEA in 2011 after receiving her law degree with a focus on Environmental and Federal Indian Law. With WEA, Kahea has facilitated legal advocacy partnerships for Indigenous women-led environmental campaigns and co-led the development of the “Violence on the Land, Violence on our Bodies” initiative. She also serves on the Advisory Councils for the World Economic Forum’s 1t.org and Daughters for Earth. (womensearthalliance.org)

Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director | Women’s Earth Alliance (WEA)

Melinda Kramer, co-founder (in 2006) and Co-Executive Director of the Women’s Earth Alliance (inspired by the resilience of women in impacted communities around the world and the desire to bridge the resource gap for these frontline women tackling urgent climate challenges), is a passionate advocate for social justice, the environment, and women’s rights. An environmentalist and cultural anthropologist, she has worked globally, learning from grassroots leaders on the frontlines of environmental crises. Her career has spanned sustainable agriculture work in Kenya with CARE International, capacity-building initiatives in the North Pacific Rim with Pacific Environment, and co-founding the Global Women’s Water Initiative.

Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director | Women’s Earth Alliance (WEA)

Amira Diamond, co-founder and Co-Executive Director of the Women’s Earth Alliance (WEA), where she collaborates with frontline communities, global NGOs, investors, and philanthropists to implement environmental programs focused on nature-based solutions, clean energy, advocacy campaigns, replicable models, resilient communities and justice across environmental, health, and LGBTQ rights, is a seasoned social entrepreneur with over two decades’ experience designing and leading rights-based programs at the intersection of climate solutions, gender equity, and economic development. Previously, she served as the West Coast Director of Democracy Matters and directed organizations such as Julia Butterfly Hill’s Circle of Life.

"Giant Puppets Save the World is a performance art collective founded and directed by artist Toni Tone Mikulka-Chang. Specializing in large-scale puppets, props, and costumes, the collective uses sustainably sourced materials such as silk, bamboo, reed, and papier-mâché, crafted with eco-friendly, nontoxic processes. Each creation is designed to inspire wonder, educate audiences, and promote environmental stewardship.

Musician

CelloJoe is a pioneering musician from the South Bay, born to a first-generation Taiwanese immigrant and a Polish Jewish mother. His unique heritage informs his artistry, blending classical cello with beatboxing, live looping, and original compositions to create his signature “classical hip-hop” style. Known as “the wildest beatboxing cellist in the west,” CelloJoe captivates audiences with his dynamic performances that combine virtuosic cello playing, rhythmic beats, and thought-provoking lyrics about sustainability, cooperation, and environmental stewardship.

Researcher, Writer and Workshop Leader

Shilpa Jain, a researcher, writer and workshop leader on topics including globalization, creativity, ecology, democratic living and innovative learning, has facilitated dozens of transformative leadership gatherings around the world and worked with hundreds of young leaders from 50+ countries. Her past positions include: Executive Director of YES! (for 11 years); Education and Outreach Coordinator of Other Worlds; and learning activist with Shikshantar: The Peoples’ Institute for Rethinking Education and Development in Udaipur, India.

Founder | Biomimicry for Social Innovation

Toby Herzlich, founder/Director of Biomimicry for Social Innovation, a non-profit dedicated to applying nature’s genius to leadership and social change, is a trainer and facilitator focused on progressive leadership development and building diverse multidisciplinary networks for changemaking. A certified Biomimicry Specialist and educator, Toby’s 30+ years of experience have included: Senior Trainer with the Rockwood Leadership Institute; co-founder of the Cultivating Women’s Leadership training intensives; organizational consulting with such clients as the Sierra Club, Ford Foundation, AgroEcology Fund, National Hispanic Cultural Center, and the Navajo Nation; and the launching of several national collaborative networks, including the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable and the Young Climate Leaders Network. She is also a facilitator with the Volgenau Climate Initiative and Project Positive.

Executive Director | Louisiana Center for Children's Rights

Kristen Rome, JD, a Louisiana-based attorney, doula, and writer, currently serves as Executive Director of the Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights, a client-centered nonprofit law office that represents youth in the juvenile and criminal legal systems. A proud native of New Orleans and a graduate of Spelman College in Atlanta, Kristen received her Juris Doctor from Loyola University of New Orleans’ College of Law. (lakidsrights.org)

Senior Director, Restorative Justice | Equal Justice USA

Cymone Fuller, who began her career as a community organizer and spent many years focused on systemic reforms in the youth criminal justice legal system, currently serves as the Senior Director of Restorative Justice at Equal Justice USA, where she supports the spread of community-held restorative justice diversion initiatives across the country.

Vision & Initiatives Partner | Taproot Earth

Colette Pichon Battle, a generational native of Bayou Liberty, Louisiana, is an award-winning lawyer and prominent climate justice organizer. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when Black and Indigenous communities were largely left out of federal recovery systems, Colette led the Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy (GCCLP) to provide relief and legal assistance to Gulf South communities of color. After 17 years at GCCLP’s helm, as frontline communities from the Gulf South to the Global South face ever more devastating storms, droughts, wildfires, heat, and land loss, she co-founded Taproot Earth to create connections and power across issues, movements, and geographies.

Organizer, Strategist, and Movement-Builder

Stosh Cotler, an organizer, strategist, and movement-builder with over three decades’ experience in social change work, has launched and scaled organizations at local, state, and national levels, mobilizing diverse communities—from faith leaders to sex workers, rural coalitions to urban formations—to counter racial and religious nationalism, advance multi-racial democracy, and build safe and inclusive communities. She is currently completing an MS in Biomimicry at Arizona State University and participating in the 2026–2028 Biomimicry Professional Program.

| Bow & Arrow Circus Theatre Collective

Bow & Arrow Circus Theatre Collective was founded in 2017 by womxn on a mission to combine circus artistry with politically relevant storytelling, striking visuals, and ensemble comedy to create a unique circus-theatre hybrid. Follow @bowandarrowcircus for updates on upcoming performances.

Executive Director | Work For America

Caitlin Lewis, Executive Director of Work for America, a nonprofit seeking to make public service a more desirable, accessible, and stable career path that uplifts families and communities, has a long track record working in the public, private and non-profit sectors, including: developing social impact strategies for global brands; being a philanthropic advisor to Van Jones; helping launch an affordable housing fund; serving in local, state and federal governments, including at NYC’s City Hall and in the White House Liaison Office of USDA; working on several political campaigns and managing external affairs for the organization that manages Times Square.

Co-Founder and Executive Director | Advance Native Political Leadership

Anathea Chino (Acoma Pueblo), co-founder and Executive Director of Advance Native Political Leadership, is a queer feminist leader and champion for Native voices with 20 years’ experience as a political strategist, fundraiser, and operative, works to advance Indigenous representation through investment in infrastructure development, strategy, research, and relationship building. She has co-founded a number of state and national organizations, including: Women’s Democracy Lab, Indigenous Women Rise, and Emerge New Mexico, and also serves on the boards of Americans for Indian Opportunity, California Native Vote Project, and Emergent Fund.

Dirtroad Organizing | Co-Founder

Chloe Maxmin, co-founder (with her best friend, Canyon Woodward) of Dirtroad Organizing and co-founder of and advisor to JustME for JustUS, a Maine-based organization focused on rural youth civic engagement and climate justice, also runs Begin Again Farm with her partner, Bill Pluecker, growing organic vegetables for her community. Chloe’s political engagement has included co-founding Divest Harvard when she was a student there, serving in the Maine House of Representatives in 2018, and in the Maine State Senate in 2020, when she was the youngest woman ever to serve in that body. Chloe is also co-author (with Canyon Woodward) of Dirt Road Revival.

Communications Director | Future Caucus

Elizabeth Rosen, Communications Director for Future Caucus, the largest nonpartisan organization of young lawmakers in the U.S., previously supported global democracy movements with Freedom House, mobilized young voters with NextGen America, worked on public diplomacy at NATO, and held numerous odd jobs, including ski instructing in Park City, pizza delivery in Fort Myers Beach, and fact-checking for a New York Times writer in Paris.

House Majority Leader | New Mexico House of Representatives

Reena Szczepanski has spent her career working for justice, equality, and public health, starting in her teenage years doing work/study as a caregiver for babies affected by HIV/AIDS and eventually managing the New Mexico Department of Health’s Hepatitis Program. She later became Executive Director of Emerge New Mexico, a statewide organization dedicated to training women to run for office and led the Drug Policy Alliance New Mexico to many legislative victories, including the state’s medical cannabis law, substance abuse treatment, and criminal justice reform. Reena then served as the Chief of Staff to Speaker Brian Egolf, and in 2022 was herself elected to the New Mexico House of Representatives and was elected House Majority Leader by her colleagues. She is the first Asian American elected to legislative leadership in the history of New Mexico.

Founder | Santa Cruz Permaculture and the UCSC Right Livelihood College

David Shaw, a whole systems designer, facilitator, educator, and musician, founded Santa Cruz Permaculture and the UCSC Right Livelihood College, a partnership with the “Alternative Nobel Prize.” He supports communities locally and globally to transform their shared future through strategic dialogue and collective action.

Social Justice Advocate

Tenika Blue, a fourth-generation Bay Area native with 20+ years’ experience advocating for anti-violence initiatives, social justice reform, and community healing, organizes sacred circles as a central part of her work, employing a heart-centered approach to foster community resilience, empower individuals to connect with their roots, and embrace transformative healing.

| Rural Roots Louisiana

Lael “Kylin” Judson, a sophomore honor student at The Dunham School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and a resident of Ascension Parish, has lost loved ones to pollution-related illnesses and works with Rural Roots Louisiana on Environmental Justice issues centered around Cancer Alley, a region disproportionately impacted by industrial toxicity. Kylin aspires to becoming an Environmental Lawyer dedicated to addressing systemic inequities and protecting vulnerable communities.

Activist | Rural Roots Louisiana

Skye Williams, a soon-to-be graduate of Donaldsonville High School in Louisiana is an activist with the Environmental Justice, Eco-Literacy, Earth-care advocacy and community-building organization, Rural Roots Louisiana. Skye plans a career in nursing as well as Environmental Justice activism.

Artistic Director | Kearny Street Workshop

Jason Bayani, MFA, a theater performer and author, is Artistic Director of the Kearny Street Workshop, the oldest multi-disciplinary Asian Pacific-American arts organization in the country. A Kundiman Fellow, his published works include: Locus (a 2019 Norcal Book Award finalist) and Amulet. He has written for World Literature Today, Muzzle Magazine, Lantern Review, and other publications and performs regularly around the country. His first solo theater show was 2016’s Locus of Control.

Program Director, Bioneers Indigeneity Program | Bioneers

Cara Romero (Chemehuevi), Program Director of the Bioneers Indigeneity Program, previously served her Mojave-based tribe in several capacities, including as: first Executive Director at the Chemehuevi Cultural Center, a member of the tribal council, and Chair of the Chemehuevi Education Board and Chemeuevi Headstart Policy Council. Cara is also a highly accomplished photographer/artist.

U.S. Poet Laureate

Joy Harjo, the 23rd U.S. Poet Laureate and member of the Muscogee Nation, is the author of ten books of poetry, several plays, children’s books, two memoirs, and seven music albums. Her honors include Yale’s 2023 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry, National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the Ruth Lily Prize from the Poetry Foundation, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Tulsa Artist Fellowship. She is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and Chair of the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, and is the inaugural Artist-in-Residence for the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she lives.

Musician, Storyteller and Cultural Educator

Grayhawk Perkins, a renowned musician, storyteller, and cultural educator whose work has earned him recognition as a living treasure of Louisiana, is an internationally recognized authority on Southeastern Native American and Colonial history who regularly shares his knowledge at festivals, museums, and educational institutions. Grayhawk, whose music blends blues, jazz, and Indigenous rhythms and who has performed widely in Louisiana and in Europe, is also an accomplished educator, teaching visual and performing arts through artist residencies in schools across Louisiana, engaging students in storytelling, songwriting, and mural creation, bringing history to life through creative expression.

Lead Advisor | Third Act

Akaya Windwood, a widely renowned, highly experienced, award-winning activist, leadership trainer and facilitator who served as President of the Rockwood Leadership Institute for ten years, is the founder of the New Universal Wisdom and Leadership Institute, which centers human wisdom in the wisdom of brown womxn. She is also: on the faculty of the Just Economy Institute; Lead Advisor at Third Act; and director of the Thriving Roots Fund. Akaya is the author of: Leading with Joy: Practices for Uncertain Times (2022).

Designer and Grief Worker | Studio O

Liz Ogbu, a designer and grief worker, is an expert on transforming unjust urban environments. Her multidisciplinary design practice, Studio O, operates at the intersection of racial and “spatial” justice. She collaborates with/in communities in need to leverage design to address collective harm and catalyze community healing. Her honors include IDEO.org Global Fellow, Aspen Ideas Scholar, and Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Resident. Her TED Talks, which share a creative practice rooted in community wisdom and healing, have been viewed over a million times.

Performer, Educator, Folklorist, and Song-Leader

Benja Mertz, a performer, educator, public speaker, folklorist, and song-leader, is Board Chair of the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, an immigrant rights and anti-incarceration nonprofit organization. Also founder and Director of Joyful Noise! Gospel Singers in Sonoma County, Benja trained in song-leading through legendary programs such as Dr. Ysaye Barnwell's Vocal Community and Bobby McFerrin's CircleSong Schools and is part of a long tradition of writers and musicians at the forefront of social change in America.

Researcher and Facilitator | Othering and Belonging Institute

Eli Moore is a researcher and facilitator with the Othering and Belonging Institute where he leads transformative research processes with community-based organizations and networks. His recent work has focused on community-driven Just Transition planning, co-governance and community ownership, and a belonging economy as these frameworks apply to housing, local economies, and ecosystems.

President | Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity

Fadhel Kaboub, Ph.D., an expert on designing public policies to enhance economic sovereignty, build resilience, and promote equitable and sustainable prosperity in the Global South, is an associate professor of economics at Denison University and President of the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity. Dr. Kaboub has held a number of research affiliations with major institutions in Africa and the U.S. and is an active member of several global commissions and initiatives, including the Independent Expert Group on Just Transition and Development, and the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative. His most recent co-authored publication is Just Transition: A Climate, Energy, and Development Vision for Africa (May 2023).

Global Justice Program Director | Othering & Belonging Institute

Elsadig Elsheikh, Global Justice Program Director at the Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley, oversees that program’s projects portfolio and conducts research focused on: global North-global South inequity, the socio-political dynamics of climate justice, food systems, Islamophobia, nation-state citizenship issues, the structural mechanisms of othering, and global expressions of belonging.

Political and Environmental Justice Activist

Luna Angulo, a political and environmental justice activist who grew up alongside Chevron’s notoriously toxic refinery in her hometown of Richmond, CA, now works to build a future free from fossil fuels by building grassroots political power for communities most harmed by the fossil fuel industry through civic engagement and mass civil disobedience. Luna, former Co-Chair of the Path to Clean Air Community Steering Committee, received the Sierra Club’s Emerging Voices Award in 2022.

Writer and Community Activist

Anneke Campbell, a writer and community activist who has worked as a midwife, nurse, English professor, yoga teacher and death educator, co-authored (with Thomas Linzey): We The People: Stories from the Community Rights Movement in the U.S. and edited Nina Simons' book, Nature, Culture and the Sacred: One Woman Listens for Leadership. Anneke also publishes essays and articles and writes and co-produces the Bioneers newsletter: Leading From The Feminine: Weaving The World Anew and has facilitated grief sessions at the conference for the past 5 years.

Executive Assistant | Bioneers

Asha Kohli, a life coach, movement artist, and practitioner of herbal medicine with ancestral lineages in the Andes and India, facilitates grief circles, embodiment immersions, and communal rituals. She is the founder of Kohlibri Creative, a healing arts project that weaves artistry and ancient ways to guide others in their journey of self-healing and empowerment through artistic expression and earth-based rituals.

Public Health and Lifestyle Medicine Professional

Nisha Arcadia Shah, MDiv, MPH, RDN, a public health and lifestyle medicine professional, social movement and eco-chaplain, literary activist, and doctoral student in transformative studies, works on projects supporting literary, health, and social change initiatives and specializes in lifestyle research. She is also an avid land walker, backyard farmer, voracious reader, nature lover, and library volunteer.

Regional Director for North America and the Pacific | Women’s Earth Alliance (WEA)

Daniela Perez, originally from Tijuana, is the Regional Director for North America and the Pacific at Women’s Earth Alliance (WEA), overseeing programs in the U.S., U.S. Territories and Mexico that advance women’s leadership, climate justice, social equity, grassroots capacity-building, mentorship, network building, gender equity, and community resilience. With over a decade in the nonprofit sector and a proven track record in regenerative agriculture, food sovereignty, health equity, and gender and climate justice, Daniela excels at facilitating transformative dialogues, coalition-building, and leadership development for systemic change.

Senior Program Architect | Women’s Earth Alliance (WEA)

Sarita Pockell is Senior Program Architect at Women’s Earth Alliance (WEA), where she co-designs transformative programs that equip women environmental leaders with capacity, tools and networks to drive change in their communities. With a background in education for sustainability, Sarita uses a holistic approach to create immersive, collaborative learning experiences that support regenerative solutions to social and environmental challenges.  Before joining WEA, Sarita spent nearly seven years in curriculum leadership at Green School in Bali and has designed and implemented educational programs in Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Croatia, and Indonesia. A lifelong artist and storyteller, Sarita is also a musician, playwright, theater director, and devoted gardener and land-steward.

Co-Founder and CEO | 7 Directions of Service

Crystal Cavalier-Keck is co-founder and CEO of 7 Directions of Service (an Indigenous-led collective rooted in environmental justice and community organizing, operating on the ancestral homelands of the Occaneechi-Saponi in rural North Carolina) and of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women NC Coalition. An Adjunct Professor at Salem College, Crystal has extensive experience in the nonprofit and government sectors and has worked extensively with the Women’s Earth Alliance on a number of projects. She is also currently working toward a Master of Legal Studies in the Indigenous People’s Law Program at the University of Oklahoma School of Law.

Co-Designer | Women’s Earth Alliance’s Black Girls/Green Futures Program

Tashanda Giles-Jones, an environmental educator cultivating a network of like-minded individuals, organizations and activists eager to support the learning and growth of urban youth in Los Angeles, develops human impact lessons adapted for her student population and provides engaging learning activities through garden-based education. She has volunteered and held positions with several nonprofit fundraising, leadership, and youth committees, and, most recently, Tashanda has been co-designing and implementing the Women’s Earth Alliance’s Black Girls/Green Futures Program in South Los Angeles.

Director | Indigenous Justice

Morning Star Gali, a member of the Ajumawi band of the Pit River Tribe in Northeastern California, is the Director of Indigenous Justice and has served for 16 years as the California Tribal and Community Liaison for the International Indian Treaty Council, dedicated to advancing the sovereignty and self-determination of Indigenous Peoples. Her work focuses on the recognition and protection of Indigenous rights, treaties, traditional cultures, the fate of missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW), climate and gender justice, and the preservation of sacred places. Morning Starr is also currently a Design Team member for Women’s Earth Alliance North America Programs.

Founder | Mycelium Youth Network

​Lil Milagro Henriquez, M.A. (detribalized Nahuat Pipil), a 20-year, multiple award-winning social and environmental justice activism veteran, founded Mycelium Youth Network, a renowned organization dedicated to preparing and empowering frontline youth for climate change, in 2017. Among other achievements, she spoke as a panelist at the White House’s launch of the 5th National Climate Assessment report in 2023 and currently sits on the Advisory Board for the American Public Health Association's Center for Climate Health and Equity and the National Academy of Medicine's Climate Communities Network.

More Than Human Life (MOTH) Program | Founding Director

César Rodríguez-Garavito, a Professor of Clinical Law, Chair of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, and founding Director of the More Than Human Life (MOTH) Program and the Earth Rights Advocacy Program (all based at NYU School of Law), is a human rights and environmental justice scholar and practitioner whose work and publications focus on climate change, Indigenous peoples’ rights, and the human rights movement. Editor-in-Chief of Open Global Rights, César has been an expert witness of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, an Adjunct Judge of the Constitutional Court of Colombia, a member of the Science Panel for the Amazon, and a lead litigator in climate change, socio-economic and Indigenous rights cases. He has conducted field research and environmental and human rights investigations around the world.

Founder and President | Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative)

David Gruber is the founder and President of Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative), a nonprofit organization and interdisciplinary scientific and conservation initiative that is applying advanced machine learning and state-of-the-art gentle robotics to translate the communication of sperm whales. David is also Distinguished Professor of Biology at the City University of New York and a National Geographic Explorer.

President | Bioneers

Teo Grossman, President of Bioneers, previously worked on a range of projects from federal range management to state-level assessments of long-range planning to applied research on topics including climate change adaptation, ecosystem services, biodiversity, and ecological networks. A Doris Duke Conservation Fellow during graduate school, Teo holds an MS in Environmental Science & Management from UC-Santa Barbara.

Artist

Carrie Ziegler, an international artist and leader in collaborative art initiatives, seeks to harness the collective power of art to drive social and environmental transformation. Through her Art in Action initiatives, she collaborates with local governments, organizations, and educational institutions to create multi-dimensional works that blend participant creativity with pressing societal issues, inspiring active engagement to bring communities together to create lasting change. The Chrysalis Project, now a global initiative, initially contributed to the passing of the Thurston County, WA, Climate Mitigation Plan, and the Plastic Whale Project played a pivotal role in the successful passing of a local ban on single-use plastic bags.

Author and Activist

Hilary Giovale, a ninth-generation American settler, descended from Celtic, Germanic, Nordic, and Indigenous peoples of ancient Europe, is an active “reparationist” who seeks to “divest from whiteness” and seeks to follow Indigenous and Black leadership in support of human rights, environmental justice and equitable futures.  She is the author of Becoming a Good Relative: Calling White Settlers toward Truth, Healing, and Repair.

Facilitator, Educator and Activist

Lauren Gucik is a facilitator, event coordinator, educator and food sovereignty activist dedicated to weaving connections between people, land, and ancestral wisdom and designing experiences that nourish joy, deepen reflection, and cultivate liberation.

Holistic Health Educator

Brandi Mack, a traditional ecological designer with a deep passion for personal growth and community building, is deeply committed to creating a healthier, more sustainable world for future generations. A holistic health educator, therapeutic massage therapist, permaculture designer, living systems thought leader, and mother of three daughters, she has a long track record of facilitating transformative experiences and blending nature-based solutions with mindful practices to foster connection, reflection, and growth.

Member | Hummingbird Farm Collective

Alondra Aragon, a community organizer since she was 15, has dedicated more than a decade working with environmental and youth justice movements. As a member of the Hummingbird Farm collective, she seeks to: create a space for the community to reconnect with the land and traditional local ecological knowledge; move toward a just transition by growing healthy food, restoring local ecosystems, practicing herbal healing, and providing job training; and build alternative community governance structures.

Coordinator | California Farmer Justice Collaborative

Minkah Taharkah is a multidisciplinary artist, environmental justice advocate, land steward, and designer from Leimert Park in Los Angeles, CA. She is the Coordinator for the California Farmer Justice Collaborative, where she supports BIPOC growers across the state to get access to resources and build connections,  as well as Director of Land + Programming with the Butterfly Movement and a co-facilitator with the B Healthy B Holistic Consultancy.

Chairwoman | Women in Cleantech and Sustainability

Sara Eve Fuentes, Chairwoman of Women in Cleantech and Sustainability, is the founder and President of SmartWaste, a minority women-owned and operated start-up with a focus on Waste Technologies, Waste Systems and Vendor Management for Zero Waste programs with core values of “transparency, circularity, and people." With 10 years of experience in the waste and recycling industry, Sara has become a dynamic leader in abating commercial waste as well as a passionate advocate for women.

Director of Programs | Tech Exchange

Claudia Garcia, a dedicated advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion in education and workforce development, is the Director of Programs at Tech Exchange, where she leads strategic initiatives to promote digital equity, career readiness, and STEM access for underrepresented communities across California. With over a decade of experience in student advising, program management, and partnership development, Claudia has designed and implemented impactful initiatives that have helped first-generation college students and marginalized communities succeed in higher education and beyond.

Co-Founder | Sustainable Progress and Equality Collective (SPEC)

Rhianna C. Rogers, Ph.D., is a global leader in digital equity, public policy, and interdisciplinary research with 20+ years’ experience in the federal, academic, and non-profit sectors. Formerly the Biden-Harris Administration's Counselor to the Assistant Secretary for Management and Chief DEIA Officer at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, she led initiatives in diversity, AI policy, and digital equity. Also a co-founder of the Sustainable Progress and Equality Collective (SPEC), former Director of RAND's Center to Advance Racial Equity Policy, and an Ernest Boyer Presidential Fellow at the Rockefeller Institute of Government, she has spearheaded multimillion-dollar research and community-engagement projects on equity in technology, health, infrastructure, and education.

Founder | The Regenerative Technology Project

Jessica Groopman, founder of The Regenerative Technology Project, a platform that seeks to encourage and accelerate the tech industry’s shift towards supporting societal and ecological health, is a technology industry analyst and author who studies the intersection of emerging technologies and regeneration, and advises forward-thinking leaders globally on disruptive innovations. She has published over 50 reports on emerging tech applications and their implications and recently co-authored The Fast Future Blur. Her previous roles include: founding the research firm, Kaleido Insights; Principal Analyst at Tractica, Harbor Research, and Altimeter Group; and Senior Innovation Advisor at Intentional Futures.

Senior Legal Counsel | Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights

Thomas Linzey, Senior Legal Counsel for the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights, widely recognized as the founder of the contemporary community rights movement, drafted the very first “rights of nature” law in the world (in Pennsylvania in 2006), and consulted on the very first rights of nature constitutional provisions (in Ecuador). Linzey co-founded the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, sits on the Board of Advisors of the New Earth Foundation and is the author of several books, including: Be The Change: How to Get What You Want in Your Community and On Community Civil Disobedience in the Name of Sustainability. Linzey’s work has been featured widely, including in leading publications including the NY Times, Mother Jones and the Nation magazine.

Co-Founder and Executive Director | Indigenous Climate Action

Eriel Tchekwie Deranger (Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation), a leading global figure in Indigenous Rights and Climate Justice activism, is the co-founder and Executive Director of Indigenous Climate Action and is a member of the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change. She also sits on a number of boards of notable non-profit organizations (including Bioneers) and activist groups. She has organized divest movements, lobbied government officials, led mass mobilizations against the fossil fuel industry, written extensively for a range of publications and been featured in documentary films (including Elemental).

Vision & Initiatives Partner | Taproot Earth

Colette Pichon Battle, a generational native of Bayou Liberty, Louisiana, is an award-winning lawyer and prominent climate justice organizer. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when Black and Indigenous communities were largely left out of federal recovery systems, Colette led the Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy (GCCLP) to provide relief and legal assistance to Gulf South communities of color. After 17 years at GCCLP’s helm, as frontline communities from the Gulf South to the Global South face ever more devastating storms, droughts, wildfires, heat, and land loss, she co-founded Taproot Earth to create connections and power across issues, movements, and geographies.

Co-Founder and Executive Director | One Earth

Justin Winters is the co-founder and Executive Director of One Earth, a nonprofit organization that works to prove that we can solve the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss through three pillars of collective action: renewable energy, nature conservation, and regenerative agriculture. One Earth generates educational content, inspiring storytelling, and innovative digital tools to equip people to drive change across Earth’s 185 Bioregions. Prior to One Earth, Justin served as Executive Director of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, where she built the organization’s grant-making program that awarded over $100 million in grants across 60 countries, and grew its digital media community to 80 million followers. Justin’s goal has always been to use a collaborative, inclusive, and entrepreneurial approach to build a broad public movement of engaged change-makers to help solve the climate crisis and build a just future for all.

Intercultural Conversations Program Manager, Indigeneity Program | Bioneers

Nazshonnii Brown-Almaweri (Diné), Program Manager for Bioneers’ Indigeneity Program, is an STEM educator from West Oakland who advocates for exposure and opportunities for historically excluded people, especially Black and Native youth. She has provided many middle and high school students with the space to learn about STEAM at the intersection of ancestral knowledge and their lived experiences and has worked to help Oakland youth thrive in disciplines such as engineering. Nazshonnii is also a farmer at the Gill Tract Community Farm was previously a STEM tutor, media educator, and youth program assistant for the American Indian Child Resource Center.

Cultural Outreach and Education Manager | Two Feathers NAFS

Ernie Albers, a Yurok tribal member as well as a Karuk and Hupa descendant, comes from a long line of traditional storytellers and has been deeply rooted in culture and ceremony from a very young age. A former chef and a co-founder of Lifted Arcata, a functional fitness group training gym in Arcata, he has certifications in CrossFit levels 1 and 2, Functional Movement Systems (FMS), and Frederick Stretch Therapy (FST) levels 1 and 2. After 10 years in the gym coaching group fitness classes, Ernie is now working with Native youth for Two Feathers NAFS as their Cultural Outreach and Education Manager.

Founder and CEO | Paloma Flores Consulting Agency (PFCA)

Paloma Flores, a member of the Pit River Tribe of Northern California and P'urhepecha de Michoacan, Mexico, who has 15 years’ experience working with intertribal communities in California, is the founder and CEO of Paloma Flores Consulting Agency (PFCA), which specializes in transformative speaking and storytelling, cross-cultural collaboration and partnership building, cultural education, supporting the shifting of consciousness through professional development in Indian communities, developing the next generation of youth leaders, and boosting American Indian voices and representation in the arts .

Founder | Biomimicry for Social Innovation

Toby Herzlich, founder/Director of Biomimicry for Social Innovation, a non-profit dedicated to applying nature’s genius to leadership and social change, is a trainer and facilitator focused on progressive leadership development and building diverse multidisciplinary networks for changemaking. A certified Biomimicry Specialist and educator, Toby’s 30+ years of experience have included: Senior Trainer with the Rockwood Leadership Institute; co-founder of the Cultivating Women’s Leadership training intensives; organizational consulting with such clients as the Sierra Club, Ford Foundation, AgroEcology Fund, National Hispanic Cultural Center, and the Navajo Nation; and the launching of several national collaborative networks, including the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable and the Young Climate Leaders Network. She is also a facilitator with the Volgenau Climate Initiative and Project Positive.

Managing Director | Biomimicry for Social Innovation

Gina LaMotte, Managing Director of Biomimicry for Social Innovation, is a social entrepreneur dedicated to the vision of a thriving, just and regenerative future who has for 25+ years been inspired by biomimicry, systems-change, social innovation, design thinking, and climate justice in her work. In 2008, she founded EcoRise, a nonprofit supporting thousands of K-12 schools nationwide with programs centering youth leadership to advance climate action, sustainability and environmental justice. She also created Gen:Thrive, a national initiative that provides network mapping and data visualization tools to advance health, equity, and climate resilience in K-12 schools.

Co-Founder and Executive Director | Advance Native Political Leadership

Anathea Chino (Acoma Pueblo), co-founder and Executive Director of Advance Native Political Leadership, is a queer feminist leader and champion for Native voices with 20 years’ experience as a political strategist, fundraiser, and operative, works to advance Indigenous representation through investment in infrastructure development, strategy, research, and relationship building. She has co-founded a number of state and national organizations, including: Women’s Democracy Lab, Indigenous Women Rise, and Emerge New Mexico, and also serves on the boards of Americans for Indian Opportunity, California Native Vote Project, and Emergent Fund.

Dirtroad Organizing | Co-Founder

Chloe Maxmin, co-founder (with her best friend, Canyon Woodward) of Dirtroad Organizing and co-founder of and advisor to JustME for JustUS, a Maine-based organization focused on rural youth civic engagement and climate justice, also runs Begin Again Farm with her partner, Bill Pluecker, growing organic vegetables for her community. Chloe’s political engagement has included co-founding Divest Harvard when she was a student there, serving in the Maine House of Representatives in 2018, and in the Maine State Senate in 2020, when she was the youngest woman ever to serve in that body. Chloe is also co-author (with Canyon Woodward) of Dirt Road Revival.

Executive Director | Work For America

Caitlin Lewis, Executive Director of Work for America, a nonprofit seeking to make public service a more desirable, accessible, and stable career path that uplifts families and communities, has a long track record working in the public, private and non-profit sectors, including: developing social impact strategies for global brands; being a philanthropic advisor to Van Jones; helping launch an affordable housing fund; serving in local, state and federal governments, including at NYC’s City Hall and in the White House Liaison Office of USDA; working on several political campaigns and managing external affairs for the organization that manages Times Square.

Communications Director | Future Caucus

Elizabeth Rosen, Communications Director for Future Caucus, the largest nonpartisan organization of young lawmakers in the U.S., previously supported global democracy movements with Freedom House, mobilized young voters with NextGen America, worked on public diplomacy at NATO, and held numerous odd jobs, including ski instructing in Park City, pizza delivery in Fort Myers Beach, and fact-checking for a New York Times writer in Paris.

Executive Director | Green Science Policy Institute

Arlene Blum Ph.D., biophysical chemist, author, and mountaineer is Executive Director of the Green Science Policy Institute and a Research Associate at UC Berkeley.  Her science and policy work with government and business has contributed to preventing the use of PFAS, flame retardants and other classes of harmful chemicals in products world-wide.  Arlene also led the first American—and all-women’s—ascent of Annapurna I and the first women’s climb of Denali.  She is the author of Annapurna: A Woman’s Place and Breaking Trail: A Climbing Life.

Co-Founder | Safer Made

Marty Mulvihill, Ph.D., a chemist and advisor at the Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry (where he served as the initial Executive Director), has developed technologies and created safer chemicals and materials for the personal care, construction, electronics, and textile industries. He is also co-founder of and a managing partner in Safer Made, a mission-driven venture capital fund investing in companies and technologies that: reduce human exposure to harmful chemicals, bring safer products and technologies to market, tell a unique story, have the potential to change their sectors, and protect human health and the natural world.

Researcher and Advocate for Media Literacy Education

Renee Hobbs, a researcher and advocate for media literacy education, is one of the nation's leading authorities on media literacy education and has authored 12 books and more than 300 scholarly and professional articles to advance the theory and practice of digital and media literacy education. She has helped train a generation of scholars and teachers on four continents through her scholarship and community service, receiving more than $7 million in grants to support research, education and community outreach efforts.

Environmental Journalist and Webcast Host | Sustain What

Andrew Revkin, a prize-winning environmental journalist and webcast host who has spent 40 years scouring the world to identify and convey sustainable human pathways, began reporting on global warming in 1988 and never stopped, filing dispatches from the North Pole, Amazon rainforest, White House, etc., including 20 years at The New York Times (14 as a reporter and 6 as an online commentator through his groundbreaking Dot Earth blog). Andy also served on the Anthropocene Working Group and helped build programs, curricula and initiatives at the National Academy of Sciences, Columbia and Pace universities, and the National Geographic Society, where he has been a member of the Committee on Research and Exploration since 2018. Since 2020 he has run a live video webcast, Sustain What, that has reached several million viewers and included more than a thousand guests through some 550 episodes. Revkin is also a longtime performing songwriter and has written five books.

Founder | Our Bodhi Project

Sonali Sangeeta Balajee, an artist, organizer, and mindfulness/yoga instructor, is the founder of: the Spiritual Social Medicinal Apothecary (SSoMA), a spiritual and political project; and Our Bodhi Project, which focuses on healthy movement-building through enlivening the connection between social and spiritual wellness.  Sonali previously spent 13 years in U.S. local government, creating, leading, and managing social justice and racial equity initiatives and has had a long community organizing background focused on climate and racial justice, youth development, death-and-dying, and HIV/AIDS-related advocacy and service. She also currently serves on the boards of Bioneers and Worldtrust.

Author, Trainer, Practitioner

Kazu Haga, a trainer and practitioner of nonviolence and restorative justice who works with incarcerated people, youth, and activists from around the country and has over 25 years’ experience in nonviolence and social change work, is a core member of Building Belonging, the Ahimsa Collective, and the Fierce Vulnerability Network. Kazu is also a Jam facilitator and the author of Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm. He and his family are residents of the Canticle Farm community on Lisjan Ohlone land, Oakland, CA.

Woman Stands Shining

Pat McCabe, (aka “Woman Stands Shining”), of Diné ancestry, was adopted into the Lakota spiritual way of life. She is currently beginning the stewardship of a piece of land at one of the four sacred mountains of her people, as part of the “Rematriation Movement.” McCabe, a proud grandmother, has long spoken and taught widely, nationally and internationally, sharing cultural and spiritual insights.

Co-Founder and Chief Relationship Strategist | Bioneers

Nina Simons, co-founder of Bioneers and its Chief Relationship Strategist is also co-founder of Women Bridging Worlds and Connecting Women Leading Change. She co-edited the anthology book, Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart, and most recently wrote Nature, Culture & The Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership. An award-winning social entrepreneur, Nina teaches and speaks internationally, and previously served as President of Seeds of Change and Director of Strategic Marketing for Odwalla.

Storyteller & Filmmaker

Katherine Eid Wild is a storyteller and documentary filmmaker whose work weaves intergenerational narratives drawn from her Lebanese-American heritage. Her performances explore themes of resilience, connection, and the wisdom passed down through generations. Her signature piece, Inheritance: An Intergenerational Resilience Story, invites audiences to reflect on the strength of family bonds, ancestral knowledge, and the transformative power of storytelling.

Marine Science Researcher

Asa Miller, 18, a marine science researcher and Greenburgh, NY’s Youth Poet Laureate, is an international leader in marine conservation who combines an acute knowledge of the issues facing marine ecosystems with the sensibility and creativity of a poet. He has conducted coral reef conservation in both his native Cuba and in Israel, each time working with teams whose collaborations transcended conflicts and borders. His documentary short “Coral Reef Restoration” has screened and won awards at 26 international film festivals. He is a winner of the Brower Youth, National Marine Educators Association Youth Leadership in Marine Conservation, and Blue Hatchling Youth awards.

| Weaving Earth

Sam Burris-Debosky, a farmer, carpenter, and rites-of-passage guide dedicated to imagining and building resilient, flourishing communities, co-founded and directed Village Farm at Stanley, in Aurora, Colorado, an urban farm dedicated to food-justice and education. Sam is working at this year’s Bioneers Conference as part of the Weaving Earth team to help host the Community of Mentors sessions.

| Weaving Earth

justine epstein, a guiding council (board) member and 3-year graduate of Weaving Earth and a co-facilitator for the Ancestors & Money coaching cohort, is an organizer, facilitator, rites of passage guide and naturalist dedicated to transmuting legacies and systems of ancestral harm through wealth redistribution, social justice movement organizing, ancestral healing, cultural rites of passage, embodied community, and deep ecology.

Visual Artist

Devin Lee is a visual artist with a focus on tattooing whose work reflects a keen interest in plants, ancestral communication, healing across generations, and connecting to our diverse lineages and visions for collective liberation.

U.S. Poet Laureate

Joy Harjo, the 23rd U.S. Poet Laureate and member of the Muscogee Nation, is the author of ten books of poetry, several plays, children’s books, two memoirs, and seven music albums. Her honors include Yale’s 2023 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry, National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the Ruth Lily Prize from the Poetry Foundation, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Tulsa Artist Fellowship. She is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and Chair of the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, and is the inaugural Artist-in-Residence for the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she lives.

Author, Trainer, Practitioner

Kazu Haga, a trainer and practitioner of nonviolence and restorative justice who works with incarcerated people, youth, and activists from around the country and has over 25 years’ experience in nonviolence and social change work, is a core member of Building Belonging, the Ahimsa Collective, and the Fierce Vulnerability Network. Kazu is also a Jam facilitator and the author of Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm. He and his family are residents of the Canticle Farm community on Lisjan Ohlone land, Oakland, CA.

Researcher and Advocate for Media Literacy Education

Renee Hobbs, a researcher and advocate for media literacy education, is one of the nation's leading authorities on media literacy education and has authored 12 books and more than 300 scholarly and professional articles to advance the theory and practice of digital and media literacy education. She has helped train a generation of scholars and teachers on four continents through her scholarship and community service, receiving more than $7 million in grants to support research, education and community outreach efforts.

Dirtroad Organizing | Co-Founder

Chloe Maxmin, co-founder (with her best friend, Canyon Woodward) of Dirtroad Organizing and co-founder of and advisor to JustME for JustUS, a Maine-based organization focused on rural youth civic engagement and climate justice, also runs Begin Again Farm with her partner, Bill Pluecker, growing organic vegetables for her community. Chloe’s political engagement has included co-founding Divest Harvard when she was a student there, serving in the Maine House of Representatives in 2018, and in the Maine State Senate in 2020, when she was the youngest woman ever to serve in that body. Chloe is also co-author (with Canyon Woodward) of Dirt Road Revival.

Co-Founder | From Soil to Soul Documentary Series

Ankur Shah, born in Mumbai where he witnessed food insecurity and pollution firsthand, is a geospatial data scientist using satellite data to assess climate hazards and environmental issues and is the Director of Operations at Mycelium, where he has designed sustainable food systems and taught workshops on food resilience. Currently studying biomimicry at Arizona State University, Ankur is also co-founder of the From Soil to Soul documentary series, the pilot episode of which, Food Justice in LA, is being shown at Bioneers this year.

Co-Founder | From Soil to Soul Documentary Series

Margaret To, a Los Angeles-based multimedia artist and filmmaker, is the founder of Studio SAKA, a creative studio dedicated to social impact and climate education, and co-leads the LA Chapter of Climate Designers, hosting community events and curating climate resources, jobs, and volunteer opportunities for the LA community. She is a co-founder of the From Soil to Soul documentary series, the pilot episode of which, Food Justice in LA, is being shown at Bioneers this year.

Co-Founder | From Soil to Soul Documentary Series

Jahnavi Mange, a San Jose-based climate and social justice activist with expertise in sustainability, regenerative strategies, permaculture, and community-building, has worked with a number of grassroots organizations, local governments and global corporations to drive equity and environmental impact. Jahnavi is a co-founder of the From Soil to Soul documentary series, the pilot episode of which, Food Justice in LA, is being shown at Bioneers this year.

Producer | From Soil to Soul Documentary Series

Rachel Allen, MFA, a recovering advertising executive passionate about triple-bottom-line filmmaking, has produced such award-winning projects as 'Wish Upon A Disco Ball' and ‘BIPOCalypse,' with notable screen credits including 'Amend: The Fight for America' and 'Promising Young Woman.' With a background in design, storytelling, and literary management, Rachel is dedicated to creating media that uplifts underrepresented communities, fosters environmental consciousness, and inspires positive social change. She is the producer of the From Soil to Soul documentary series, the pilot episode of which, Food Justice in LA, is being shown at Bioneers this year.

Cinematographer | From Soil to Soul Documentary Series

Eldon Arena, a Los Angeles-based Filipino cinematographer and editor, co-founded Studio SAKA, a creative studio dedicated to social impact and climate education, and has led film projects with organizations such as LA Compost and Off Their Plate. An expert in cinema cameras and an experienced drone and FPV pilot, he is passionate about crafting meaningful stories. Eldon is the cinematographer of the From Soil to Soul documentary series, the pilot episode of which, Food Justice in LA, is being shown at Bioneers this year.

Drummer and Water Conservation Administrator

Deb Lane has been playing the drums for most of her life. Formerly a member of the Santa Cruz World Beat Band, Pele Juju, she performs with artists throughout the Bay Area and beyond. In addition to her musical endeavors, Deb is a leader in water-use efficiency and works as a Water Conservation Administrator.

Vocalist, Drummer and Teacher

Debbie Fier, a vocalist, drummer, pianist, composer, percussionist and teacher, has performed throughout the U.S. and internationally and spent years as a mentor and teacher in the Institute of Music, Health and Education. Among other areas of endeavor, Debbie teaches drumming, body percussion and rhythm to children and adults, has been the musical prayer leader at Kehilla Community Synagogue for 20 years, is a sound therapy practitioner, and is a member of the Piano Technicians Guild. Her original compositions are available on four recordings — In Your Hands, Firelight, Coming Home and most recently: Waterways.

Founder | International Cultural Arts and Healing Sciences Institute

Amikaeyla, founder of the International Cultural Arts and Healing Sciences Institute, is an educator, author and award-winning singer/performer who has served as a Cultural Arts Ambassador for the State Department working on inter-cultural literacy and restorative justice programs with political refugees, war survivors, and at-risk populations worldwide. She has also studied the healing effects of music with many traditional healers and cultural artists and was invited by HH the Dalai Lama to sing at the commemorative Golden Buddha performance in India.

CEO and Co-Founder | Bioneers

Kenny Ausubel, CEO and co-founder (in 1990) of Bioneers, is an award-winning social entrepreneur, journalist, author and filmmaker. Co-founder and first CEO of the organic seed company, Seeds of Change, his film (and companion book) Hoxsey: When Healing Becomes a Crime helped influence national alternative medicine policy. He has edited several books and written four, including, most recently, Dreaming the Future: Reimagining Civilization in the Age of Nature.

Co-Founder and Chief Relationship Strategist | Bioneers

Nina Simons, co-founder of Bioneers and its Chief Relationship Strategist is also co-founder of Women Bridging Worlds and Connecting Women Leading Change. She co-edited the anthology book, Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart, and most recently wrote Nature, Culture & The Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership. An award-winning social entrepreneur, Nina teaches and speaks internationally, and previously served as President of Seeds of Change and Director of Strategic Marketing for Odwalla.