Founder and President | Global Center for Indigenous Leadership and Lifeways

Ilarion (Kuuyux) Merculieff, raised in a traditional Unangan (Aleut) way, recognized as a carrier of ancient knowledge into modern times, has co-founded, chaired or directed a number of leading Alaska Indigenous and environmental groups, including the Alaska Indigenous Council on Marine Mammals; the Alaska chapter of the Nature Conservancy; the International Bering Sea Forum; the Alaska Forum on the Environment, and the Alaska Oceans Network. He has presented at numerous scientific conferences and chaired the Indigenous knowledge sessions at the Global Summit of Indigenous Peoples on Climate Change. He is the author of: Wisdom Keeper: One Man’s Journey to Honor the Untold Story of the Unangan People, and co-authored Stop Talking: Indigenous Ways of Teaching and Learning, and Perspectives on Indigenous Issues: Essays on Science, Spirituality, Partnerships, and the Power of Words. He co-founded a council of Elders called 'the Wisdom Weavers of the world', and he currently leads GCILL - the Global Center for Indigenous Leadership and Lifeways.

CEO and Founder | Bioneers

Kenny Ausubel, CEO and 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 | 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.

Mycologist and Author

Paul Stamets, speaker, author, award-winning mycologist, medical researcher, groundbreaking mycological entrepreneur, and a visionary thought leader in the study of fungi and their uses in promoting human health, ecological restoration, and detoxification of the environment, is the author of six books, including: Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save The World, Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms, and Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World. Paul has discovered and named numerous new species of psilocybin mushrooms and is the founder and owner of Fungi Perfecti, LLC, makers of the Host Defense Mushrooms (www.hostdefense.com) supplement line. And Paul’s work has now entered mainstream popular culture. The new Star Trek: Discovery series features a Lt. Paul Stamets, Science Officer and Astromycologist(!).

| The Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company

The Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company’s extraordinary energy, brilliant choreography and inspired lyrics have been rocking the house at Bioneers for many years. A program of Destiny Arts Center, an Oakland-based violence prevention/arts education nonprofit, the company is a multicultural group of teens that creates original performance art combining hip-hop, dance, theater, martial arts, song, and rap. It has performed locally and nationally since 1993 and has been the subject of two documentary films. DAYPC’s artistic directors are: Sarah Crowell & Rashidi Omari.

State Senator | Maine

Chloe Maxmin, hailing from rural Maine, is a Maine State Senator just elected in 2020 after unseating a two-term Republican incumbent and (former) Senate Minority Leader. In 2018, she served in the Maine House of Representatives after becoming the first Democrat to win her rural conservative district. Chloe is seeking to develop a new politics for rural America, and she and her campaign manager, Canyon Woodward, are currently writing a book for Beacon Press about their electoral success and political goals.

Executive Director | Rap Sessions

Bakari Kitwana, an internationally known cultural critic, journalist, activist, and thought leader in the area of hip-hop and Black youth political engagement, is Executive Director of Rap Sessions, which conducts town hall meetings around the nation on difficult dialogues facing millennials. A Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard, Kitwana co-founded the 2004 National Hip-Hop Political Convention and is co-editor of the new book Democracy Unchained: How to Rebuild Government For the People.

Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics (Emeritus) | Oberlin College

David W. Orr, a Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics (Emeritus) at Oberlin College, is a pioneering, award-winning thought leader in the fields of Sustainability and Ecological Literacy. The author and co-author of countless articles and papers and several seminal books, including, most recently, Dangerous Years: Climate Change and the Long Emergency, he has served as a board member or adviser to many foundations and organizations (including Bioneers!). His current work is on the state of our democracy

CEO | Mother Jones

Monika Bauerlein is the award-winning CEO of Mother Jones, one of the most important and impactful investigative journalism institutions in the U.S. Born in Germany but widely traveled, she had an extensive journalistic career as a writer and editor until coming to Mother Jones in 2000. Under her and now Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery's leadership, MOJO has become one of the rare success stories in contemporary independent journalism, winning three National Magazine Awards.

Faithkeeper | Onandaga Nation, Haudenosaunee

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.

State Senator | Maine

Chloe Maxmin, hailing from rural Maine, is a Maine State Senator just elected in 2020 after unseating a two-term Republican incumbent and (former) Senate Minority Leader. In 2018, she served in the Maine House of Representatives after becoming the first Democrat to win her rural conservative district. Chloe is seeking to develop a new politics for rural America, and she and her campaign manager, Canyon Woodward, are currently writing a book for Beacon Press about their electoral success and political goals.

Director | Our Secure Future

Sahana Dharmapuri, the Director of Our Secure Future, a program of One Earth Future Foundation, was previously an independent advisor on gender, peace and security issues to many major international organizations including USAID, NATO, The Swedish Armed Forces and the International Peace Institute. She is the author of Women, Peace & Security: 10 Things You Should Know and has published articles and papers widely.

Founder | World Pulse

Jensine (pron. “yen-see-nah”) Larsen is an award-winning digital impact entrepreneur, international journalist, and expert on the use of technology to strengthen global women’s power. She is the founder of World Pulse, an independent, women-powered global social network connecting tens of thousands of women from 190 countries and bringing them a greater global voice. Through World Pulse women leaders are impacting over 17.4 million lives by building global movements, launching businesses, changing policies, and transforming harmful cultural practices.

Executive Director | Groundswell Fund

Vanessa Daniel, a former union organizer and longtime social justice activist, is an award-winning innovator in the field of philanthropy. She founded and is Executive Director of Groundswell Fund, the largest funder of the U.S. reproductive justice movement, and of Groundswell Action Fund, the largest U.S. institution helping fund women of color-led 501c4 organizations. Groundswell, among other achievements, is the country’s only fund dedicated to supporting access to midwifery and doula care for women of color, low-income women and transgender people; and funds a women-of-color-led Integrated Voter Engagement training program as well. Vanessa also serves on the board of the Common Counsel Foundation.

CEO | Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples

Tia Oros Peters (Shiwi), a mother, grandmother, writer and artist, as well as a social, cultural, and environmental justice organizer for 30+ years, is CEO of the Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples, which supports Native Peoples' community generated strategies for cultural revitalization, movement building, self-determination, and Re-Indigenization. Tia also co-founded the Global Indigenous Women's Caucus and Indigenous Women Worldwide, and serves on the National Advisory Committee of Grantmakers for Girls of Color and on the boards of the Proteus Fund and of Tools and Tiaras.

Co-Founder and Executive Director | One Earth

Justin Winters, formerly Executive Director of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, is the co-founder and Executive Director of One Earth, an organization working to galvanize science, advocacy and philanthropy to drive collective action on climate change to forge a path forward to a 2050 in which 100% renewable energy; protection and restoration of 50% of the world’s lands and oceans; and a transition to regenerative, carbon-negative agriculture create a world in which humanity and nature coexist and thrive together.

Strategic Partner | RESOLVE

Carly Vynne, Ph.D, is an ecologist and conservation strategist who seeks out creative solutions for how we can leave more room for nature in a rapidly changing world. She recently co-authored The Global Deal for Nature, which calls for an ambitious, time-bound set of nature-based targets that must be achieved if we are to solve the climate and extinction crises.

Campaign Director | Avaaz

Oscar Soria, Campaign Director at the renowned, highly effective, international civic movement Avaaz, is an Argentine human rights and environmental campaigner who has received widespread recognition for his innovative work at the intersection of technology, organizing, and advocacy on social, political, and environmental issues. He previously held senior global roles in Greenpeace and WWF and served in non-executive or advisory roles for the boards of several prominent organizations, including: Oxfam, Amnesty International, and the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities.

Managing Director | One Earth

Karl Burkart is the Managing Director of One Earth, which supports academic institutions and NGOs working on the cutting edges of climate and energy science, biodiversity mapping, and sustainable agriculture. Formerly Director of Media, Science and Technology at the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, Karl's past projects include: creating the blog, Greendig; producing and writing Planet 100, the Discovery Network's first online video news show; and leading digital advocacy for the TckTckTck campaign, a global network of more than 450 NGOs working to secure a strong international climate agreement. Karl's publications include co-authoring the groundbreaking paper "A Global Deal for Nature: Guiding Principles, Milestones, and Targets" in 2019.

| Brazilian Coordination of Indigenous peoples in the Amazon (COIAB)

Angela Amanakwa Kaxuyana is part of the senior leadership of the Brazilian Coordination of Indigenous peoples in the Amazon (COIAB). At a very young age, in the late 90’s she played a critical role in the struggle of the Kaxuyana, Kahyana and Tunayana peoples that led the demarcation of their lands in 2003. Angela led several indigenous led conservation initiatives and has a degree in Business Administration with specialization in environmental management.

Executive Director | Rap Sessions

Bakari Kitwana, an internationally known cultural critic, journalist, activist, and thought leader in the area of hip-hop and Black youth political engagement, is Executive Director of Rap Sessions, which conducts town hall meetings around the nation on difficult dialogues facing millennials. A Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard, Kitwana co-founded the 2004 National Hip-Hop Political Convention and is co-editor of the new book Democracy Unchained: How to Rebuild Government For the People.

Co-Founder | Black Voters Matter Fund

LaTosha Brown, an Atlanta-based award-winning organizer, philanthropic consultant, political strategist (and jazz singer) with 20+ years’ experience in the non-profit and philanthropy sectors, co-founded Black Voters Matter Fund, a power building Southern based civic engagement organization; is principal owner of TruthSpeaks Consulting, Inc., a philanthropy advisory consulting firm; and is the founding Project Director of Grantmakers for Southern Progress.

CEO | AI For the People

Mutale Nkonde is an AI Policy advisor of the UN, member of the Tik Tok Advisory Board and CEO of AI for the People, a non profit communications firm that seeks to change tech neutrality narratives.  Prior to this, Nkonde worked in AI Governance. During that time, she was part of the team that introduced the Algorithmic Accountability Act, the DEEP FAKES Accountability Act, and the No Biometric Barriers to Housing Act to the US House of Representatives.  Nkonde holds fellowships at the Digital Civil Society Lab at Stanford University and the Institute of Advanced Study at Notre Dame and is an affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

Executive Director | United We Dream

Greisa Martinez Rosas is the Executive Director at United We Dream, a national nonpartisan, membership-based organization of immigrant youth and allies that advocates for the dignity and fair treatment of undocumented immigrant youth and their families. The co-founder of the Texas Dream Alliance, she has been a Fellow with the League of Young Voters, a 2018 Fellow with the Opportunity Agenda Communications Institutes, and has organized immigrant youth, students and workers for the passage of pro-immigrant policies at the local, state and national level for the past decade.

Mycologist and Author

Paul Stamets, speaker, author, award-winning mycologist, medical researcher, groundbreaking mycological entrepreneur, and a visionary thought leader in the study of fungi and their uses in promoting human health, ecological restoration, and detoxification of the environment, is the author of six books, including: Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save The World, Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms, and Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World. Paul has discovered and named numerous new species of psilocybin mushrooms and is the founder and owner of Fungi Perfecti, LLC, makers of the Host Defense Mushrooms (www.hostdefense.com) supplement line. And Paul’s work has now entered mainstream popular culture. The new Star Trek: Discovery series features a Lt. Paul Stamets, Science Officer and Astromycologist(!).

Director | The Spirit Aligned Leadership Program

Katsi Cook (Mohawk/Haudenosaunee), from Akwesasne along the St. Lawrence River, a groundbreaking, revered figure in the revitalization of Indigenous midwifery and of advocacy for Indigenous women's health, is Director of The Spirit Aligned Leadership Program, which works with Indigenous elder women to heal, strengthen, and restore Indigenous communities. A founding member of the National Aboriginal Council of Midwives and the Konon:kwe ("all women") Council, Katsi has decades of experience as a researcher and a lecturer on Indigenous environmental reproductive health, and she and her husband of 40 years, Jose Barreiro, have 6 children and 11 grandchildren.

Professor | California Institute of Integral Studies

Francoise Bourzat, a San Francisco Bay Area-based somatic counselor, teaches at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco, runs online courses, lectures in various institutions, collaborates with physicians on a variety of treatment projects, and trains psychedelic guides internationally. She has guided ceremonies with sacred mushrooms in collaboration with Indigenous healers in Huautla de Jimenez, Mexico, for the last 30 years and is the author of: Consciousness Medicine: Indigenous Wisdom, Entheogens, and Expanded States of Consciousness for Healing and Growth.

Senior Producer | Bioneers

J.P. Harpignies, Bioneers Senior Producer, affiliated with Bioneers since 1990, is a Brooklyn, NYC-based consultant, conference producer, copy-editor and writer. A former Program Director at the New York Open Center and a senior review team member for the Buckminster Fuller Challenge from 2010 to 2017, he has authored or edited several books, including Political Ecosystems, Delusions of Normality, Visionary Plant Consciousness, and, most recently, Animal Encounters.

Executive Director | 350.org

May Boeve is the San Francisco Bay Area-based Executive Director of 350.org, the renowned, highly effective and influential international climate change campaign whose creative communications, organizing, and mass mobilizations strive to generate the sense of urgency required to tackle the climate crisis. Previously, May co-founded and helped lead the Step It Up 2007 campaign, and prior to that was active in the campus climate movement while a student at Middlebury College. May is the co-author of Fight Global Warming Now.

Spoken Word Improviser/Poet

Tim Merry works with major international businesses, government agencies, local communities and regional collaboratives to lead breakthrough change through coaching, training, keynote speaking, engagement facilitation and systems change designed to energize and shake up the status quo. As an engagement specialist and systems change strategist, Tim organizes for forward movement. He is also a widely renowned spoken word improviser/poet.

| World Cafes

Amy Lenzo, who pioneered the World Cafe online process and has hosted hundreds of online World Cafes with people from all over the world since then, has been hosting conscious online engagement for over a decade and has been a cutting-edge leader in creating distinctly human interactive online spaces that help us connect with ourselves, each other and the natural world.

Founder | Santa Cruz Permaculture

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.

Associate Professor | UBC Okanagan

Jeannette Armstrong, Ph.D., fluent Okanagan/Nsyilxcən speaker and knowledge keeper of the Syilx Okanagan people, is an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Knowledge at UBC Okanagan. She collaborates with Salish-speaking groups to re-establish Indigenous languages, historical relationships and food resource ceremonies through gatherings, trading, and protections of water and land practices. She is a recipient of the Eco Trust USA Buffett Award in Indigenous Leadership and serves on Canada’s Aboriginal Traditional Knowledge Subcommittee of COSEWIC.

Founder and Director | ShadeTree Multicultural Foundation

Orland Bishop, founder and Director of ShadeTree Multicultural Foundation in Los Angeles, an intentional community of mentors, elders, teachers, artists, healers and advocates for the healthy development of children and youth, has pioneered innovative approaches to urban truces and mentoring at-risk youth that draw from his extensive study of medicine, naturopathy, psychology, and African Indigenous cosmologies.

Co-Founder | Beyond Boudaries

Gigi Coyle is a community activist, council facilitator, rite-of-passage guide, and a mentor to a number of individuals, communities and organizations. She is currently working with several organizations, including: Youth Passageways, ShadeTree Multicultural Foundation, the Ojai Foundation, Weaving Earth, and Beyond Boundaries. Her work, which has included co-founding such initiatives as: Walking Water; A Practice of Council; and “The Box, Remembering the Gift,” has always been focused on healing ways through ceremony, inter-generational projects of prayer, action, and service.

Co-Director | The Ojai Foundation

Brendan Clarke, a father, educator, writer and guide whose work focuses on healthy human relationships with self, community and the cosmos, especially at the intersection of social and ecological justice, resilience and response, currently serves as Co-Director of The Ojai Foundation with his wife, Shay.

Justine Epstein is a community organizer, rites of passage guide and council carrier in the lineage of Beyond Boundaries. Her work focuses on healing from inherited systems of colonization, white supremacy, cis-hetero patriarchy and global capitalism through community, practices, prayer, storytelling and relationship with the more than human world, with a particular focus on anti-racism and wealth redistribution.

| San Francisco Unified School District’s Indian Education Program

Paloma Flores, of California Indian Pit River Nation and P'urhépecha de Mexico ancestry, an activist and voice for her people, coordinates the San Francisco Unified School District’s Indian Education Program, co-directs the Bioneers Native Youth Leadership Program, and is a board member for the American Indian Cultural District San Francisco. She is also an artist, a Peace and Dignity Journeys intercontinental prayer runner, and a dancer. 

Founder and Artistic Director | Truthworker Theatre Company

Samara Gaev, founder and Artistic Director of Truthworker Theatre Company, is a Brooklyn-based activist, educator, facilitator, theater director, and performer with 20 years' experience using performance as a tool for cross-cultural healing and social change. Her work, which has taken her to Zimbabwe, Senegal, Hawaii, Brazil, Peru, Cuba, Germany, Scotland, and throughout the U.S., examines and challenges constructions of power, privilege, the prison industrial complex, and other systems of oppression.

Co-Founder | Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education

Dave Hage, co-founder of the Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education and a member of the teaching team for the Weaving Earth Immersion program (and a white, cis-man of northern European descent from Southern Pomo territory, also known as Sonoma County) is a wilderness guide and nature connection mentor.

Activist, Singer/Songwriter

Pat McCabe (Weyakpa Najin Win/Woman Stands Shining), of Diné (Navajo) ancestry but also adopted into Lakota spiritual traditions, is a rural New Mexico-based mother, grandmother, activist, artist, writer, ceremonial leader, and international speaker. A voice for global peace, her multi-faceted work includes exploring issues of sustainability and balance and the reconciliation between the masculine and feminine.

Founder and President | Global Center for Indigenous Leadership and Lifeways

Ilarion (Kuuyux) Merculieff, raised in a traditional Unangan (Aleut) way, recognized as a carrier of ancient knowledge into modern times, has co-founded, chaired or directed a number of leading Alaska Indigenous and environmental groups, including the Alaska Indigenous Council on Marine Mammals; the Alaska chapter of the Nature Conservancy; the International Bering Sea Forum; the Alaska Forum on the Environment, and the Alaska Oceans Network. He has presented at numerous scientific conferences and chaired the Indigenous knowledge sessions at the Global Summit of Indigenous Peoples on Climate Change. He is the author of: Wisdom Keeper: One Man’s Journey to Honor the Untold Story of the Unangan People, and co-authored Stop Talking: Indigenous Ways of Teaching and Learning, and Perspectives on Indigenous Issues: Essays on Science, Spirituality, Partnerships, and the Power of Words. He co-founded a council of Elders called 'the Wisdom Weavers of the world', and he currently leads GCILL - the Global Center for Indigenous Leadership and Lifeways.

Co-Founder and Executive Director | The Humane Prison Hospice Project

Ladybird Morgan, who has worked as a registered nurse, clinical social worker, healer and educator for 20+ years, is co-founder and Executive Director of The Humane Prison Hospice Project whose mission is to implement end-of-life care in prisons by training prisoners to be caregivers. Ladybird has worked with many organizations including The Zen Hospice Project and Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and co-facilitates circles at Commonweal and UCSF/MERI Center's Last Acts of Kindness Program. Aside from her work for Humane (speaking on panels, presenting at various end of life events, general advocacy), Ladybird has also been going into San Quentin prison working with the prisoner-formed Brothers Keepers group on their crisis intervention and peer support programs.

Shlomo Pesach is a community organizer, queer mentor and Jewish ritualist devoted to cultivating flourishing fugitive queer futures.

Director | Difficult Dialogues Initiative

Libby Roderick, Director of the Difficult Dialogues Initiative and co-founder of the Difficult Dialogues National Resource Center, is the co-author/editor of many books and articles and works with universities across the U.S. and in South Africa to increase their capacity to effectively conduct difficult dialogues and apply Indigenous ways of teaching and learning. Libby is also an internationally recognized singer/songwriter whose six recordings have received extensive airplay on Earth and, in 2003, NASA played her song "Dig Down Deep" on the planet Mars as encouragement to the robot "Spirit."

Author

Luis J. Rodriguez has spent 40 years doing poetry readings, talks, and leading healing circles as well as creative writing classes in prisons, juvenile lockups, and jails. He has written 16 books in all genres, including the bestselling memoir: Always Running, La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. His latest book is: From Our Land to Our Land: Essays, Journeys and Imaginings from a Native Xicanx Writer. From 2014-2016 Luis served as Los Angeles’ Poet Laureate.

Senior Fellow | Center for Whole Communities

Kristin Rothballer, a social change leader focused on the intersection of personal, social and ecological healing and transformation, consults on strategy, programs, equity and organizational development for nonprofits, foundations, social and land-based enterprises. Her current projects include serving as a Senior Fellow for Center for Whole Communities and pursuing a Masters in Social Transformation at Pacific School of Religion (at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA). Kristin's previous roles and projects included: co-founding and directing Green for All, working to build an inclusive green economy; helping design FIREROCK, a musical to engage people around climate change; guiding wilderness-based retreats for Ecology of Awakening; helping manage the Bell Valley Retreat and Tunitas Creek Ranch retreat centers; and working as Director of Programs at Bioneers. Kristin has also stewarded the Tyler Rigg Foundation for 20+ years.

Marlowe Sam, Ph.D., a Wenatchi/Lakes descendant from the Colville Confederated Tribes of Washington State, is a longtime Indigenous Rights activist and a scholar/researcher in Indigenous Studies with a special focus on Indigenous Water Rights in Canada.

Author

Anita Sanchez, Ph.D., of Aztec and Latina ancestry, has drawn from Indigenous wisdom and modern science to guide thousands of leaders in corporations and nonprofits in creating diverse and inclusive workplaces and communities. She is the author of six books, including the international bestselling: Success University for Women in Business, and the International Latino Book Award winner: The Four Sacred Gifts: Indigenous Wisdom for Modern Times.

Co-Founder and Facilitator | Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education

Will Scott is a co-founder and facilitator at the Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education, which works to create systems change through education at the confluences of social and environmental justice.

Co-Director | Ojai Foundation

Sharon Shay Sloan, Co-Director of the Ojai Foundation, is a rites-of-passage guide and council trainer who has worked with a number of organizations over the years, including: Beyond Boundaries, Wilderness Reflections, School of Lost Borders, Global Passageways, and Youth Passageways. She also worked in international conservation for a decade, including as founding Director for the Indigenous & Community Lands & Seas program for The WILD Foundation and with the World Wilderness Congress.

Director of Training and Technical Assistance | National Compadres Network

Jerry Tello of Mexican, Texan and Coahuiltecan ancestry, raised in South Central Los Angeles, has worked for 40+ years as a leading expert in transformational healing for men and boys of color; racial justice; peaceful community mobilization; and providing domestic violence awareness, healing, and support services to war veterans and their spouses. Director of Training and Technical Assistance for the National Compadres Network and an award-winning author of many publications (including, most recently: Recovering Your Sacredness), he also leads a weekly podcast, Healing Generations. 

Co-Founder | 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.

Program Director of the Bioneers Indigenous Knowledge Program | Bioneers

Cara Romero (Chemehuevi), Program Director of the Bioneers Indigenous Knowledge 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.

Program Manager for Bioneers’ Indigeneity Program | Bioneers

Alexis Bunten, Ph.D., (Aleut/Yup’ik), Program Manager for Bioneers’ Indigeneity Program, has been a researcher, media-maker, manager, consultant, and curriculum developer for organizations including the Sealaska Heritage Institute, Alaska Native Heritage Center, and the FrameWorks Institute. She has published widely about Indigenous and environmental issues, and is the author of So, how long have you been Native?: Life as an Alaska Native Tour Guide.

Executive Director, Organizational Development and Strategy | Center for Whole Communities

Ginny McGinn, Executive Director, Organizational Development and Strategy, at the Center for Whole Communities, has long been deeply involved in social and organizational change work and in building partnerships across lines of power and privilege. Previously President of Bioneers, Ginny facilitates and consults on organizational change around the country, using the Whole Thinking Practices and the tools she and her colleagues have helped evolve at Center for Whole Communities.

Founder | The Bodhi Project

Sonali Sangeeta Balajee is the founder of Our Bodhi Project, which promotes practices at the intersection of Belonging, Organizing, Decolonizing, Health, and Interconnectedness. Sonali previously spent 13 years in government in Portland, OR, leading equity-based projects, has been an activist in HIV/AIDS work, environmental justice, and racial equity for 30 years, has 20 years’ experience in dance and music performance and 35 years’ practicing yoga and mindfulness.

CEO | Blue Dasher Farm

Jonathan Lundgren, Ph.D., an agro-ecologist and leading figure in the field of regenerative agriculture, is the Director of the ECDYSIS Foundation and CEO of Blue Dasher Farm. An award-winning scientist with the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service for 11 years, he has served as an advisor for national panels and regulatory agencies on pesticide and GM crop risk assessments, written 126 peer-reviewed journal articles, and authored the book, Relationships of Natural Enemies and Non-prey Foods.

Director | The Greenhorns

Severine von Tscharner Fleming, a Maine-based farmer, activist, and organizer, runs Smithereen Farm, a MOFGA certified organic wild blueberry, seaweed, and orchard operation that also hosts summer camps and educational workshops. A founder and board member of Agrarian Trust and current Director of The Greenhorns, a grassroots organization whose mission is to recruit and support incoming generations of new farmers, Severine is also: co-founder and board secretary of Farm Hack, an online, open-source platform for appropriate farm tools and technologies; co-founder of the National Young Farmers Coalition; on the board of the Schumacher Center for New Economics; and on the advisory board of Savanna Institute.

Co-Founder/Director | Sole Food Street Farms

Michael Ableman, based at Foxglove Farm on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia and co-founder/Director of Sole Food Street Farms, is one of the early visionaries of the urban agriculture movement who, over the decades, created high-profile urban farms in Watts, California; Goleta, California; and Vancouver, British Columbia; and has worked on and advised dozens of similar projects throughout North America and the Caribbean. Founder of the nonprofit Center for Urban Agriculture, he is the subject of the award-winning PBS film Beyond Organic narrated by Meryl Streep. His books include: From the Good Earth; On Good Land; and Fields of Plenty.

CEO and Founder | Bioneers

Kenny Ausubel, CEO and 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 | 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 | 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 | Native Women's Collective

Cutcha Risling Baldy, Ph.D. (Hupa, Yurok, Karuk), Associate Professor and Department Chair of Native American Studies at Humboldt State and co-founder of the Native Women's Collective, a nonprofit supporting the revitalization of Native American arts and culture, researches Indigenous feminisms, California Indians and decolonization. She is the author of: We Are Dancing For You: Native feminisms and the revitalization of women's coming-of-age.

Co-Founder | The Redwoods Music

Alfred Howard, a prolific spoken-word artist, writer, and co-founder of The Redwoods Music, a San Diego record label and collective, currently pens lyrics for 8 bands and performs homemade percussion with six. In his early 20s he caravanned with musicians all across the county before finally setting roots in San Diego, where he has become a leading figure in that city's musical community. He is the author of 2 books, including The Autobiography of No One; writes articles for several leading San Diego newspapers and magazines; and has written lyrics for over 30 released albums.

Progressive Talk Show Host

Thom Hartmann, the top progressive talk show host in America for over a decade and a four-time Project Censored Award-winning journalist, is the author of some 30 books, including the international bestseller, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight (about the end of the age of oil), used as a textbook in many schools and colleges. Thom, a former psychotherapist and entrepreneur, has also co-written and been featured in 6 documentaries with Leonardo DiCaprio.

| Rising Appalachia

Rising Appalachia, a renowned musical ensemble founded by Leah Song and Chloe Smith in 2006, and now grown to include David Brown on upright bass and baritone guitar, Biko Casini on world percussion, Arouna Diarra on ngoni and balafon, and Duncan Wickel on fiddle and cello, is rooted in various folk traditions, storytelling, and passionate grassroots activism. The band routinely provides a platform for local causes wherever it plays and frequently incites its fans to gather with it in converting vacant or underused lots into verdant urban orchards and gardens. In a time of social unraveling, Rising Appalachia’s unique interweaving of music and social mission and old traditions with new interpretations exudes contagious hope and deep integrity.

Executive Director | Groundswell Fund

Vanessa Daniel, a former union organizer and longtime social justice activist, is an award-winning innovator in the field of philanthropy. She founded and is Executive Director of Groundswell Fund, the largest funder of the U.S. reproductive justice movement, and of Groundswell Action Fund, the largest U.S. institution helping fund women of color-led 501c4 organizations. Groundswell, among other achievements, is the country’s only fund dedicated to supporting access to midwifery and doula care for women of color, low-income women and transgender people; and funds a women-of-color-led Integrated Voter Engagement training program as well. Vanessa also serves on the board of the Common Counsel Foundation.

Progressive Talk Show Host

Thom Hartmann, the top progressive talk show host in America for over a decade and a four-time Project Censored Award-winning journalist, is the author of some 30 books, including the international bestseller, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight (about the end of the age of oil), used as a textbook in many schools and colleges. Thom, a former psychotherapist and entrepreneur, has also co-written and been featured in 6 documentaries with Leonardo DiCaprio.

CEO and Founder | Bioneers

Kenny Ausubel, CEO and 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-Executive Director | ACRE (Action Center on Race and the Economy)

Maurice BP-Weeks, based in Detroit, has many years’ community organizing experience in such areas as housing, policing, incarceration, corporate accountability and education justice. Co-Executive Director of ACRE (Action Center on Race and the Economy) where he works with community organizations and labor unions on campaigns to create equitable communities by dismantling systems of wealth extraction in Black and Brown communities, he also serves on many boards, including those of: Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity, National Institute for Money in Politics, Investors Advocates for Social Justice and the National Black Workers Center.

Co-Director | Institute for Local Self-Reliance

Stacy Mitchell, the Portland, Maine-based Co-Director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, which produces research and develops policy to counter corporate control and build thriving, equitable communities, has written extensively about the dangers of monopoly power, including for The Atlantic,Bloomberg, The Nation, and The New York Times. She's the author of a book, Big-Box Swindle, and several influential reports, including "Amazon's Stranglehold" and "Monopoly Power and the Decline of Small Business."

Jadyn Fauconier-Herry, a recent graduate of New York University, where she earned her BA in Social and Cultural Analysis with a concentration in theories of Race, Class, and Punishment, aims to honor in her writing and research the work of radical Black thinkers who have come before her and those participating in current struggles and organizing efforts.

Co-Founder and Healing Justice Organizer | How Our Lives link Altogether (H.O.L.L.A.)

Cory Greene, Ph.D., formerly incarcerated himself, is: an organizer with the Formerly Incarcerated Convicted People and Family Movement (a national movement to change the public policy landscape of criminal justice); co-founder and Healing Justice Organizer with How Our Lives link Altogether (H.O.L.L.A.); a national organizer with the Education Liberation Project; as well as a research associate on numerous participatory action research projects. A former National Science Foundation, Ford Foundation, Echoing Green and Camelback Fellow, Cory's organizing work has been featured in several documentaries, including: Ava Duvernay's 13th, From Prison to NYU, and most recently, We Came to Heal.

Communications Manager | Essie Justice Group

Olka Baldeh, a Fulani storyteller, poet and nomad, and an environmental justice advocate and anti-police brutality activist for nearly a decade, currently works as the Communications Manager for the Essie Justice Group, a California-based nonprofit that serves women with incarcerated loved ones, and is also the founder of the Black Moon Podcast.

Communications Director and Research Fellow | Lead to Life

Liz Kennedy, a Detroit-based storyteller and organizer, is Program Coordinator for the Allied Media Conference, where she works to create spaces for artists and organizers to strategize, celebrate, and cross-pollinate across movements and mediums. Liz also works with Lead to Life, a collective of queer artists dedicated to "bridging racial and environmental justice through ceremony and art practice...to decompose systems of oppression."

Executive Director | Urban Tilth

Doria Robinson, a 3rd-generation resident of Richmond, California and Executive Director of Urban Tilth, is a co-founder of Cooperation Richmond, a worker-owned cooperative developer and local loan fund. Doria previously worked: on organic farms in Massachusetts; at Veritable Vegetable, a women-owned organic produce distribution company; at Real Food Company; and at Mixed Nuts Food Co-op. A Certified Permaculture Designer, she also led the development of Urban Tilth’s 3-acre urban farm in Richmond and the Farm-to-Table CSA social entrepreneurial venture that now serves 440 West County families each week.

Executive Director | Rich City Rides

Najari Smith, Richmond, CA-based founder and Executive Director of Rich City Rides, former chair and still member of the Richmond Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee, has worked tirelessly to improve bike infrastructure and to use bicycles to unite neighborhoods and communities throughout the Bay Area, including by creating the biggest bicycle celebrations in Richmond’s history.

Communications Organizer | New Economy Coalition

Natalia Linares, Communications Organizer at the New Economy Coalition, has over a decade of experience as a cultural organizer, artist advocate, and publicist working to amplify voices from traditionally underrepresented communities. In 2010 Natalia founded Conrazón, an agency for artists and creators invested in new paradigms of heart-centered economic justice in the performing arts and media.

| Movement Generation

Michelle Mascarenhas-Swan, a member of the Movement Generation (MG) staff collective who has been on its planning committee since 2008, has worked for the last 25 years building movement vehicles for frontline communities. Prior to her work at MG, she co-led the Center for Food and Justice, the National Farm to School Initiative, Rooted in Community, and the School of Unity and Liberation. Michelle was also a founding co-chair of the Climate Justice Alliance and the Our Power Campaign and was recently named an Ashoka Fellow (2017-2020).

Professor | University of Washington

Howard Frumkin, MD, MPH, Dr.Ph, a physician and epidemiologist, Professor Emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Washington, previously led the Our Planet, Our Health initiative at the Wellcome Trust. His many other positions have included: Dean of the University of Washington School of Public Health, Director of the National Center for Environmental Health at the CDC, and Chair of Environmental and Occupational Health at Emory University. He has served on the boards or advisory committees of a wide range of leading scientific, professional, academic and governmental institutions and is the author or co-author of over 250 scientific journal articles and nine books, including Making Healthy Places: Designing and Building for Health, Well-Being, and Sustainability; Environmental Health: From Global to Local, and most recently: Planetary Health: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves (Island Press, 2020).

Executive Vice President for Health and Policy | EcoHealth Alliance

William B. Karesh, Ph.D., a leading global expert on infectious diseases, wildlife and the environment, is Executive Vice President for Health and Policy at EcoHealth Alliance, President of the World Animal Health Organization Working Group on Wildlife Diseases, chair of the IUCN Wildlife Health Specialist Group; and serves on the WHO's International Health Regulations Roster of Experts focused on the human-animal interface and wildlife health. Currently EPT Partner Liaison for the USAID Emerging Pandemic Threats PREDICT-2 program, Dr. Karesh coined the term "One Health" in 2003 to describe the interdependence of healthy ecosystems, animals and people and has pioneered solutions-oriented initiatives with this concept as the guiding principle in programs under his direction in over 45 countries from Argentina to Zambia. He has published 180+ scientific papers and written for broader audience publications, including his highly acclaimed first book for a general audience, Appointment at the Ends of the World.

Senior Producer | Bioneers

J.P. Harpignies, Bioneers Senior Producer, affiliated with Bioneers since 1990, is a Brooklyn, NYC-based consultant, conference producer, copy-editor and writer. A former Program Director at the New York Open Center and a senior review team member for the Buckminster Fuller Challenge from 2010 to 2017, he has authored or edited several books, including Political Ecosystems, Delusions of Normality, Visionary Plant Consciousness, and, most recently, Animal Encounters.

Environmental Ambassador | Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma

Casey Camp-Horinek, Environmental Ambassador of the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma and Hereditary Drum-keeper of its Women’s Scalp Dance Society, elder and matriarch, is also an Emmy award-winning actress, author, and internationally renowned, longtime Native and human rights and environmental justice activist. She led efforts for the Ponca tribe to adopt a “rights of nature” statute and pass a moratorium on fracking on its territory. She has traveled and spoken around the world.

Founder and Executive Director | IllumiNative

Crystal Echo Hawk (Pawnee), is the founder and Executive Director of IllumiNative, the first and only national Native-led organization focused on changing the narrative about Native peoples on a mass scale. Crystal built IllumiNative to activate a cohesive set of research-informed strategies that illuminate the voices, stories, contributions and assets of contemporary Native peoples to disrupt the invisibility and toxic stereotypes Native peoples face.

Program Director of the Bioneers Indigenous Knowledge Program | Bioneers

Cara Romero (Chemehuevi), Program Director of the Bioneers Indigenous Knowledge 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.

Executive Director | Honor the Earth

Winona LaDuke, an international thought leader on climate justice and renewable energy, is a rural development economist working on issues of economic, food, and energy sovereignty. She lives and works on the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota, where she leads several organizations, including: Honor the Earth, Anishinaabe Agriculture Institute, Akiing, and Winona's Hemp, all of them devoted to developing and modeling culture-based sustainable development strategies utilizing renewable energy and sustainable food systems. She is also a leading figure in the work of protecting Indigenous plants and heritage foods from patenting and genetic engineering and has authored six books, including: Recovering the Sacred, All our Relations, Last Standing Woman, The Winona LaDuke Chronicles, and, most recently: To Be a Water Protector.

| World Cafes

Amy Lenzo, who pioneered the World Cafe online process and has hosted hundreds of online World Cafes with people from all over the world since then, has been hosting conscious online engagement for over a decade and has been a cutting-edge leader in creating distinctly human interactive online spaces that help us connect with ourselves, each other and the natural world.

Founder | Santa Cruz Permaculture

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 poet, educator and community arts organizer, is a Program Manager and teaching artist with Chapter 510, a made-in-Oakland, CA, youth creative writing and publishing center, for whom he facilitates creative writing and poetry workshops for youth in schools, community centers and juvenile detention centers across California. Jahan is an alumni of June Jordan's Poetry For The People program at UC Berkeley under the mentorship of Aya De Leon, and a former member of the Eugene Poetry Slam Team. His poetry has been featured on TEDx and Whoa Nelly press online journal.

Associate Professor | UBC Okanagan

Jeannette Armstrong, Ph.D., fluent Okanagan/Nsyilxcən speaker and knowledge keeper of the Syilx Okanagan people, is an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Knowledge at UBC Okanagan. She collaborates with Salish-speaking groups to re-establish Indigenous languages, historical relationships and food resource ceremonies through gatherings, trading, and protections of water and land practices. She is a recipient of the Eco Trust USA Buffett Award in Indigenous Leadership and serves on Canada’s Aboriginal Traditional Knowledge Subcommittee of COSEWIC.

Founder and Director | ShadeTree Multicultural Foundation

Orland Bishop, founder and Director of ShadeTree Multicultural Foundation in Los Angeles, an intentional community of mentors, elders, teachers, artists, healers and advocates for the healthy development of children and youth, has pioneered innovative approaches to urban truces and mentoring at-risk youth that draw from his extensive study of medicine, naturopathy, psychology, and African Indigenous cosmologies.

Co-Director | The Ojai Foundation

Brendan Clarke, a father, educator, writer and guide whose work focuses on healthy human relationships with self, community and the cosmos, especially at the intersection of social and ecological justice, resilience and response, currently serves as Co-Director of The Ojai Foundation with his wife, Shay.

Co-Founder | Beyond Boudaries

Gigi Coyle is a community activist, council facilitator, rite-of-passage guide, and a mentor to a number of individuals, communities and organizations. She is currently working with several organizations, including: Youth Passageways, ShadeTree Multicultural Foundation, the Ojai Foundation, Weaving Earth, and Beyond Boundaries. Her work, which has included co-founding such initiatives as: Walking Water; A Practice of Council; and “The Box, Remembering the Gift,” has always been focused on healing ways through ceremony, inter-generational projects of prayer, action, and service.

Justine Epstein is a community organizer, rites of passage guide and council carrier in the lineage of Beyond Boundaries. Her work focuses on healing from inherited systems of colonization, white supremacy, cis-hetero patriarchy and global capitalism through community, practices, prayer, storytelling and relationship with the more than human world, with a particular focus on anti-racism and wealth redistribution.

| San Francisco Unified School District’s Indian Education Program

Paloma Flores, of California Indian Pit River Nation and P'urhépecha de Mexico ancestry, an activist and voice for her people, coordinates the San Francisco Unified School District’s Indian Education Program, co-directs the Bioneers Native Youth Leadership Program, and is a board member for the American Indian Cultural District San Francisco. She is also an artist, a Peace and Dignity Journeys intercontinental prayer runner, and a dancer. 

Founder and Artistic Director | Truthworker Theatre Company

Samara Gaev, founder and Artistic Director of Truthworker Theatre Company, is a Brooklyn-based activist, educator, facilitator, theater director, and performer with 20 years' experience using performance as a tool for cross-cultural healing and social change. Her work, which has taken her to Zimbabwe, Senegal, Hawaii, Brazil, Peru, Cuba, Germany, Scotland, and throughout the U.S., examines and challenges constructions of power, privilege, the prison industrial complex, and other systems of oppression.

Co-Founder | Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education

Dave Hage, co-founder of the Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education and a member of the teaching team for the Weaving Earth Immersion program (and a white, cis-man of northern European descent from Southern Pomo territory, also known as Sonoma County) is a wilderness guide and nature connection mentor.

Activist, Singer/Songwriter

Pat McCabe (Weyakpa Najin Win/Woman Stands Shining), of Diné (Navajo) ancestry but also adopted into Lakota spiritual traditions, is a rural New Mexico-based mother, grandmother, activist, artist, writer, ceremonial leader, and international speaker. A voice for global peace, her multi-faceted work includes exploring issues of sustainability and balance and the reconciliation between the masculine and feminine.

Founder and President | Global Center for Indigenous Leadership and Lifeways

Ilarion (Kuuyux) Merculieff, raised in a traditional Unangan (Aleut) way, recognized as a carrier of ancient knowledge into modern times, has co-founded, chaired or directed a number of leading Alaska Indigenous and environmental groups, including the Alaska Indigenous Council on Marine Mammals; the Alaska chapter of the Nature Conservancy; the International Bering Sea Forum; the Alaska Forum on the Environment, and the Alaska Oceans Network. He has presented at numerous scientific conferences and chaired the Indigenous knowledge sessions at the Global Summit of Indigenous Peoples on Climate Change. He is the author of: Wisdom Keeper: One Man’s Journey to Honor the Untold Story of the Unangan People, and co-authored Stop Talking: Indigenous Ways of Teaching and Learning, and Perspectives on Indigenous Issues: Essays on Science, Spirituality, Partnerships, and the Power of Words. He co-founded a council of Elders called 'the Wisdom Weavers of the world', and he currently leads GCILL - the Global Center for Indigenous Leadership and Lifeways.

Co-Founder and Executive Director | The Humane Prison Hospice Project

Ladybird Morgan, who has worked as a registered nurse, clinical social worker, healer and educator for 20+ years, is co-founder and Executive Director of The Humane Prison Hospice Project whose mission is to implement end-of-life care in prisons by training prisoners to be caregivers. Ladybird has worked with many organizations including The Zen Hospice Project and Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and co-facilitates circles at Commonweal and UCSF/MERI Center's Last Acts of Kindness Program. Aside from her work for Humane (speaking on panels, presenting at various end of life events, general advocacy), Ladybird has also been going into San Quentin prison working with the prisoner-formed Brothers Keepers group on their crisis intervention and peer support programs.

Shlomo Pesach is a community organizer, queer mentor and Jewish ritualist devoted to cultivating flourishing fugitive queer futures.

Director | Difficult Dialogues Initiative

Libby Roderick, Director of the Difficult Dialogues Initiative and co-founder of the Difficult Dialogues National Resource Center, is the co-author/editor of many books and articles and works with universities across the U.S. and in South Africa to increase their capacity to effectively conduct difficult dialogues and apply Indigenous ways of teaching and learning. Libby is also an internationally recognized singer/songwriter whose six recordings have received extensive airplay on Earth and, in 2003, NASA played her song "Dig Down Deep" on the planet Mars as encouragement to the robot "Spirit."

Author

Luis J. Rodriguez has spent 40 years doing poetry readings, talks, and leading healing circles as well as creative writing classes in prisons, juvenile lockups, and jails. He has written 16 books in all genres, including the bestselling memoir: Always Running, La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. His latest book is: From Our Land to Our Land: Essays, Journeys and Imaginings from a Native Xicanx Writer. From 2014-2016 Luis served as Los Angeles’ Poet Laureate.

Senior Fellow | Center for Whole Communities

Kristin Rothballer, a social change leader focused on the intersection of personal, social and ecological healing and transformation, consults on strategy, programs, equity and organizational development for nonprofits, foundations, social and land-based enterprises. Her current projects include serving as a Senior Fellow for Center for Whole Communities and pursuing a Masters in Social Transformation at Pacific School of Religion (at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA). Kristin's previous roles and projects included: co-founding and directing Green for All, working to build an inclusive green economy; helping design FIREROCK, a musical to engage people around climate change; guiding wilderness-based retreats for Ecology of Awakening; helping manage the Bell Valley Retreat and Tunitas Creek Ranch retreat centers; and working as Director of Programs at Bioneers. Kristin has also stewarded the Tyler Rigg Foundation for 20+ years.

Marlowe Sam, Ph.D., a Wenatchi/Lakes descendant from the Colville Confederated Tribes of Washington State, is a longtime Indigenous Rights activist and a scholar/researcher in Indigenous Studies with a special focus on Indigenous Water Rights in Canada.

Author

Anita Sanchez, Ph.D., of Aztec and Latina ancestry, has drawn from Indigenous wisdom and modern science to guide thousands of leaders in corporations and nonprofits in creating diverse and inclusive workplaces and communities. She is the author of six books, including the international bestselling: Success University for Women in Business, and the International Latino Book Award winner: The Four Sacred Gifts: Indigenous Wisdom for Modern Times.

Co-Founder and Facilitator | Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education

Will Scott is a co-founder and facilitator at the Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education, which works to create systems change through education at the confluences of social and environmental justice.

Co-Director | Ojai Foundation

Sharon Shay Sloan, Co-Director of the Ojai Foundation, is a rites-of-passage guide and council trainer who has worked with a number of organizations over the years, including: Beyond Boundaries, Wilderness Reflections, School of Lost Borders, Global Passageways, and Youth Passageways. She also worked in international conservation for a decade, including as founding Director for the Indigenous & Community Lands & Seas program for The WILD Foundation and with the World Wilderness Congress.

Director of Training and Technical Assistance | National Compadres Network

Jerry Tello of Mexican, Texan and Coahuiltecan ancestry, raised in South Central Los Angeles, has worked for 40+ years as a leading expert in transformational healing for men and boys of color; racial justice; peaceful community mobilization; and providing domestic violence awareness, healing, and support services to war veterans and their spouses. Director of Training and Technical Assistance for the National Compadres Network and an award-winning author of many publications (including, most recently: Recovering Your Sacredness), he also leads a weekly podcast, Healing Generations. 

Founder | TreeSisters.org

Clare Dubois is the founder of TreeSisters.org, a women's reforestation and culture-change organization dedicated to humanity’s emergence as a “restorer species.” For 23 years she has been facilitating body-based, experiential sessions designed to help participants shift consciousness and experience their interconnectedness with nature, the root of balanced leadership and action.

Author | Relational Mindfulness

Deborah Eden Tull, a Zen meditation and mindfulness teacher, author, activist and educator who spent 7 years training at a silent Zen monastery, has been teaching dharma for 20 years and sustainability practices for nearly 30. Her teaching style is grounded in “engaged awareness,” which emphasizes the connection between personal awakening and global engagement. Author of: Relational Mindfulness: A Handbook for Deepening Our Connection with Our Self, Each Other, and Our Planet and The Natural Kitchen: Your Guide for the Sustainable Food Revolution, Eden offers retreats, online courses and consultations internationally. She also teaches The Work That Reconnects, a program created by Buddhist scholar Joanna Macy, and is affiliated with UCLA's Mindful Awareness Research Center.

Founder and CEO | Emotion Dynamics LLC

Karla McLaren, M.Ed., an award-winning author and social science researcher, is a leading figure in the study of healthy empathy and the revaluing and transmutation of “negative” emotions to help people open new pathways of self-awareness and effective communication. Founder and CEO of Emotion Dynamics LLC and developer of the Empathy Academy online learning site, she is the author of: Embracing Anxiety: How to Access the Genius of this Vital Emotion; The Dynamic Emotional Integration® Workbook; The Art of Empathy: A Complete Guide to Life’s Most Essential Skill; The Language of Emotions: What Your Feelings are Trying to Tell You; and many other books and audio learning programs.

Sheila Diggs, a Washington, DC-based organizational development professional, ICF Executive Coach, and licensed Dynamic Emotional Integration® trainer, is a consultant to businesses, non-profits, and international development and healthcare organizations nationally and internationally. Her work focuses on enhancing empathic communication, self-awareness, and mindfulness in diverse working environments; building awareness around systems of racial inequality in teams and organizations; and developing leadership capacities in women and African Americans.

CEO and Founder | Bioneers

Kenny Ausubel, CEO and 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 | 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 Founder | Bioneers

Kenny Ausubel, CEO and 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.

Founder and Director | Daily Acts Organization

Trathen Heckman is the founder/Director of Daily Acts Organization, a non-profit dedicated to “transformative action that creates connected, equitable, climate resilient communities.” He also serves on the convening committee for Localizing California Waters and the advisory board of Norcal Resilience Network, and he has helped initiate and lead numerous coalitions and networks including Climate Action Petaluma. Trathen lives in the Petaluma River Watershed where he grows food, medicine and wonder while composting apathy and lack.

CEO and Founder | Ocean Collectiv

Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, a Brooklyn native marine biologist and policy expert, is founder and CEO of Ocean Collectiv, a strategy-consulting firm for conservation solutions, and founder of Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank focused on coastal cities. Her mission is to build community around solutions for our climate crisis. She is co-editor of All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis, a brand new anthology of wisdom by women climate leaders.

| Motus Theater

Motus Theater‘s mission is to create original theater to facilitate dialogue on the critical issues of our time. By telling “moving stories that move us forward,” Motus Theater uses the power of art to build alliances across diverse segments of our community. Its most recent work is: UndocuAmerica, an autobiographical storytelling project that aims to interrupt dehumanizing portrayals of immigrants by sharing the personal stories of undocumented leaders. The UndocuAmerica Monologues were created in a 17-week collaborative process between Motus Theater’s Artistic Director, Kirsten Wilson, and undocumented community leaders with D.A.C.A. (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals).

Director | Othering and Belonging Institute

john a. powell, Director of the Othering and Belonging Institute and Professor of Law, African American, and Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley; previously Executive Director at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State, and prior to that, founder/Director of the Institute for Race and Poverty at the University of Minnesota, has also taught at numerous law schools, including Harvard and Columbia. A former National Legal Director of the ACLU, he co-founded the Poverty & Race Research Action Council and serves on the boards of several national and international organizations. His latest book is: Racing to Justice: Transforming our Concepts of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society.

Founder | Zero Hour

Jamie Margolin, an 18-year-old Colombian-American organizer, author and public speaker, is one of the most effective and dynamic youth climate activists of our time. She co-founded the highly effective and dynamic international youth climate justice movement, Zero Hour, which has over 200+ chapters worldwide, has penned many op-ed pieces for a range of publications, and is the author of: Youth To Power: Your Voice and How To Use It.

Co-Founder | The Redwoods Music

Alfred Howard, a prolific spoken-word artist, writer, and co-founder of The Redwoods Music, a San Diego record label and collective, currently pens lyrics for 8 bands and performs homemade percussion with six. In his early 20s he caravanned with musicians all across the county before finally setting roots in San Diego, where he has become a leading figure in that city's musical community. He is the author of 2 books, including The Autobiography of No One; writes articles for several leading San Diego newspapers and magazines; and has written lyrics for over 30 released albums.

Singer/Songwriter

Leah Song, leader/front-woman of the renowned band, Rising Appalachia, as well as a solo artist, is a singer, multi instrumentalist (fiddle, banjo, guitar), and a musical pioneer across genres and mediums who has had great success and impact in the worlds of folk and roots music, including as founder of the "slow music movement." She and Rising Appalachia are also committed to and widely respected for deeply integrating activism on such topics as the environment, food justice, human rights and prison reform in their lives and work.

Dustin Thomas, an artist, consultant, and creative strategist based in Venice Beach, Los Angeles, has performed hundreds of shows around the world, and, in his consulting work, has advised campaigns and offered creative direction to brands, funds, and executives with an emphasis on environmental stewardship, cultural celebration, and social justice.

Luke Wallace is a Canadian folk-singer known for his politically charged lyrics and his deep engagement in current social movements, including performing at youth climate and other demonstrations. His message-driven songwriting and powerful delivery have landed him slots at Salmon Arm Roots and Blues, Vancouver Island Music Festival, The Vancouver Folk Festival and an opening slot for the global roots band Rising Appalachia. His 5^th, most recent album, released in 2020, is What on Earth.

Co-Founder | Democracy Collaborative

Gar Alperovitz, Ph.D., co-founder of the Democracy Collaborative and co-chair of the Next System Project, has had a distinguished career as a historian, political economist, professor, scholar, activist, policy expert, and government official. A former Fellow of King's College, Cambridge University, and a founding Fellow of the Institute of Politics at Harvard, he has served as a Legislative Director in both the U.S. House and Senate, and as a Special Assistant in the Department of State. The author of many critically acclaimed books, including seminal tomes on economic inequality and atomic diplomacy, his articles are widely published in leading news outlets, and he has frequently testified before Congress.

Vice President of Communications | The Democracy Collaborative

Isaiah J. Poole, who has 30+ years' experience in journalism and was a founding member of both the Washington (DC) Association of Black Journalists and the National Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association, is the Communications Director for The Democracy Collaborative. He was previously Communications Director for People's Action and for the Campaign for America's Future.

Co-Manager of the Climate and Energy Program | The Democracy Collaborative

Johanna Bozuwa, M.Sc., Co-Manager of the Climate and Energy Program in The Next System Project at The Democracy Collaborative, focuses on the transition from the extractive, fossil-fuel economy to resilient, equitable communities based on climate justice and energy democracy in her work. Her writing has been widely published including in The Nation, The Hill, and Progressive Review. She has organized around climate justice in both the U.S. and the Netherlands, from campaigns to eliminate the social license of fossil fuel companies such as Shell to fights for utility justice and public power.

Research Director | The Democracy Collaborative

Thomas M. Hanna, Research Director at The Democracy Collaborative and a leading expert on democratic models of ownership and governance, is the author of several books, including, most recently: Our Common Wealth: The Return of Public Ownership in the United States. A dual U.S./UK citizen, he has advised the UK Labour Party and has served on the advisory boards of several national and international initiatives, including two European Research Council-funded research projects.

Vice President of Policy & Strategy | Data for Progress

Julian Brave NoiseCat is Vice President of Policy & Strategy at Data for Progress, and Narrative Change Director for the Natural History Museum. A Fellow of the Type Media Center and NDN Collective, his work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone and other publications. Julian grew up in Oakland, California and is a proud member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq'escen and descendant of the Lil'Wat Nation of Mount Currie.

Directs the Climate Justice efforts | Tom Steyer PAC

Vien Truong, J.D., one of the country’s leading, award-winning experts and strategists on building an equitable green economy, has helped develop numerous energy, environmental, and economic policies and programs at state, federal and local levels and advised on billions of dollars in public investments for energy and community development programs, including co-leading the coalition to pass the law creating the biggest fund in history for the poorest and most polluted communities in California. Vien currently advises lawmakers, universities, foundations, and organizations on developing inclusive workforces, sustainable economies, and equitable environmental policies; directs the Climate Justice efforts for Tom Steyer PAC; and supports the climate efforts of the California Business and Jobs Recovery Task Force. Previously President/CEO of the Dream Corps and Chair of Oakland’s Planning Commission, she also serves on the boards of the California Endowment and Ceres.

CEO and Founder | Ocean Collectiv

Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, a Brooklyn native marine biologist and policy expert, is founder and CEO of Ocean Collectiv, a strategy-consulting firm for conservation solutions, and founder of Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank focused on coastal cities. Her mission is to build community around solutions for our climate crisis. She is co-editor of All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis, a brand new anthology of wisdom by women climate leaders.

Founder | Great Plains Action Society

Sikowis (aka Christine Nobiss), a member of the Plains Cree/Saulteaux of the George Gordon First Nation in Canada, grew up in the city of Winnipeg but has been living in Iowa City for 15 years. A dedicated activist who writes, speaks and organizes extensively on Indigenous, climate, environmental, and political issues, she founded Great Plains Action Society in 2015. Sikowis holds a Masters Degree in Religious Studies from the University of Iowa and is a mother of three.

Founder and Director | Daily Acts Organization

Trathen Heckman is the founder/Director of Daily Acts Organization, a non-profit dedicated to “transformative action that creates connected, equitable, climate resilient communities.” He also serves on the convening committee for Localizing California Waters and the advisory board of Norcal Resilience Network, and he has helped initiate and lead numerous coalitions and networks including Climate Action Petaluma. Trathen lives in the Petaluma River Watershed where he grows food, medicine and wonder while composting apathy and lack.

Founder and Executive Director | Mycelium Youth Network

Lil Milagro Henriquez, founder (in 2017) and Executive Director of Mycelium Youth Network, an organization dedicated to empowering young people of color around climate change issues, is a veteran of social justice organizing with 18+ years' experience working on a range of issues, including: access to higher education for low-income people and communities of color; food sovereignty; environmental racism; and labor organizing; among others. She is a current recipient of a Women's Earth Alliance fellowship.

Senior Policy Advisor for Climate and Resilience | Boulder, Colorado

Brett KenCairn, Boulder, Colorado's Senior Policy Advisor for Climate and Resilience, coordinates the city's climate action and climate resilience strategies and leads development of its carbon drawdown focus area. He initiated and now leads a multi-city collaboration called the Urban Drawdown Initiative co-launched with the Urban Sustainability Director's Network and Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance. Previously, Brett founded or co-founded several organizations, including the Rogue River Institute for Ecology and Economy, Veterans Green Jobs, and Community Energy Systems, and he has worked across the western U.S. in community-based initiatives in rural, Native American and other marginalized communities.

Leadership Institute Manager | Daily Acts

Kerry Fugett facilitates and co-creates the Leadership Institute for Just and Resilient Communities at the non-profit, Daily Acts. She previously served as Executive Director of Sonoma County Conservation Action, leading grassroots campaigns to eliminate synthetic pesticides, facilitating coalition building, canvassing to elect environmental leaders, and organizing mutual support during record-breaking fires in Northern CA. One of her main areas of focus is the weaving of antiracism into community-led climate justice movements.

Traci Sorell, Cherokee Nation citizen and an award-winning author, writes fiction and nonfiction books, short stories and poems for children. A former federal Indian law attorney and advocate, Traci lives with her family in northeastern Oklahoma where her tribe is located.

Author | There There

Title VI Indian Education Coordinator | American Indian Child Resource Center

Manny Lieras (Navajo & Comanche), the Title VI Indian Education Coordinator with the Oakland Unified School District, works with urban American Indian youth at The American Indian Child Resource Center and has established himself as an influential role model and change agent in the Oakland, CA, intertribal community. He also teaches pow wow drumming and singing, has produced a film series, Injunuity (www.injunuity.org), and works with the Occupied Canoe Family in the Bay Area.

Founder and Director | Daily Acts Organization

Trathen Heckman is the founder/Director of Daily Acts Organization, a non-profit dedicated to “transformative action that creates connected, equitable, climate resilient communities.” He also serves on the convening committee for Localizing California Waters and the advisory board of Norcal Resilience Network, and he has helped initiate and lead numerous coalitions and networks including Climate Action Petaluma. Trathen lives in the Petaluma River Watershed where he grows food, medicine and wonder while composting apathy and lack.

Environmental Health Programs Manager | Daily Acts

Nichole Warwick is Environmental Health Programs Manager for the nonprofit group, Daily Acts; co-founder and Executive Director of Families Advocating for Chemical and Toxics Safety (FACTS); and co-founder and Co-Director of Sonoma Safe Ag/Safe Schools. She also serves on the Leadership Institute Advisory Board, Conservation Action Fund for Education Board of Directors, and Sonoma Community Resilience Collaborative Steering Committee.

Leadership Institute Manager | Daily Acts

Kerry Fugett facilitates and co-creates the Leadership Institute for Just and Resilient Communities at the non-profit, Daily Acts. She previously served as Executive Director of Sonoma County Conservation Action, leading grassroots campaigns to eliminate synthetic pesticides, facilitating coalition building, canvassing to elect environmental leaders, and organizing mutual support during record-breaking fires in Northern CA. One of her main areas of focus is the weaving of antiracism into community-led climate justice movements.

Leah Song, leader/front-woman of the renowned band, Rising Appalachia, as well as a solo artist, is a singer, multi instrumentalist (fiddle, banjo, guitar), and a musical pioneer across genres and mediums who has had great success and impact in the worlds of folk and roots music, including as founder of the "slow music movement." She and Rising Appalachia are also committed to and widely respected for deeply integrating activism on such topics as the environment, food justice, human rights and prison reform in their lives and work.

Lyla June is an Indigenous musician, scholar and community organizer of Diné (Navajo), Tsétsêhéstâhese (Cheyenne) and European lineages. Her dynamic, multi-genre presentation style and her emphasis on personal, collective and ecological healing have engaged audiences across the globe. Her richly varied background, which blends studies in Human Ecology at Stanford, graduate work in Indigenous Pedagogy, and the traditional Indigenous worldview she grew up with, helps inform her music and her perspectives. She is currently pursuing her doctoral degree, focusing on Indigenous food systems revitalization.

| World Cafes

Amy Lenzo, who pioneered the World Cafe online process and has hosted hundreds of online World Cafes with people from all over the world since then, has been hosting conscious online engagement for over a decade and has been a cutting-edge leader in creating distinctly human interactive online spaces that help us connect with ourselves, each other and the natural world.

Founder | Santa Cruz Permaculture

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.

Associate Professor | UBC Okanagan

Jeannette Armstrong, Ph.D., fluent Okanagan/Nsyilxcən speaker and knowledge keeper of the Syilx Okanagan people, is an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Knowledge at UBC Okanagan. She collaborates with Salish-speaking groups to re-establish Indigenous languages, historical relationships and food resource ceremonies through gatherings, trading, and protections of water and land practices. She is a recipient of the Eco Trust USA Buffett Award in Indigenous Leadership and serves on Canada’s Aboriginal Traditional Knowledge Subcommittee of COSEWIC.

Founder and Director | ShadeTree Multicultural Foundation

Orland Bishop, founder and Director of ShadeTree Multicultural Foundation in Los Angeles, an intentional community of mentors, elders, teachers, artists, healers and advocates for the healthy development of children and youth, has pioneered innovative approaches to urban truces and mentoring at-risk youth that draw from his extensive study of medicine, naturopathy, psychology, and African Indigenous cosmologies.

Co-Director | The Ojai Foundation

Brendan Clarke, a father, educator, writer and guide whose work focuses on healthy human relationships with self, community and the cosmos, especially at the intersection of social and ecological justice, resilience and response, currently serves as Co-Director of The Ojai Foundation with his wife, Shay.

Co-Founder | Beyond Boudaries

Gigi Coyle is a community activist, council facilitator, rite-of-passage guide, and a mentor to a number of individuals, communities and organizations. She is currently working with several organizations, including: Youth Passageways, ShadeTree Multicultural Foundation, the Ojai Foundation, Weaving Earth, and Beyond Boundaries. Her work, which has included co-founding such initiatives as: Walking Water; A Practice of Council; and “The Box, Remembering the Gift,” has always been focused on healing ways through ceremony, inter-generational projects of prayer, action, and service.

Justine Epstein is a community organizer, rites of passage guide and council carrier in the lineage of Beyond Boundaries. Her work focuses on healing from inherited systems of colonization, white supremacy, cis-hetero patriarchy and global capitalism through community, practices, prayer, storytelling and relationship with the more than human world, with a particular focus on anti-racism and wealth redistribution.

| San Francisco Unified School District’s Indian Education Program

Paloma Flores, of California Indian Pit River Nation and P'urhépecha de Mexico ancestry, an activist and voice for her people, coordinates the San Francisco Unified School District’s Indian Education Program, co-directs the Bioneers Native Youth Leadership Program, and is a board member for the American Indian Cultural District San Francisco. She is also an artist, a Peace and Dignity Journeys intercontinental prayer runner, and a dancer. 

Founder and Artistic Director | Truthworker Theatre Company

Samara Gaev, founder and Artistic Director of Truthworker Theatre Company, is a Brooklyn-based activist, educator, facilitator, theater director, and performer with 20 years' experience using performance as a tool for cross-cultural healing and social change. Her work, which has taken her to Zimbabwe, Senegal, Hawaii, Brazil, Peru, Cuba, Germany, Scotland, and throughout the U.S., examines and challenges constructions of power, privilege, the prison industrial complex, and other systems of oppression.

Co-Founder | Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education

Dave Hage, co-founder of the Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education and a member of the teaching team for the Weaving Earth Immersion program (and a white, cis-man of northern European descent from Southern Pomo territory, also known as Sonoma County) is a wilderness guide and nature connection mentor.

Activist, Singer/Songwriter

Pat McCabe (Weyakpa Najin Win/Woman Stands Shining), of Diné (Navajo) ancestry but also adopted into Lakota spiritual traditions, is a rural New Mexico-based mother, grandmother, activist, artist, writer, ceremonial leader, and international speaker. A voice for global peace, her multi-faceted work includes exploring issues of sustainability and balance and the reconciliation between the masculine and feminine.

Founder and President | Global Center for Indigenous Leadership and Lifeways

Ilarion (Kuuyux) Merculieff, raised in a traditional Unangan (Aleut) way, recognized as a carrier of ancient knowledge into modern times, has co-founded, chaired or directed a number of leading Alaska Indigenous and environmental groups, including the Alaska Indigenous Council on Marine Mammals; the Alaska chapter of the Nature Conservancy; the International Bering Sea Forum; the Alaska Forum on the Environment, and the Alaska Oceans Network. He has presented at numerous scientific conferences and chaired the Indigenous knowledge sessions at the Global Summit of Indigenous Peoples on Climate Change. He is the author of: Wisdom Keeper: One Man’s Journey to Honor the Untold Story of the Unangan People, and co-authored Stop Talking: Indigenous Ways of Teaching and Learning, and Perspectives on Indigenous Issues: Essays on Science, Spirituality, Partnerships, and the Power of Words. He co-founded a council of Elders called 'the Wisdom Weavers of the world', and he currently leads GCILL - the Global Center for Indigenous Leadership and Lifeways.

Co-Founder and Executive Director | The Humane Prison Hospice Project

Ladybird Morgan, who has worked as a registered nurse, clinical social worker, healer and educator for 20+ years, is co-founder and Executive Director of The Humane Prison Hospice Project whose mission is to implement end-of-life care in prisons by training prisoners to be caregivers. Ladybird has worked with many organizations including The Zen Hospice Project and Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and co-facilitates circles at Commonweal and UCSF/MERI Center's Last Acts of Kindness Program. Aside from her work for Humane (speaking on panels, presenting at various end of life events, general advocacy), Ladybird has also been going into San Quentin prison working with the prisoner-formed Brothers Keepers group on their crisis intervention and peer support programs.

Shlomo Pesach is a community organizer, queer mentor and Jewish ritualist devoted to cultivating flourishing fugitive queer futures.

Director | Difficult Dialogues Initiative

Libby Roderick, Director of the Difficult Dialogues Initiative and co-founder of the Difficult Dialogues National Resource Center, is the co-author/editor of many books and articles and works with universities across the U.S. and in South Africa to increase their capacity to effectively conduct difficult dialogues and apply Indigenous ways of teaching and learning. Libby is also an internationally recognized singer/songwriter whose six recordings have received extensive airplay on Earth and, in 2003, NASA played her song "Dig Down Deep" on the planet Mars as encouragement to the robot "Spirit."

Author

Luis J. Rodriguez has spent 40 years doing poetry readings, talks, and leading healing circles as well as creative writing classes in prisons, juvenile lockups, and jails. He has written 16 books in all genres, including the bestselling memoir: Always Running, La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. His latest book is: From Our Land to Our Land: Essays, Journeys and Imaginings from a Native Xicanx Writer. From 2014-2016 Luis served as Los Angeles’ Poet Laureate.

Senior Fellow | Center for Whole Communities

Kristin Rothballer, a social change leader focused on the intersection of personal, social and ecological healing and transformation, consults on strategy, programs, equity and organizational development for nonprofits, foundations, social and land-based enterprises. Her current projects include serving as a Senior Fellow for Center for Whole Communities and pursuing a Masters in Social Transformation at Pacific School of Religion (at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA). Kristin's previous roles and projects included: co-founding and directing Green for All, working to build an inclusive green economy; helping design FIREROCK, a musical to engage people around climate change; guiding wilderness-based retreats for Ecology of Awakening; helping manage the Bell Valley Retreat and Tunitas Creek Ranch retreat centers; and working as Director of Programs at Bioneers. Kristin has also stewarded the Tyler Rigg Foundation for 20+ years.

Marlowe Sam, Ph.D., a Wenatchi/Lakes descendant from the Colville Confederated Tribes of Washington State, is a longtime Indigenous Rights activist and a scholar/researcher in Indigenous Studies with a special focus on Indigenous Water Rights in Canada.

Author

Anita Sanchez, Ph.D., of Aztec and Latina ancestry, has drawn from Indigenous wisdom and modern science to guide thousands of leaders in corporations and nonprofits in creating diverse and inclusive workplaces and communities. She is the author of six books, including the international bestselling: Success University for Women in Business, and the International Latino Book Award winner: The Four Sacred Gifts: Indigenous Wisdom for Modern Times.

Co-Founder and Facilitator | Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education

Will Scott is a co-founder and facilitator at the Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education, which works to create systems change through education at the confluences of social and environmental justice.

Co-Director | Ojai Foundation

Sharon Shay Sloan, Co-Director of the Ojai Foundation, is a rites-of-passage guide and council trainer who has worked with a number of organizations over the years, including: Beyond Boundaries, Wilderness Reflections, School of Lost Borders, Global Passageways, and Youth Passageways. She also worked in international conservation for a decade, including as founding Director for the Indigenous & Community Lands & Seas program for The WILD Foundation and with the World Wilderness Congress.

Director of Training and Technical Assistance | National Compadres Network

Jerry Tello of Mexican, Texan and Coahuiltecan ancestry, raised in South Central Los Angeles, has worked for 40+ years as a leading expert in transformational healing for men and boys of color; racial justice; peaceful community mobilization; and providing domestic violence awareness, healing, and support services to war veterans and their spouses. Director of Training and Technical Assistance for the National Compadres Network and an award-winning author of many publications (including, most recently: Recovering Your Sacredness), he also leads a weekly podcast, Healing Generations. 

Author | Relational Mindfulness

Deborah Eden Tull, a Zen meditation and mindfulness teacher, author, activist and educator who spent 7 years training at a silent Zen monastery, has been teaching dharma for 20 years and sustainability practices for nearly 30. Her teaching style is grounded in “engaged awareness,” which emphasizes the connection between personal awakening and global engagement. Author of: Relational Mindfulness: A Handbook for Deepening Our Connection with Our Self, Each Other, and Our Planet and The Natural Kitchen: Your Guide for the Sustainable Food Revolution, Eden offers retreats, online courses and consultations internationally. She also teaches The Work That Reconnects, a program created by Buddhist scholar Joanna Macy, and is affiliated with UCLA's Mindful Awareness Research Center.

Co-Founder | 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.

Founder and Executive Director | Mycelium Youth Network

Lil Milagro Henriquez, founder (in 2017) and Executive Director of Mycelium Youth Network, an organization dedicated to empowering young people of color around climate change issues, is a veteran of social justice organizing with 18+ years' experience working on a range of issues, including: access to higher education for low-income people and communities of color; food sovereignty; environmental racism; and labor organizing; among others. She is a current recipient of a Women's Earth Alliance fellowship.

CEO and Founder | Bioneers

Kenny Ausubel, CEO and 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 | 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 | Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights

Mari Margil, Executive Director of the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights, leads its International Center for the Rights of Nature. Previously Associate Director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, she assisted the first places in the world to secure the Rights of Nature in law, including Ecuador. She works internationally as well as with Indigenous peoples and tribal nations to advance Rights of Nature legal and policy frameworks. Mari is a co-author of: The Bottom Line or Public Health and Exploring Wild Law: The Philosophy of Earth Jurisprudence.

Senior Legal Counsel | Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights

Thomas Linzey, Senior Counsel for the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights (CDER), co-founded the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund and the Daniel Pennock Democracy School (which has graduated over 5,000 lawyers, activists, and municipal officials nationally to fight to elevate the rights of their communities over corporate rights). He is the author of several books, including: Be The Change: How to Get What You Want in Your Community; On Community Civil Disobedience in the Name of Sustainability; and co-author of: We the People: Stories from the Community Rights Movement in the United States.

Program Director | Soul Fire Farm

Naima Penniman, an artist, activist, healer, grower and educator committed to planetary health and community resilience, is the co-founder of WILDSEED Community Farm and Healing Village, a Black and Brown-led intentional community focused on ecological collaboration, transformative justice, and intergenerational responsibility. She is also: Program Director at Soul Fire Farm, dedicated to supporting the next generation of B.I.P.O.C. (Black/Indigenous/people of color) farmers; the co-founder/co-artistic director of Climbing PoeTree, an internationally-acclaimed performance duo; a Thai Yoga Massage practitioner; and a member of Harriet's Apothecary, a collective of Black women-identified healers.

Co-Executive Director | Soul Fire Farm

Leah Penniman is a Black Kreyol farmer, mother, Vodun Manye (Queen Mother), and award-winning food justice activist who has been tending the soil and organizing for an anti-racist food system for over 20 years. She currently serves as founding Co-Executive Director of Soul Fire Farm in Grafton, New York, a people-of-color led project that works toward food and land justice, which she co-founded in 2010. She is the author of: Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land.

Co-Founder and President | Amazon Conservation Team

Mark Plotkin, Ph.D., a renowned ethnobotanist who has studied traditional Indigenous plant use with elder healers in Central and South America for 30+ years, is also an award-winning activist who has worked with many conservation organizations, including Harvard’s Botanical Museum, the World Wildlife Fund, Conservation International, and the Smithsonian. Co-founder (with his wife Liliana in 1996) and President of the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT), dedicated to protecting the biological and cultural diversity of the Amazon, Plotkin is the author of many papers and articles and several books, including the international bestseller, Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice; Medicine Quest: In Search of Nature’s Healing Secrets; and The Killers Within: The Deadly Rise of Drug-Resistant Bacteria.

| The Thrive Choir

The Thrive Choir, an Oakland-based singing group affiliated with Thrive East Bay, a purpose-driven community focused on personal and social transformation, is composed of a diverse group of vocalists, artists, activists, educators, healers, and community organizers directed by musicians Austin Willacy and Kyle Lemle. They have performed their original fusion of gospel, soul and folk in a wide range of settings, including: marches, conferences and festivals across California.

Founding Director | Orita’s Cross Freedom School

Rev. Heber Brown, a multiple award-winning community organizer and social entrepreneur, is Senior Pastor of Pleasant Hope Baptist Church in Baltimore, MD, and founding Director of Orita’s Cross Freedom School, which works to reconnect Black youth to their African heritage while providing them with hands-on learning opportunities to spark their creativity and build vocational skills. In 2015 he launched the Black Church Food Security Network, a multi-state alliance of congregations dedicated to creating a grassroots, community-led food system.

Co-Executive Director | Soul Fire Farm

Leah Penniman is a Black Kreyol farmer, mother, Vodun Manye (Queen Mother), and award-winning food justice activist who has been tending the soil and organizing for an anti-racist food system for over 20 years. She currently serves as founding Co-Executive Director of Soul Fire Farm in Grafton, New York, a people-of-color led project that works toward food and land justice, which she co-founded in 2010. She is the author of: Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land.

Founder/Director | Sierra Seeds

Rowen White, a seed keeper and farmer from the Mohawk community of Akwesasne and a passionate activist for Indigenous seed and food sovereignty, is founder/Director of Sierra Seeds, an innovative California-based organic seed stewardship organization; and Program Director for the Indigenous Seed Keeper Network, an initiative of the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance.

Program Director | Soul Fire Farm

Naima Penniman, an artist, activist, healer, grower and educator committed to planetary health and community resilience, is the co-founder of WILDSEED Community Farm and Healing Village, a Black and Brown-led intentional community focused on ecological collaboration, transformative justice, and intergenerational responsibility. She is also: Program Director at Soul Fire Farm, dedicated to supporting the next generation of B.I.P.O.C. (Black/Indigenous/people of color) farmers; the co-founder/co-artistic director of Climbing PoeTree, an internationally-acclaimed performance duo; a Thai Yoga Massage practitioner; and a member of Harriet's Apothecary, a collective of Black women-identified healers.

Senior Legal Counsel | Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights

Thomas Linzey, Senior Counsel for the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights (CDER), co-founded the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund and the Daniel Pennock Democracy School (which has graduated over 5,000 lawyers, activists, and municipal officials nationally to fight to elevate the rights of their communities over corporate rights). He is the author of several books, including: Be The Change: How to Get What You Want in Your Community; On Community Civil Disobedience in the Name of Sustainability; and co-author of: We the People: Stories from the Community Rights Movement in the United States.

Executive Director | Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights

Mari Margil, Executive Director of the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights, leads its International Center for the Rights of Nature. Previously Associate Director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, she assisted the first places in the world to secure the Rights of Nature in law, including Ecuador. She works internationally as well as with Indigenous peoples and tribal nations to advance Rights of Nature legal and policy frameworks. Mari is a co-author of: The Bottom Line or Public Health and Exploring Wild Law: The Philosophy of Earth Jurisprudence.

Executive Director | Menikahnaehkem

Anahkwet (Guy Reiter), a traditional Menominee from Wisconsin, member of the Menominee Constitutional Taskforce and Executive Director of the grassroots community organization, Menikahnaehkem, is a local organizer, activist, author, amateur archaeologist, and lecturer. He has organized a wide range of events on Menominee culture, spoken at a number of universities, and written articles for Environmental Health News and other publications.

Executive Officer | Ethicannos

Karyemaitre Aliffe, MD, a multilingual physician-scientist who has taught at Harvard and Stanford, has 35+ years’ experience in natural products research, including explorations in remote regions in the Amazon, Australia, and Africa. He has lectured widely in 50+ countries to health professionals, government and civil society institutions and business groups. Dr. Aliffe is presently Chair and Executive Officer at Ethicannos, Praxigen Biomedia, where he leads a natural health product development team, applying translational medicine and integrative neurophysiology to expand the utility of cannabis-based formulations in enhancing human health, fitness and longevity.

Co-Founder and President | Amazon Conservation Team

Mark Plotkin, Ph.D., a renowned ethnobotanist who has studied traditional Indigenous plant use with elder healers in Central and South America for 30+ years, is also an award-winning activist who has worked with many conservation organizations, including Harvard’s Botanical Museum, the World Wildlife Fund, Conservation International, and the Smithsonian. Co-founder (with his wife Liliana in 1996) and President of the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT), dedicated to protecting the biological and cultural diversity of the Amazon, Plotkin is the author of many papers and articles and several books, including the international bestseller, Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice; Medicine Quest: In Search of Nature’s Healing Secrets; and The Killers Within: The Deadly Rise of Drug-Resistant Bacteria.

President & Projects Director | Botanical Dimensions

Kathleen (Kat) Harrison, co-founder (in 1985), President and Projects Director of the nonprofit, Botanical Dimensions, is an ethnobotanist, ethnobotanical educator and artist renowned for her unique explorations of often hidden aspects of plant-human relationships and of the deep history of humans in nature. She teaches a wide variety of courses (some open to all; others university sponsored field studies) in Hawaii, Northern California and the Peruvian Amazon.

Senior Producer | Bioneers

J.P. Harpignies, Bioneers Senior Producer, affiliated with Bioneers since 1990, is a Brooklyn, NYC-based consultant, conference producer, copy-editor and writer. A former Program Director at the New York Open Center and a senior review team member for the Buckminster Fuller Challenge from 2010 to 2017, he has authored or edited several books, including Political Ecosystems, Delusions of Normality, Visionary Plant Consciousness, and, most recently, Animal Encounters.

Co-Founder | 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.

Writer

Terry Tempest Williams, a genre-defying, award-winning writer, is the author of some sixteen books, including the environmental literature classic: Refuge—An Unnatural History of Family and Place; and: Red—Passion and Patience in the Desert; Finding Beauty in a Broken World; When Women Were Birds; The Hour of Land; and most recently: Erosion—Essays of Undoing. Her work has been published and translated worldwide. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Guggenheim Fellow, she is currently Writer-in-Residence at the Harvard Divinity School. Ms. Williams also has a long history of engagement in a range of environmental, social justice, peace, and women’s rights struggles.

Author

Rachel Bagby, an award-winning vocal and social healing artist with a Stanford law degree in social change, has mentored women leaders and thousands of audience members world-wide to unleash their voices as instruments of transformation. She is the bestselling author of Daughterhood and Divine Daughters: Liberating the Power and Passion of Women’s Voices.

Alixa Garcia, born in Colombia, is an award-winning poet, musician, visual-artist, filmmaker, educator, and activist. Her performance work with the duo Climbing PoeTree has been featured in hundreds of universities, conferences and festivals, including at the United Nations and T.E.D.’s Ideas Worth Spreading. Her visual work has been exhibited in major museums and public spaces, including in Times Square and at the Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art. Her latest work is currently being exhibited in the Kunsthal Kade Museum, Netherlands.

Founder/Principal | BeeLine Associates

Rick Reed, founder/Principal of BeeLine Associates, has been working to advance the common good in groundbreaking ways with a wide range of philanthropic foundations and NGOs for three decades. In the food systems arena, he co-created the Lighthouse Farm Network and the Biologically Integrated Farming Systems Initiative. In the climate domain, he co-conceived and co-established the Re-Amp clean energy network spanning eight states in the upper Midwest focused on ending the region's carbon pollution, and is currently focused on holding the oil and gas industry accountable for creating the climate crisis.

Gulf Coast Campaign Representative | Sierra Club

Rebekah Hinojosa, an artist and organizer from the Rio Grande Valley of Texas currently serving as the Sierra Club's Gulf Coast Campaign Representative, works with communities along the Texas coastline to stop crude oil export terminals, associated pipelines, and three LNG fracked gas export terminals that would predominantly harm people of color and Indigenous populations.

Co-Founder and Senior Advisor | Funder Collaborative on Oil and Gas

Sarah Thomas, Ph.D., is co-founder of and Senior Advisor to the Funder Collaborative on Oil and Gas, a philanthropic initiative housed at the Rockefeller Family Fund, which seeks to accelerate an economically and environmentally responsible shift away from fossil fuels. She conducts strategy development and policy research for foundations, private individuals and nonprofit organizations and has assisted multiple collaboratives aimed at enhancing strategic alignment and coordinated action on climate change and social justice.

Associate Professor | UBC Okanagan

Jeannette Armstrong, Ph.D., fluent Okanagan/Nsyilxcən speaker and knowledge keeper of the Syilx Okanagan people, is an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Knowledge at UBC Okanagan. She collaborates with Salish-speaking groups to re-establish Indigenous languages, historical relationships and food resource ceremonies through gatherings, trading, and protections of water and land practices. She is a recipient of the Eco Trust USA Buffett Award in Indigenous Leadership and serves on Canada’s Aboriginal Traditional Knowledge Subcommittee of COSEWIC.

Founder and Director | ShadeTree Multicultural Foundation

Orland Bishop, founder and Director of ShadeTree Multicultural Foundation in Los Angeles, an intentional community of mentors, elders, teachers, artists, healers and advocates for the healthy development of children and youth, has pioneered innovative approaches to urban truces and mentoring at-risk youth that draw from his extensive study of medicine, naturopathy, psychology, and African Indigenous cosmologies.

Co-Director | The Ojai Foundation

Brendan Clarke, a father, educator, writer and guide whose work focuses on healthy human relationships with self, community and the cosmos, especially at the intersection of social and ecological justice, resilience and response, currently serves as Co-Director of The Ojai Foundation with his wife, Shay.

Co-Founder | Beyond Boudaries

Gigi Coyle is a community activist, council facilitator, rite-of-passage guide, and a mentor to a number of individuals, communities and organizations. She is currently working with several organizations, including: Youth Passageways, ShadeTree Multicultural Foundation, the Ojai Foundation, Weaving Earth, and Beyond Boundaries. Her work, which has included co-founding such initiatives as: Walking Water; A Practice of Council; and “The Box, Remembering the Gift,” has always been focused on healing ways through ceremony, inter-generational projects of prayer, action, and service.

Justine Epstein is a community organizer, rites of passage guide and council carrier in the lineage of Beyond Boundaries. Her work focuses on healing from inherited systems of colonization, white supremacy, cis-hetero patriarchy and global capitalism through community, practices, prayer, storytelling and relationship with the more than human world, with a particular focus on anti-racism and wealth redistribution.

| San Francisco Unified School District’s Indian Education Program

Paloma Flores, of California Indian Pit River Nation and P'urhépecha de Mexico ancestry, an activist and voice for her people, coordinates the San Francisco Unified School District’s Indian Education Program, co-directs the Bioneers Native Youth Leadership Program, and is a board member for the American Indian Cultural District San Francisco. She is also an artist, a Peace and Dignity Journeys intercontinental prayer runner, and a dancer. 

Founder and Artistic Director | Truthworker Theatre Company

Samara Gaev, founder and Artistic Director of Truthworker Theatre Company, is a Brooklyn-based activist, educator, facilitator, theater director, and performer with 20 years' experience using performance as a tool for cross-cultural healing and social change. Her work, which has taken her to Zimbabwe, Senegal, Hawaii, Brazil, Peru, Cuba, Germany, Scotland, and throughout the U.S., examines and challenges constructions of power, privilege, the prison industrial complex, and other systems of oppression.