Speakers

Founder | Revolutionary Love Project

Valarie Kaur, born into a family of Sikh farmers who settled in California in 1913, is a seasoned civil rights activist, award-winning filmmaker, lawyer, faith leader, and founder of the Revolutionary Love Project, which seeks to champion love as a public ethic and wellspring for social action.

Founder | 350.org

Bill McKibben, our nation’s most significant environmental activist, is also a leading journalist, author and academic. A Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College, Bill’s The End of Nature (1989) was the first book for a general audience about climate change. A founder of 350.org, the first planet-wide, grassroots climate change movement, he has won slews of prestigious awards, including the Right Livelihood Award and the Gandhi Prize and Thomas Merton prizes.

Founder | V-Day

Eve Ensler, Tony Award-winning playwright, performer, and one of the world’s most important activists on behalf of women’s rights, is the author of many plays, including, most famously the extraordinarily influential and impactful The Vagina Monologues, which has been performed all over the globe in 50 or so languages.

National Field Director | Moms Clean Air Force

Heather McTeer Toney, born and raised in Greenville, Mississippi, was elected that town’s first African-American, first female, and youngest ever Mayor at the age of 27. After her 2nd term, she became Regional Administrator for the EPA’s Southeast Region, appointed by President Obama. A nationally and internationally renowned, award-winning leader in Environmental and Climate Justice, she is currently Field Director for Moms Clean Air Force, an organization of over 1 million parents committed to fighting climate change and air pollution.

Author

Terry Tempest Williams, one of the greatest living authors from the American West, is also a longtime award-winning conservationist and activist, who has taken on, among other issues, nuclear testing, the Iraq War, the neglect of women’s health, and the destruction of nature, especially in her beloved “Red Rock” region of her native Utah and in Alaska.

Climate Justice Organizer | Youth Vs. Apocalypse

Isha Clarke is a dynamic, passionate high school student environmental and social justice activist born, raised, and educated in Oakland, CA. Her experience has taught her first-hand that threats to the environment disproportionately affect people of color, low-income folks, and young people, and this realization has fueled her passion to fight to create a just and equitable world while maintaining a livable climate.

Founder | Project Drawdown

Paul Hawken, one of the most important environmental authors, activists, thinkers and entrepreneurs of our era, has dedicated his life to sustainability and changing the relationship between business and the environment. His many bestselling books include such massively influential texts as: The Next Economy; The Ecology of Commerce; Blessed Unrest; and most recently, Drawdown, The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming.

CEO | Mother Jones

Monika Bauerlein is CEO of Mother Jones, the American Society of Magazine Editors’ 2017 Magazine of the Year. Previously, she served as co-editor with Clara Jeffery, who is now editor-in-chief. Together, they spearheaded an era of editorial growth and innovation, marked by tenfold growth in audience and newsroom staff.

| Sacred Circles Center

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.

Co-Founder and Executive Director | New Consensus

Demond Drummer is the Chicago-based co-founder and Executive Director of New Consensus, a nonprofit working to develop and promote the Green New Deal that has advised many progressive leaders and organizations, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Sunrise Movement. Demond’s other notable projects include CoderSpace, a computer science learning lab where youths develop leadership skills, and LargeLots.org, a community-driven effort to reclaim and city-owned vacant lots in Chicago.

Director of Green Strategy | Data for Progress

Julian Brave NoiseCat, Director of Green Strategy at the think tank, Data for Progress, and “Narrative Change Director” for the Natural History Museum artist and activist collective, is also a correspondent for Real America with Jorge Ramos and a Contributing Editor at Canadian Geographic.

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.

Executive Director | Amazon Watch

Leila Salazar-López, the Executive Director of Amazon Watch, has worked for 20+ years to defend the world’s rainforests, human rights, and the climate through grassroots organizing and international advocacy campaigns at Amazon Watch, Rainforest Action Network, Global Exchange, and Green Corps. She is also a Greenpeace Voting Member and a Global Fund for Women Advisor for Latin America.

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.

Founding Member | Cooperation Jackson

brandon king is an community organizer and cultural worker originally from Hampton Roads VA, currently living in Jackson MS. After graduating from Hampton University in 2006 with a BA in Sociology, brandon moved to New York City where he worked as a union organizer and later as an organizer working with New York City homeless people.

Councilwoman | Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma

Casey Camp-Horinek, a tribal Councilwoman of the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma and Hereditary Drumkeeper of its Womens' Scalp Dance Society, Elder and Matriarch, is also an Emmy award winning actress, author, and an 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, and has traveled and spoken around the world.

Co-Founder | Utah Youth Environmental Solutions

Mishka Banuri is an 18-year-old organizer from Salt Lake City, Utah. After moving to Utah from a suburb in Chicago, she fell in love with the Colorado Plateau's mountains and red rock. She has been politically active since 7th grade, holding statewide organizations, institutions, and politicians accountable for their actions on climate and social issues.

Professor | Oberlin College

David W. Orr, a Professor of Environmental Studies & 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.

NGO Administrator

Afia Walking Tree, a renowned multi-instrumental percussionist, performer, educator, earth practitioner, NGO administrator, and longtime activist focused on transformative cultural healing across ethnic and generational lines using drumming as her main tool, is founder of the Drum Mobile, a portable drum-arts learning laboratory that makes accessible the power of African drumming and Permaculture to communities of color internationally.

Architect

Al Tozer, a Bend, Oregon-based pioneering figure in “deep green,” “net zero energy,” “biophilic” architecture with 25+ years’ experience in the field whose firm, Tozer Design, designed the world’s first certified Living Building residential project, recently served as the Living Building Challenge Director at the International Living Future Institute in Seattle. Al has also served as a City of Bend Planning Commissioner and co-authored Bend’s General Plan.

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.

Board Member | California Basket Weavers Association

Alice Lincoln-Cook, a Klamath, CA-based Karuk tribal member, is a highly sought-after teacher of traditional basket weaving who serves on the board of the California Basket Weavers Association. Alice teaches widely in schools and other institutions and at events throughout the Pacific Northwest region.

Co-Director | Women's Earth Alliance’s

Amira Diamond, Co-Director (with Melinda Kramer) of Women's Earth Alliance’s since 2007, has worked to expand WEA’s programs, build the WEA team and create a community of support for its work. Active within the NGO community for over 25 years, she has worked for community health, environmental and food justice, LGBTQ and women’s rights, directing organizations such as Julia Butterfly Hill’s Circle of Life and Democracy Matters.

Ana Sophia Demetrakopoulos works at the intersections of trauma-informed practices, adult learning, inter-personal neurobiology, and social and racial justice to promote embodied dialogue, “meaning making,” and collaborative capacity building. Her work seeks to support people to increase their self-awareness, mutual visibility and strategic visioning at the individual and community levels by helping them access and ground themselves in their authentic voices.

Founder | Oakland Public Conservatory of Music

Angela M. Wellman, an award-winning musician, scholar, educator, and activist, is the founder of the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music which centers the Black experience in the development of American musical culture and identity. She is presently completing her dissertation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison exploring the impact of racism and white supremacy on access to music education for Black students.

Indigenous and Latina Author

Anita Sanchez, Ph.D., an Indigenous and Latina author, trainer, and speaker passionate about visionary leadership, Indigenous wisdom, and the empowerment of women, works on a wide range of cultural transformation, diversity and inclusion projects. Anita, who serves on the boards of Bioneers and of the Pachamama Alliance, is also the internationally bestselling author of The Four Sacred Gifts: Indigenous Wisdom for Modern Times.

Biologist | Dig2Grow

Anne Biklé, a biologist, science communicator, and public speaker, investigates and writes about connections between people, plants, food, health, and the environment. Her work has appeared in magazines, newspapers and radio, and her soil-building practices have been featured in independent and documentary films. She is the co-author, along with David Montgomery, of The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health, which you can read an excerpt of here. 

Wildlife Field Biologist

Anne Laudisoit is a Belgian explorer, wildlife field biologist and disease ecologist specializing in tracking emerging and neglected vector-borne zoonotic diseases in a wide range of ecological and social contexts from Tanzania, Madagascar and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to Kazakhstan. Since 2015, in partnership with local researchers and villagers, she has been exploring and helping develop conservation plans for previously unstudied, remote, often war-torn regions of DRC’s Ituri province.

Author

Anneke Campbell is an author/community activist/yoga teacher who has worked as a midwife, nurse, English professor, and has recently trained as a death midwife/educator. She co-authored (with Thomas Linzey) We The People: Stories from the Community Rights Movement in the U.S., co-edited (with Nina Simons) Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart, edited Nina's new award winning book Nature, Culture and the Sacred: One Woman Listens for Leadership, and co-produced with her husband Jeremy Kagan the dramatic feature film, Shot, which she also scripted.

Program Director | Women’s Earth Alliance

Arielle Moinester, Program Director of Women’s Earth Alliance, is an international agricultural development professional and entrepreneur who has worked extensively in Africa and Asia with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and is currently CRS’ Regional Technical Advisor for Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia. Arielle also co-founded Hands of Mothers, an NGO building women’s micro-enterprises globally and is co-owner of the raw juice company Earthjuice.

Restorative Food Systems Director | Bioneers

Arty Mangan, Bioneers' Restorative Food Systems Director, joined Bioneers in 1998 as Project Manager for the Restorative Development Initiative. A former board president of the Ecological Farming Association and member of the Santa Cruz GE Subcommittee that banned GE crops, Arty has worked with farmers and agriculture since 1978, first as a partner in Live Juice and later with Odwalla, where he was in charge of fruit sourcing.

| AECreative Consulting Partners

Ashara Ekundayo is an independent curator, entrepreneur in creative fields, and organizer working internationally across spiritual, civic, and social innovation spaces. Through her company, AECreative Consulting Partners, she seeks to engage artists and cultural production in movement building and offers an afro-futurist, intersectional framework that centers the lives and traditions of black womxn. She is author of two forthcoming books, Artist As First Responder, and Riot Babies.

Director of Global Strategy | Amazon Sacred Headwaters Initiative

Atossa Soltani is the founder and board president of Amazon Watch and served as the organization's first Executive Director for 18 years. Currently Atossa is the director of global strategy for the Amazon Sacred Headwaters Initiative, working to protect one of the most biodiverse rainforests on Earth in an alliance with Amazonian indigenous nations of Ecuador and Peru.

Director | Biomimicry Institute

Beth Rattner directs the Biomimicry Institute's strategic vision, managing the organization's program development, fundraising, and marketing efforts. Her previous positions have included: working with William McDonough and Michael Braungart on The Upcycle; co-founding and leading the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute; directing one of the first sustainability business consulting firms, Blu Skye; and Business Manager for Hewlett Packard's Emerging Market Solutions (EMS) group.

Executive Director | Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines

Beatriz Caiuby Labate, Ph.D. (in social anthropology from the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil, is Executive Director of the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines. She is also Adjunct Faculty at the East-West Psychology Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) and Public Education and Culture Specialist at the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). She has published twenty books.

National Director | The Butterfly Movement

Brandi Mack, an Oakland, CA-based holistic health educator, massage therapist, and Permaculture designer, has worked in holistic health and ecological sustainability with youth and adults for 16+ years. She is currently National Director of The Butterfly Movement and serves on the boards of: Northern America Permaculture Magazine, Northern California Resilience Network, and Northern California Women in Permaculture.

Leader | SolutionCraft

Brennan Blazer Bird, an ecological educator, natural builder, water harvester, and “appropriate techie,” has led a diverse array of artistic and ecological projects around the world. He founded the Peace On Earthbench Movement (POEM), which seeks to inspire youth to transform plastic waste into art, and is currently leading an ecological design, build, and education venture called SolutionCraft. (earthbench.org, solutioncraft.org)

Senior Climate and Sustainability Coordinator | City of Boulder

Brett KenCairn, Boulder, Colorado’s Senior Policy Advisor for Climate, Sustainability and Resilience, coordinates that city’s climate action and resilience initiatives, including a soil sequestration R+D project. Co-founder of several organizations, including the Rogue River Institute for Ecology and Economy, Veterans Green Jobs, and Community Energy Systems, he has worked across the western U.S. in community-based initiatives in rural, Native American and other marginalized communities.

Co-Founder | Sowing Circle LLC Intentional Community and the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center

Brock Dolman, co-founder of the Sowing Circle LLC Intentional Community and the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center (OAEC), co-directs OAEC’s Permaculture/Resilient Community Design Program, Wildlands Program and WATER Institute. A wildlife biologist, restoration ecologist and renowned innovator in watershed management and Permaculture, Brock integrates wildlife biology, native California botany, watershed ecology with education about regenerative human settlement design, ethno-ecology, and ecological literacy in his work.

Artist

Brus Rubio, of Huitoto and Bora ancestry, is a self-taught painter from the Peruvian Amazon, whose encounter with the anthropologist Jürg Gasché, who was conducting cultural studies in Brus’ community, led to exposure to a wider world and his evolution as an artist whose stunning work always draws from his cultural traditions but has now been able to reach a broader international audience beyond the Amazon.

Winner of the 2019 Biomimicry Youth Design Challenge

Caleb Jordan-McDaniels is a budding biologist and engineer whose deep interest in biomimicry has been the foundation for a number of design projects. Most recently, Caleb led a small team of other high school students to win the 2019 Biomimicry Youth Design Challenge with a tide-based electricity generation system modeled after the seeds of Alsomitra macrocarpa, a species of vining gourd.

Founder | Kindred Herbs

Cameron (Cami) Salomon, a plant caretaker and conservationist who, in 2018, founded Kindred Herbs, a specialty nursery dedicated to growing a diversity of medicinal herbs from around the world, is dedicated to defending biodiversity and combating plant overharvesting and habitat loss.

Co-Founder | Purpose US

Camille Canon is a serial entrepreneur and advisor who has successfully led small teams to create e-commerce and affiliate platforms, launch native apps, and develop real estate initiatives focused on community building and affordable housing. She’s a co-founder of Purpose US, which helps mission-driven companies transition to steward-ownership.

Program Director | Bioneers Indigenous Knowledge Program

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.

Co-Author & Strategic Advisor | The Global Deal for Nature

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. Vynne is also the founder and principal consultant at Osprey Insights.

Chief Trickster | Coyote Network News

Caroline W. Casey is the host-creator, “weaver of context” for The Visionary Activist Show (23 + years) on Pacifica Radio Network. With a guiding astro*mytho*politico frame, she highlights guests she views as leading contributors to a “Renaissance of Reverent Ingenuity.” Caroline presents her unique art of “Astro* mythological*political* guiding *meta-story-telling” in myriad multi-media venues.

Activist | Youth vs. Apocalypse

Carolyn Norr, an environmental justice activist since 4th grade, previously a teacher and youth group leader in Oakland, is an activist with Youth vs. Apocalypse, a Bay Area-based, diverse group of young climate justice activists working to lift the voices of youth, especially youth of color, and fight for a livable climate and an equitable, sustainable and just world.

Founder | Ripple Catalyst Studio

Cecile Lipworth, founder of Ripple Catalyst Studio and host of the weekly feminist radio show, Brave Space, consults with women-led organizations regionally and internationally, harnessing her expertise in movement building, event producing, fundraising, marketing and communications to support their work. Prior to founding Ripple, Cecile was for 15 years the Managing Director of V-Day, the renowned organization founded by Eve Ensler to combat gender-based violence.

Co-founder | Yisrael Family Urban Farm

Chanowk Yisrael, co-founder of the Yisrael Family Urban Farm in Sacramento’s South Oak Park neighborhood, gave up a life in corporate America to become an award-winning, pioneering urban homesteader. Director of Urban Organic Sustainability for Hip Hop is Green, a plant-based hip hop multimedia organization, he also serves on the board of the South Oak Park Community Association and Slow Food Sacramento.

Chair | Everett Program

Chris Benner, Ph.D., the Dorothy E. Everett Chair in Global Information and Social Entrepreneurship and a Professor of Environmental Studies and Sociology at UC Santa Cruz, directs the Everett Program for Technology and Social Change and the Santa Cruz Institute for Social Transformation. He has authored or co-authored six books (most recently Equity, Growth and Community) and more that 70 journal articles, chapters and research reports.

Multidisciplinary Artist | thewayblackmachine

Christa Bell is a multidisciplinary artist, curator and writer from Seattle whose work addresses the spiritual and psychic recovery of Black women in the West. In 2018 and 2019, her co-curatorial project, thewayblackmachine, a digital archive documenting state violence against Black people, toured with ICA Boston’s exhibition, Art in the Age of the Internet, and her solo work, Her Great Battle Against The Truth, exhibited at the 2019 Every Woman Bienial.

Founder | Flourish.ink

Christiana Musk, whose background spans environmental and social entrepreneurship (including as a founding partner of Green Mountain Energy) and non-profit and foundation leadership, currently curates the Flourish content for the Near Future Summit and advises several food initiatives. An operating partner at Satori Capital, a sustainable investment firm, she was formerly Executive Director of Food Choice Taskforce and led the food system program for Avatar Alliance Foundation. (flourish.ink)

Decolonizer | Seeding Sovereignty

Christine Nobiss is Plains Cree-Saulteaux and holds an MA in Religious Studies. She is a Decolonizer with Seeding Sovereignty and directs their SHIFT and Land Resilience Programs. She speaks and writes about the MMIW crisis, climate change, and an Indingeous led regenerative economy. She is in her second year of organizing the Indingeous track at SOCAP with the goal of dismantling colonial-capitalist institutions and replacing them with Indigenous practices created in synchronicity with the land.

Professor of Economics | UC Berkeley

Clair Brown, an eminent economist, Professor of Economics at UC Berkeley, has published research on many aspects of inequality and sustainability, including the book Buddhist Economics: An Enlightened Approach to the Dismal Science, which describes an economic framework that integrates global sustainability, shared prosperity, and care for the human spirit.

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.

Stop it at the Source Campaigner | 350.org

Clayton Thomas-Müller (Mathias Colomb Cree/aka Pukatawagan), currently the 'Stop it at the Source' campaigner with 350.org, is an award-winning Winnipeg, Canada-based Indigenous Rights/Climate Justice activist and media producer with 17+ years’ experience organizing in hundreds of First Nations across North America against the fossil fuel industry and leading delegations to major UN and other international conclaves. Clayton also serves on many boards, including for: Black Mesa Water Coalition, Indigenous Climate Action, and Bioneers.

Artists

Climbing PoeTree (Alixa Garcia and Naima Penniman) are award-winning multimedia artists, organizers, educators and a spoken word duo who have independently organized more than 30 tours, taking their work from South Africa to Cuba, the UK to Mexico, and 11,000 miles around the U.S. on a bus running on recycled vegetable oil, presenting alongside powerhouses such as Vandana Shiva, Angela Davis, Alicia Keys, and Alice Walker, in venues ranging from the UN to Harvard to Riker's Island Prison.

Spokesperson | Confederated Villages of Lisjan/Ohlone

Corrina Gould, born and raised in Oakland, CA (territory of Huichuin), is the spokesperson for the Confederated Villages of Lisjan/Ohlone. An activist who has worked to preserve and protect the ancient burial sites of her ancestors in the Bay Area for decades, she also co-founded Indian People Organizing for Change and the Sogorea Te Land Trust, an urban Indigenous women’s community organization.

Assistant Professor and Department Chair of Native American Studies | Humboldt State

Cutcha Risling Baldy, Ph.D. (Hupa, Yurok, Karuk), Assistant 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.

Agronomist | Green Cover Seed

Dale Strickler, a leader in the soil health movement, author of The Drought Resilient Farm and Managing Pasture, is an agronomist working for Green Cover Seed, the nation’s leading cover crop specific seed company. He previously taught agronomy at Cloud County Community College and worked for several companies, including Land O’Lakes, Star Seed, and Valent USA. He also runs his own ranching operation near Jamestown Kansas.

Co-Founder | Wisconsin’s Singing Trees Farm Collective

Danielle Hill, a citizen of the federally recognized Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and a student midwife passionate about reinvigorating Indigenous birthing practices, is a co-founder of Wisconsin’s Singing Trees Farm Collective, a women-owned collaborative land restoration project focused on reintroducing pre-colonial crops in the Midwest and land guardianship based on feminist and Indigenous principles.

Digital Media Specialist | Regis’ Dayton Memorial Library

Dave Devine, a digital media specialist at Regis’ Dayton Memorial Library in Denver, Colorado, was the Digital Project Content Manager for the film, Wild Hope, being screened at Bioneers this year.

Co-Founder | Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education

Dave Hage, co-founder of the Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education (WE) helps lead the center's 9-month immersion program and various other programs for adults and teens, as well as providing group and individual mentoring. He is passionate about helping others find their unique genius and personal relationship to creativity via a deep connection to the earth.

Cooperation Humboldt

David Cobb, now working with Cooperation Humboldt, an effort to build a solidarity economy on the California North Coast, has had a long track record as a "people's lawyer" who sued corporate polluters, lobbied, run for political office, got arrested for non-violent civil disobedience and helped launch the Election Integrity movement. Working with the pioneering Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy (POCLAD) he also long worked to abolish “corporate personhood” rights.

Professor | University of Washington

David R. Montgomery, a Seattle-based MacArthur Fellow and professor of Geomorphology at the University of Washington and the author of award-winning popular-science books that have been translated into nine languages, is an internationally recognized geologist who studies landscape evolution and the effects of geological processes on ecological systems and human societies.

Founder | Santa Cruz Permaculture

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

Water Resources Analyst

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

Founder | Mindful Living Revolution

Deborah Eden Tull, founder of Mindful Living Revolution, a Zen meditation and mindfulness teacher, author, activist, and sustainability educator, teaches the integration of compassionate awareness into every aspect of our lives. Eden who spent 7 years training as a monk at a Zen monastery and has been teaching about sustainable communities for 25+ years, is the author of: Relational Mindfulness: A Handbook for Deepening Our Connection with Ourselves, Each Other, and Our Planet.

Denna Dodds, a Karuk tribal member from northern California, is a highly accomplished traditional weaver in the “twining” style who was trained by Karuk master weaver Wilverna Reece (who in turn had learned the art from Grace and Madeline Davis).

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.

Regenerative Rancher | Markegard Family Grass-Fed LLC

Doniga Markegard, author of Dawn Again: Tracking the Wisdom of the Wild, has extensive backgrounds in wildlife tracking, wilderness survival and Permaculture. She is a leading “regenerative rancher” who, with her husband and children, owns and manages Markegard Family Grass-Fed LLC, which leases over 10,000 acres of Bay Area lands, using practices that build soil, sequester carbon, capture and purify water, enhance wildlife habitat, and revitalize communities.

Native Ecologist, Artist

Edward Willie, a true native of California (of Pomo, Wintu, Paiute, and Wailaki ancestry), is a native ecologist with 40+ years’ experience teaching Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), Herbalism, Permaculture, and ancient skills to people of all ages. Also an artist (drawing, painting, and sculpture), he has in recent years been a core organizer of the annual Buckeye Gathering, a gathering in support of ancestral skills and village building. He is an adjunct teacher for Weaving Earth.

Executive Director | California Global Education Project

Emily M. Schell, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the California Global Education Project and serves as co-chair to the California Environmental Literacy Initiative. Her former positions include: teacher, principal, and Social Studies resource teacher at San Diego Unified School District; History-Social Science Coordinator at San Diego County Office of Education; liaison to National Geographic Education Foundation; and pre-service educator at San Diego State University.

Anthropologist | Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Medicines

Emily Sinclair is an anthropologist whose research focuses on the globalization of ayahuasca and its impacts, especially in the Iquitos region of Peru where she was based between 2014 and 2018. She is a member of the Ayahuasca Community Committee of the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Medicines, and a leader of the Ayahuasca Community Guide for the Awareness of Sexual Abuse initiative.

President-Elect | USPATH - World Professional Association for Transgender Health

Erica E. Anderson, Ph.D., an eminent clinical psychologist, academic administrator, healthcare executive and professor (currently at UCSF Benioff), as well as a consultant to major companies, has had an illustrious four-decade long career in public health, clinical psychology, healthcare management and pediatrics. A leading expert in transgender and gender nonconforming health issues, she is the President-Elect of USPATH, the newly created affiliate of WPATH, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.

Indigenous Climate Action | Executive Director and Co-Founder

Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, a Denesuline Indigenous activist, member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) of Alberta, Canada, is Executive Director and co-founder of Indigenous Climate Action (ICA), Canada’s premier Indigenous-led climate justice organization. Deranger, who previously spent 6 years building-up the highly successful international Indigenous Tar Sands campaign, has become widely known as one of the world’s most effective organizers and coalition builders to defend Indigenous people’s rights locally, nationally and globally.

Practice Leader and Ecological Engineer | Biohabitats Inc.

Erin English, PE, Practice Leader and Ecological Engineer at Biohabitats Inc., leads Biohabitats’ Integrated water strategies planning and engineering efforts. Combining engineering and her passion for water and ecology, she helps clients throughout the world design and build innovative water infrastructure, including some award-winning projects that have achieved the Living Building Challenge’s uniquely rigorous Net Zero Water benchmark.

Former Chair | California State Water Resources Control Board

Felicia Marcus, JD, until recently Chair of the California State Water Resources Control Board, has, in her long, illustrious career, served in many leading positions in government, the non-profit world, and the private sector, including, to mention only a few, as Regional Administrator of the U.S. EPA Region IX, head of the Los Angeles Department of Public Works, Western Director for the NRDC, and Executive VP/COO of the Trust for Public Land.

Founder | Arizmendi Bakery Cooperative

Frank Mason, after a career in high-tech and finance, found his home and passion at Arizmendi Bakery Cooperative, an exemplary, decades-old worker-owned Bay Area enterprise named after a famous Basque labor organizer. A worker/owner at the bakery since 2012, Frank has spoken widely at Bay Area colleges and beyond to inspire and educate the next generation about the advantages of worker owned cooperatives.

CEO | Affirmative Acts Consulting

Fresh “Lev” White, CEO of Affirmative Acts Consulting, is a Bay Area-based certified coach, diversity trainer, mindfulness meditation teacher, speaker, and writer. Lev is also the founder of the Trans and GQ Mindfulness Sangha and a contributor to several collections and anthologies, including Real World Mindfulness for Beginners, Trans Buddhist Anthology, and Trans Bodies/Trans Selves.

W.K. Kellogg Endowed Chair in Sustainable Food Systems | University of Arizona

Gary Nabhan, Ph.D., is a world-renowned, award-winning agricultural ecologist, ethnobotanist, Ecumenical Franciscan brother and orchard-keeper. A leading pioneer in the local food and heirloom seed-saving movements, he co-founded Native Seeds/SEARCH; helped create Ironwood Forest National Monument; was founding Director of the Center for Sustainable Environments; and founded the Center for Regional Food Studies. Author of 30+ books, his most recent is: Food from the Radical Center: Healing Our Lands & Communities.

Director of Policy and Systems Design | Schumacher Center for a New Economics

Greg Watson, Director of Policy and Systems Design at the Schumacher Center for a New Economics, has spent four decades seeking to apply systems thinking to achieve a just and sustainable world. His long CV includes stints as Massachusetts’ Commissioner of Agriculture, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust and of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, and founding the Cuba-U.S. Agroecology Network, among many other prestigious positions.

Executive Director | National Compadres Network

Héctor Sánchez-Flores is the Executive Director of the National Compadres Network (NCN), an organization that develops and supports culturally centered programs for boys and men of color, Latino and Indigenous youth, and families. NCN draws from the ancestral wisdom and resilience of communities affected by trauma and racism to promote deep healing and transformative, equitable change.

Indigenous Anthropologist

Heidi Lucero (Acjachemen/Mutsun Ohlone) is an Indigenous anthropologist; an accomplished native artist and basketweaver; a teacher of traditional cultural knowledge, including the use of native foods to improve the health of native populations; and an activist fighting for the protection of sacred sites and the return of ancestors and sacred objects under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).

Co-Founder | Project Equity

Hilary Abell, an Echoing Green and BALLE Fellow, is a veteran cooperative developer and employee ownership thought leader who co-founded Project Equity, which seeks to build economic resiliency in low-income communities by demonstrating and replicating strategies that increase worker ownership. Project Equity has developed unique programs that help support every aspect of a company's transition to employee- or multi-stakeholder ownership.

Poet

Ishmael Hope, an Inupiaq and Tlingit poet, actor and Indigenous scholar, served as the lead writer for the video game, Never Alone (Upper One Games); has published two poetry collections, including Rock Piles Alone the Eddy (Ishmael Reed Publications); and played the character Atka in a feature film, Frontera Azul (The Blue Frontier).

Founder | Tatu Vision Movement

Jada Imani, an Oakland, CA-based workshop facilitator, MC, and founder of the Tatu Vision movement, is dedicated to helping co-create regenerative communities through her performing, event production and hosting, healing practice, and coalition-building with communities of poets, Hip-Hop aficionados, entrepreneurs and Permaculture practitioners.

Producer | The Film From Shock to Awe

Janine Sagert, Ph.D., an integration consultant and optimal performance coach, is a producer of the film From Shock to Awe, being shown at Bioneers this year. Profoundly affected by her experiences in her youth with psychedelics and studies in India, Janine became a researcher in altered states of consciousness and stress management and was a leading, early figure in bringing meditation to many workplaces.

Psychiatrist

Jean Shinoda Bolen, M. D, a Mill Valley-based psychiatrist, Jungian analyst in private practice and author of 14 influential books, is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. Formerly a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at UCSF and board member of the Ms. Foundation and the International Transpersonal Association, she inspired The Millionth Circle Initiative and is a leading advocate for a UN 5th World Conference on Women.

Professor | Bard College

Jennifer Browdy, Ph.D. teaches Environmental Literature and Media Arts at Bard College at Simon’s Rock. Her writer’s guide, The Elemental Journey of Purposeful Memoir, won a 2017 Nautilus Silver Award. She is also the Publisher of Green Fire Press and leads workshops in purposeful memoir internationally and online.

Associate Professor | UC Santa Cruz

Jennifer Taylor, a filmmaker, Associate Professor in the Department of Film and Digital Media at UC Santa Cruz and Director of that school’s Graduate Studies of the Social Documentation MFA program as well as a Sundance Documentary Institute Fellow, makes colorful, character-based films about real people with extraordinary stories. Her work has been shown at Sundance and a wide range of film festivals nationally and internationally.

Director, Writer and Producer | USC’s School of Cinematic Arts

Jeremy Kagan, an award-winning, internationally recognized director, writer, and producer of feature films and television, is a tenured professor at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and runs its Change Making Media Lab. Jeremy has directed 12 features including his most recent, Shot. His past films include: Heroes, The Big Fix, The Chosen and The Journey of Natty Gann. Jeremy’s many awards include the Humanitas Award and an Emmy.

CEO | Black Executive Men

Jewel Love is a licensed psychotherapist, CEO of Black Executive Men, and Creative Director for Urban Healers. All three of his ventures seek to help men heal, establish healthier relationships, and launch their unique purposes in life.

Co-Founder/Co-Director | CODEPINK

Jodie Evans, co-founder/Co-Director of CODEPINK, a peace, environmental, women’s rights and social justice activist for 40 years, served in the 1st Jerry Brown gubernatorial administration and ran his presidential campaign. She has published 2 books, Stop the Next War Now, and Twilight of Empire, produced documentary films and sits on several boards, including for: Rainforest Action Network, Drug Policy Alliance, Institute of Policy Studies, Women Moving Million, and, as Board Chair, the Women’s Media Center.

Yustina Salnikova and Joel Stockdill are dedicated to re-imagining our relationship to what we call 'waste'.

Chairman | Renewal Funds

Joel Solomon, author of The Clean Money Revolution: Reinventing Power, Purpose, and Capitalism and Chairman of Renewal Funds, a $200 million mission venture capital firm, has invested in over 100 early growth-stage companies in North America, delivering above market returns while catalyzing positive social and environmental change.

Director | Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society

john a. powell is Director of the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society and Professor of Law, African American, and Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley. His many previous roles have included Executive Director at the Kirwan Institute at Ohio State; National Legal Director of the ACLU; and teaching at numerous law schools including Harvard and Columbia. His latest book is Racing to Justice: Transforming our Concepts of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society.

| Cornucopia Food Forest Garden

John Valenzuela, a horticulturist, consultant and educator who focuses on a diversity of productive trees, shrubs, vines and other perennials, growing an “ecosystem of abundance” with his Cornucopia Food Forest Gardens, has taught permaculture for 30 years, from Hawai’i to California, Washington state and Central America. He is actively engaged with the non-profit California Rare Fruit Growers organization.

Director | Go Wild Institute

Jolie Elan M.S., the founding Director of Go Wild Institute, is an ecologist, ethnobotanist, educator and spiritual director. Weaving modern science with ancient earth wisdom, Jolie helps people and organizations connect with our sacred, sentient earth. She has worked on countless environmental campaigns including restoring sacred forest groves in India and developing the sustainable herbal medicine sector in Kosovo. She teaches widely and considers Oak trees to be her greatest teachers.

Professor | Cal State Sacramento and UC Davis

Jolynn Shoemaker, JD, a leading expert on gender equity, women’s leadership, peace and security, is a contributing writer for Ms. Magazine and an adjunct professor at Cal State Sacramento and UC Davis. She previously served as Executive Director of Women in International Security and had a long career in government service, including at the State and Defense departments, as well as working with many non-profit research and advocacy organizations.

Founder | Firefly Ceremonial Cacao

Jonas Ketterle, after a life-changing encounter with chocolate making in Oaxaca, founded the bean-to-drink dark chocolate company Firefly Ceremonial Cacao in 2014 to inspire awe and wonder through cacao. Previously an “Imagineer” at Greenlight Planet and engineering lead at Fenix International who provided affordable solar energy to rural customers, Jonas has extensive backgrounds in Mechanical Engineering (Stanford), Permaculture (Regenerative Design Institute) and eco-villages and co-housing.

Founder | Standing Strong Project

Josué Rivas (Mexica/Otomi), founder of the Standing Strong Project and co-founder of Natives Photograph, is an award-winning visual storyteller and educator working at the intersection of art, journalism, and social justice whose work challenges mainstream narratives about Indigenous peoples and builds awareness about issues affecting Native communities. His work has appeared in many publications including National Geographic, The Guardian, and World Policy Journal.

Instructional Strategist | Rialto, California, Unified School District

Juanita Chan, M.A.Ed., an Instructional Strategist for the Rialto, California, Unified School District whose main focus is on math and science instruction, has a background in Entomology and plant vector pathogen epidemiology, among other disciplines, and has had many jobs in pedagogy, from teaching math and science at several grade levels to developing curriculums, organizing science fairs and leading various school departments.

Director | Yisrael Family Urban Farm

Judith Yisrael, Director of the Yisrael Family Urban Farm in Sacramento’s South Oak Park neighborhood (a classic “food desert”), is an herbalist, award-winning community educator and mother dedicated to sharing her knowledge of nature’s power to heal—physically, emotionally and psychologically. A member of the American Herbalist Guild, she is also a master soap maker whose handmade skin care products are available at retail outlets throughout Sacramento.

Author

Kami McBride’s 30 years of teaching herbal medicine is steeped in her calling to activate a deep connection with the earth in our culture and to inspire the next generation to love and care for plants. Kami has taught herbal medicine at UCSF School of Nursing and has helped thousands of families learn to use herbs for self-care. She is the author of The Herbal Kitchen.

Co-Owner/Farmer | Rise & Root Farm

Karen Washington, co-owner/farmer of Rise & Root Farm, has been a legendary activist in the community gardening movement since 1985. Renowned for turning empty Bronx lots into verdant spaces, Karen is: a former President of the NYC Community Garden Coalition; a board member of: the NY Botanical Gardens, Why Hunger, and NYC Farm School; a co-founder of Black Urban Growers (BUGS); and a pioneering force in establishing urban farmers’ markets.

Co-Director | Occidental Arts & Ecology Center’s WATER Institute

Kate Lundquist, co-director of the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center’s WATER Institute and the Bring Back the Beaver Campaign in Sonoma County, is a conservationist, educator and ecological artist who works with landowners, communities and resource agencies to uncover obstacles, identify strategic solutions, and generate restoration recommendations to assure healthy watersheds, water security, listed species recovery and climate change resiliency.

Co-founder and President | Botanical Dimensions

Kathleen Harrison, renowned ethnobotanist and educator, has done extensive fieldwork among Indigenous cultures since the 1970s, specializing in studying plants and fungi used in ritual, healing and art, including traditional psychoactive species and their lore. Co-founder of the non-profit, Botanical Dimensions, and Director of its Ethnobotany Library in Occidental, California, Kat’s fieldwork includes a long relationship with Mazatec healers in Mexico that her daughter, artist/filmmaker Klea McKenna, is making a film about.

Marketing Coordinator | REBBL Beverage Company

Kathleen Tan is the Marketing Coordinator and “brand storyteller” for the REBBL beverage company, a mission-driven enterprise devoted to combating human trafficking and helping address climate change and biodiversity loss by helping economically empower the often disenfranchised Indigenous and local communities that produce the raw materials for its products, as well as providing exquisite tasting elixirs made from potent ethically-sourced super herbs.

Founder | Recompose

Katrina Spade, a designer, activist and entrepreneur dedicated to radical innovations in our society’s death care experience, founded Recompose, a benefit corporation dedicated to offering earth-centric, participatory, and meaningful death care to the public in 2017. An Echoing Green and Ashoka fellow, she has a background in architecture and anthropology.

| National Geographic Educator Fellow

Kavita Gupta, a highly influential, award winning educator, a public high school teacher for 20+ years and member of the inaugural class of National Geographic Educator fellows, has been a leading advocate for holistic science education (including regarding Climate Change) in multiple leadership positions nationally. Kavita has also mentored many award winning student projects in prestigious science competitions and published many articles in educational journals.

Community Economic Development | UC Davis

Keith Taylor, Ph.D., a specialist in Community Economic Development (CED) at UC Davis, focuses on community wealth building through economic development policy and governance practice, with a special emphasis on co-operatives. A nationally recognized expert in electric, food, and purchasing co-ops, he is the author of Governing the Wind Energy Commons.

Director | Occidental Arts & Ecology Center’s Permaculture Program

Kendall Dunnigan, Director of the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center’s Permaculture Program (whose purpose is to resist the destructive extractive, enclosure economy so communities can retain collective sovereignty, biological and cultural diversity, and regenerative livelihoods), facilitates multi-generational eco-cultural design processes with economically and environmentally marginalized communities in the U.S., Latin America, and Africa.

Author

Kim Stanley Robinson, one of the world’s leading science fiction writers, is the award-winning author of 20+ books, including the bestselling Mars trilogy, and more recently Red Moon, New York 2140, Aurora, Shaman, Green Earth, and 2312. Named a “Hero of the Environment” by Time magazine, he works with the Sierra Nevada Research Institute, the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, and UC San Diego’s Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination. In 2016 asteroid 72432 was named “Kimrobinson.”

Photographer and Videographer | IN THE MAKE

Klea McKenna is a visual artist based in San Francisco whose photographs have been shown and collected by SFMOMA, LACMA, Datz Musum of Art in South Korea, The Hecksher Museum in NY, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. From 2011-2015 she was photographer and videographer for IN THE MAKE. She is the daughter of renegade ethnobotanists Kathleen Harrison and Terence McKenna.

U.S. Digital Campaigner | 350.org

Kristy Drutman, a Filipina American, is a U.S. Digital Campaigner with 350.org and the creator and host of Brown Girl Green, a podcast and media series dedicated to critical conversations around building an environmentally just society in which she discusses diversity and inclusiveness with a wide range of environmental leaders and advocates. While at college, Kristy co-founded the Students of Color Environmental Collective at UC Berkeley.

Founder | Lead to Life

Kyle Lemle, an organizer, facilitator and musician, works to catalyze the impact of organizations working at the intersections of environmental justice, forest restoration, and spiritual ecology around the world. A former leader of CA RISE for Climate and SustainUS UN Climate Talks delegate, he is currently Director of Distributed Organizing with GreenFaith. Kyle is also the founder and Co-director of Lead to Life, and the renowned Thrive Choir vocal group.

| Native California Indian Artist

L. Frank Manriquez (Tongva/Ajachmem), an award-winning Native California Indian artist working in many media and a tribal scholar, community activist, and language advocate, has exhibited her artwork in museums and galleries nationally and internationally. She has served or serves on a number of boards, including that of the California Indian Basketweavers Association (for 15 years) and the Cultural Conservancy, and is a founding board member of the Advocates for Indigenous California Languages.

Executive Director | Humane Prison Hospice Project

Ladybird Morgan, Executive Director of the Humane Prison Hospice Project (whose goal is to make prisoner-provided hospice services available in California’s 33 prisons), has been working in end-of-life care and on the frontlines of sexual violence as a registered nurse, clinical social worker, and educator for 20+ years. She has worked with many organizations including The Zen Hospice Project, Hospice By The Bay, and Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

Author | Native Resistance: An Intergenerational Fight for Survival and Life

LaNada War Jack, Ph.D., a member of the Shoshone Bannock Tribes, attended UC Berkeley starting in 1968 and became very active in social change movements, including with the Third World Liberation Front that fought to establish ethnic studies programs and in the 1969 Native American take-over of Alcatraz Island. She is the author of the upcoming: Native Resistance: An Intergenerational Fight for Survival and Life.

Labor & Coal Coordinator | Sierra Club Labor Program

Larry Williams Jr., Labor Coordinator for the Sierra Club's Labor and Economic Justice Program, works domestically and internationally as a strategist and organizer seeking to revive the labor movement's influence and strengthen working class voices in climate, economic and racial justice struggles. President Emeritus of Progressive Workers Union (PWU), Williams is known globally as the founder of UnionBase.org, the first secure social networking platform for unions and union workers.

| Fossil Free UCSC

Laurel Levin, a just graduated, award-winning student activist at UC Santa Cruz (UCSC) working at the intersection of the food and climate movements, worked with the Fossil Free UCSC campaign and other initiatives, and still leads backpacking trips with the UCSC Recreation Department and UCSC Wilderness Orientation Program.

Co-Founder/Director | Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education

Lauren Dalberth Hage, co-founder/Director of the Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education, is a designer, facilitator, wilderness guide and consultant who leads a variety of adult, teen and family programs that weave together deep nature connection, community resilience, permaculture, and social justice. Lauren also works with communities to support the honoring of life transitions, with a special focus on the reclamation of a healthy cultural relationship to menstruation.

Adjunct Professor | Institute of American Indian Arts

Leah Mata Fragua (yak tittʸu tittʸu Northern Chumash), an Adjunct Professor at the Institute of American Indian Arts and an artist, works to give greater voice and visibility to her tribal community, including by reclaiming its homelands and language. Her current project includes a partnership with Cal Poly Housing, where she serves as project lead for her tribe.

Publisher | San Francisco Public Press

Lila LaHood is Publisher of the San Francisco Public Press, a nonprofit news organization producing local public-interest journalism online, in a quarterly newspaper and on KSFP 102.5 FM in San Francisco. A graduate of Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism and of Stanford, she is a member of San Francisco’s Sunshine Ordinance Task Force and the board of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Northern California chapter.

President/CEO | United Way of the Wine Country

Lisa G. Carreño, formerly a practicing attorney in Maryland and California, is the President/CEO of United Way of the Wine Country. She also chairs the board for Forget Me Not Farm Children's Services and serves on the boards for Los Cien Sonoma County, Community Foundation Sonoma County, and Rebuild North Bay Foundation. Among her previous positions, she directed the Maryland Commission for Women, YWCA Sonoma County, and 10,000 Degrees.

Co-Founder/Director | Climate Parents at the Sierra Club

Lisa Hoyos, co-founder/Director of Climate Parents at the Sierra Club, has been a campaigner in the labor and environmental movements for 20+ years, working with such organizations as the BlueGreen Alliance; AFL-CIO; Greenpeace; and as a staffer to the California Senate Natural Resources Committee. She also serves on several boards, including for the California League of Conservation Voters, the Labor Network for Sustainability, and the Alliance for Climate Education.

CEO and President | Pepperwood Foundation

Lisa Micheli, Ph.D., CEO and President of the Pepperwood Foundation, also co-chairs Pepperwood's Terrestrial Biodiversity Climate Change Collaborative, chairs the Golden Gate Biosphere Reserve team of the international Large Landscape Conservation Peer Network, directs the Rebuild North Bay Foundation, and is a science advisor to: the Sempervirens Fund, the Chile-California Conservation Network, the Bay Area Open Space Council, and the Water Research Foundation.

Professor | UC Santa Cruz

Lise Getoor, Ph.D, is: a professor in the Computer Science Department at UC Santa Cruz; Director of the Data, Discovery and Decisions (D3) Research Center; a Fellow of the Association for Artificial Intelligence; and a former board member of both the International Machine Learning Society and the Computing Research Association. Her research interests include machine learning, reasoning under uncertainty and responsible data science, and she has published 250+ scientific papers.

Executive Director | Oceanic Preservation Society

Louie Psihoyos, award-winning filmmaker and Executive Director of the Oceanic Preservation Society (OPS), is one of the world’s top photographers whose work has often appeared in National Geographic and on hundreds of magazine covers. An ardent diver, Psihoyos’ most passionate mission is to reveal the dramatic decline of the oceans and to work to save the planet. His films include the Academy Award-winning documentary, The Cove, Racing Extinction, and The Game Changers.

Program Director | Coral Reef Alliance

Madhavi Colton, Ph.D., a marine ecologist who has worked around the world, is Program Director of the Coral Reef Alliance, where she oversees an international portfolio of community-driven conservation programs to address threats to reefs and spearheads new scientific research into how ecosystems adapt to climate change. Her main current focus is to build partnerships between academic researchers, non-profit organizations, governments, and local communities to implement durable conservation solutions.

Publisher | CalMatters

Marcia Parker is Publisher of CalMatters, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization covering California state government. Formerly Editorial Director for Patch's West Coast local news sites, CIR's California Watch site launch manager, and Assistant Dean at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, Marcia serves on the Institute for Nonprofit News board, the Stanford Knight Journalism Fellowships selection committee, and also teaches at Northwestern University's SF campus.

Doctoral Candidate in Geography | UC Davis

Marcus Renner, a doctoral candidate in Geography at UC Davis, previously coordinated sustainability efforts at two different college campuses and currently coordinates UC Davis' Community Economies Collaborative, a faculty/student reading group. With a background in environmental studies and playwriting, Marcus' current focus is on the intersection of local economies and the arts, and how UC-Davis can facilitate the development of community economies in the surrounding region.

Partnerships Manager | International Rivers

Margaret Zhou, the Partnerships Manager for International Rivers, a global grassroots organization working to protect rivers and the communities that depend upon them, coordinates the organization's many diverse partnerships. She was on the organizing committee of the first global Women and Rivers Congress. Previously Margaret served as a communications consultant for several start-ups and non-profits.

Co-Founder | Brasil Solidarity Network

Director | Hillary Institute of International Leadership

Mark Prain spent 15 years as a professional actor, playwright and opera singer, but has spent the last 25 years working globally in leadership roles in organizations working on sustainability and climate issues. Director of the Hillary Institute of International Leadership since 2006, he is also Executive Director of the Untouched World Foundation and an advisor to the Katerva Challenge (Canada) and Climate Changers (U.S.).

Director | Trout Unlimited's California Water Project

Mary Ann King, a leading expert on water and natural resources law and policy who has published extensively on the topic, is the Emeryvill, CA-based Director of Trout Unlimited's California Water Project, where she develops and implements cooperative streamflow projects with landowners and water users along the California coast, with a special focus on the Russian River watershed.

Co-Founder | Edmund Hillary Fellowship

Matthew Monahan is co-founder of the Edmund Hillary Fellowship (EHF), a global community of change-makers headquartered in Aotearoa New Zealand, home of the New Frontiers Summit. He is also a co-founder of the Namaste Foundation, a philanthropic fund focused on supporting environmental and education nonprofit projects.

Mauricio Rivera integrates a background in civil engineering with a passion for regenerative systems. He designs small and large scale water systems in Sonoma County, California, pushing the effectiveness of low impact development, rainwater harvesting, decentralized onsite water reuse, and habitat restoration.

Bioneers Youth Leadership Program Coordinator | Bioneers

Founder and Executive Director | Women’s Earth Alliance

Melinda Kramer, founder/Executive Director of the Women’s Earth Alliance, which has equipped thousands of women with technical, entrepreneurial, and leadership skills to work on safe water, energy access, regenerative farming, land rights, and climate protection initiatives around the world, is a passionate advocate for social, environmental and gender justice who has lived and worked around the world.

Founder | Green Gal

Melissa Ott Fant is a writer, organic gardener, baker, and consultant based in Reno, NV. After working in higher education sustainability for years, she apprenticed at the UCSC Farm and received her Permaculture Design Certificate in 2017. Her business, Green Gal, provides marketing services to socially/environmentally conscious businesses, and depending upon the season also offers organic sourdough bread, vegetables, and flowers to the local community.

Dean of the Faculty of Social Work | University of Manitob

Michael Yellow Bird, Ph.D., (Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara), Dean of the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Manitoba, previously served as Director of the Indigenous Nations Studies program at the University of Kansas, among many other academic positions. An internationally recognized expert on Indigenous Peoples health and the effects of colonization, he is the author of numerous articles and the co-editor or co-author of several books, including For Indigenous Eyes Only: The Decolonization Handbook.

National Director | Green For All

Michelle Romero is the National Director of Green For All, a groundbreaking nonprofit founded by Van Jones in 2007 to build an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty while combating environmental injustice and climate change. Green for All was the first organization to offer concrete plans for a Green New Deal and remains at the forefront of efforts to design and implement such a program.

Government Affairs Administrator | Monterey One Water

Mike McCullough, currently the Government Affairs Administrator for Monterey One Water, has worked on various components of the Pure Monterey Groundwater Replenishment Project (which provides a clean, safe and sustainable source of water for domestic and agricultural use by using advanced water recycling technology, replenishment of the groundwater supply and protection of the environment) for the past 6 years.

Founder | The Indigenous Youth Foundation

Monique Sol Sonoquie (Chumash, Apache, Yaqui, Zapotec, Irish) is a multi-faceted educator, artist, activist, author, founder of The Indigenous Youth Foundation, Inc., and a practitioner of Maori Healing techniques, to name only a few of her pursuits. A basket-weaver, documentary filmmaker, youth advocate, and traditional food and medicine gatherer, her most recent challenge is weaving with recycled materials, and she is showing her “Pre-Colonial Post-Industrial Village” art piece at Bioneers this year.

Chair of the Board | Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines

Monnica T. Williams, Ph.D., is a board-certified licensed clinical psychologist, an Associate Professor in the University of Connecticut's Department of Psychological Sciences, and Clinical Director of the Behavioral Wellness Clinic in Tolland, Connecticut. Her work is focused on improving cultural competence in the delivery of mental health care services and reducing barriers to care. She sits on the Advisory Board of the Chacruna Institute.

Project Director | Restoring Justice for Indigenous Peoples

Morning Star Gali (Ajumawi band/Pit River Tribe), Project Director of Restoring Justice for Indigenous Peoples, has researched the disproportionate impact of the criminal justice system on Native Americans, worked as the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Pit River Tribe and continues to be a leading organizer and activist advocating for indigenous sovereignty issues, including missing and murdered indigenous women, climate and gender justice, and sacred site protection.

Campaign Organizer | CODEPINK

Nancy L. Mancias, a highly effective Campaign Organizer for the renowned peace and social justice non-violent, direct action group, CODEPINK, has also been part of the movement against torture, a proponent of closing the Guantanamo prison, and, as a key figure in the Justice For All campaign, an advocate for bringing all war criminals to justice.

Nany Zepeda Sanic, of Mayan ancestry, originally from Guatemala, has lived in Mexico, Texas, and now on a regenerative agriculture farm in Hawaii, where she is co-creating an educational center. Focused on Indigenous activism through food, land and community-based wisdom, Nany has collaborated with chefs, farmers, weavers, women run cooperatives, immigration and Indigenous advocacy groups, educators, and entrepreneurs, seeking to build bridges through food.

Founder and Editor-in-Chief | Civil Eats

Naomi Starkman is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Civil Eats, a daily news source for critical thought about the American food system. A former Journalism Fellow at Stanford, she co-founded the Food & Environment Reporting Network, worked as a media consultant to many leading publications, and served as the Deputy Executive Director of the City of San Francisco's Ethics Commission.

| West Oakland Legacy Project

Neeka Salmasi is an Azerbaijani-Iranian artist and educator in Oakland. She coordinates West Oakland Legacy Project: a youth environmental justice program centered around using visual arts to as a tool for activism and social change. She is passionate about teaching environmentalism in a rooted, and decolonized way. She is also a reporter at KPFA news, as well as author of recent book VATAN: a story of immigration to the United States from post-revolution Iran.

Executive Editor | Grist

Nikhil Swaminathan, an award-winning journalist and the Executive Editor of Grist, the nation’s leading environmental news site, oversees a distributed nonprofit newsroom of 15 journalists. Previously, he led the publication's coverage of Environmental Justice, and he's held editorial positions at Scientific American, Al Jazeera America, GOOD, and Archaeology. Prior to joining Grist, Nikhil was an inaugural Ida B. Wells Fellow at Type Investigations.

Xicana Storyteller

Niria Alicia, born in Oregon to a migrant farm-worker family, is a multi-lingual Xicana storyteller, author, educator, poet, and community organizer. With an academic background in environmental and Latin American studies and non-profit administration, Nira has traveled, studied and worked on social justice projects throughout the Americas and beyond, including with Earthjustice, Our Children’s Trust, the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, Honor the Earth, and Greenaction.

Singer-Songwriter | Meadowlark Music Class

Noe Venable, a singer-songwriter, music educator and “spiritual activist,” has released 8 adult and 8 children’s albums and toured nationally. A musical facilitator, Noe uses group singing as a tool for community building with people of all ages and also leads an outdoor parent-child music eco and spirit-themed program called Meadowlark Music Class and a weekly intergenerational chorus for women, Mothersong.

Founder | O’odham VOICE Against the WALL

Ofelia Rivas, an O’odham traditional seeds gardener from southern Arizona, in 2003 founded O’odham VOICE Against the WALL, a grassroots organization that seeks to defend O’odham cultural and human rights, which include, because her people’s ancestral lands and population straddle the U.S./Mexico border, their right to unfettered access to historical crossing routes along that border.

Visual Storytelling Educator

Orion Camero, a queer visual storytelling educator, coalition-builder and community organizer, works at the nexus of social, ecological, and economic issues to advance intersectional justice. A Filipinx two-spirit with roots in California’s Central Valley, Orion is one of the stewards of the California Allegory poster project of the Beehive Design Collective, a global arts activist collective that translates movement stories into pen-and-ink fable murals.

Assistant Director | Sonoma County Human Services Department

Oscar Chavez, the Assistant Director of the Sonoma County Human Services Department, oversees the county’s Upstream Investments Initiative, the Department’s planning, research, and evaluation functions, and community and client engagement. He is a recipient of a Sonoma County Jefferson Award and a North Bay Business Journal Non-Profit Leadership Award, and was named one of North Bay’s “40 under 40” leaders by the North Bay Business Journal in 2008.

Executive Director | Women's Earth and Climate Action Network International

Osprey Orielle Lake, founder/Executive Director of the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International, works with grassroots and Indigenous leaders, policy-makers and scientists to promote climate justice, resilient communities, and a just transition to a clean energy future. Osprey serves on the Executive Committee of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature, co-directs the DIVEST, INVEST, PROTECT campaign, and authored the award-winning, Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature. (wecaninternational.org)

Movement Building Coordinator | Indigenous Environmental Network

Ozawa Bineshi Albert (Yuchi and Annishinaabe), an Oklahoma-based Native Rights and Environmental Justice activist, is a Movement Building Coordinator with the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), currently working on global collaborations to strengthen grassroots feminist movements. A founding board member of IEN and of the Native American Voters Alliance, her previous positions include: Co-Director for the Southwest Organizing Project and Regional Director for the Center for Community Change.

Founder | Organization of Nature Evolutionaries

Pam Montgomery, one of the nation's most renowned herbalists for three decades+, teaches internationally on plant communication and nature consciousness. Organizer of the Green Nations Gathering since 1989 and a former board member of United Plant Savers, she recently founded the non-profit Organization of Nature Evolutionaries (O.N.E.) and is the author of Partner Earth; A Spiritual Ecology and the best-selling Plant Spirit Healing; A Guide to Working with Plant Consciousness.

Renowned Teacher

Pandora Thomas, a leading figure in the application of ecological principles to social design with 25+ years’ experience, currently combines being a caregiver for her mother with her work as a renowned teacher, writer, designer, speaker, and facilitator at several permaculture and ecological design schools and programs nationally and internationally.

Founder | Crescent Moon Theater Productions

Polina Smith is the founder of Crescent Moon Theater Productions and the art curator for the Bioneers Conference. She received her BFA in theater for social change from Concordia University in 2008 and her MFA at the California Institute of Integral Studies. In 2008, Polina moved to San Francisco to work with The Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women under the mentorship of Rhodessa Jones and study clowning at the Circus Center’s Clown Conservatory. In 2014, Polina founded Crescent Moon Theater Productions to create socially relevant and thought provoking new work that spans across the disciplines of theater, dance, music and circus, as well as produce Blessed Unrest, an annual arts and social justice festival in San Francisco. Learn more at: www.crescentmoontheaterproductions.com

| Radical Joy for Hard Times

Polly Howells, a former board chair of Bioneers, is a facilitator for the Pachamama Alliance's "Awakening the Dreamer Symposium" and is a core member of Woodstock NY Transition. She trained for ten years with Jungian Analyst Marion Woodman and she co-leads a five-day yearly retreat for women called "Reclaiming Our Lives, Reclaiming Our Earth." She is currently on the board of Radical Joy for Hard Times.

Artist

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.

President | Restorative Solutions

Randy Compton is the President and co-founder of Restorative Solutions, Inc., where he designs and implements school-based restorative justice initiatives. Working with the School Mediation Center, he coordinated the National Curriculum Integration Project, founded two major conferences, served on the Standards Committee for the Conflict Resolution Education Network, authored numerous articles, wrote and edited curricula and videos and presented at conferences throughout the U.S.

Executive Director | California Indian Basketweavers’ Association

Rebecca Tortes (Mt. Cahuilla/Luiseño/Assiniboine Sioux) currently serves as the Executive Director for the California Indian Basketweavers’ Association (CIBA), a statewide non-profit working to preserve, promote and perpetuate California Indian basket weaving traditions. In addition to her work with CIBA, Ms. Tortes works in a consulting capacity with numerous California tribes and tribal non-profits, supporting the development of language revitalization and cultural programs.

Indigenous Activist

Remy is a multidisciplinary indigenous activist and artist of many different media from the Black Mesa region on the Navajo reservation in Arizona. By utilizing art, activism and technology, his creations are rooted in his heritage and culture addressing social, environmental and political issues. Remy's work and installations can be seen in the streets, major news outlets, traveling in various exhibits and secured in many of the country’s finest evidence lockers, but not before making its statement to the public pushing the important role art plays within movements.

Chairman Emeritus | Kashia Band of Pomo

Reno Keoni Franklin, Chairman Emeritus of the Kashia Band of Pomo was Tribal Chairman from 2013 to 2018. His long life of service has included serving as the Chairman of: the California Rural Indian Health Board; the National Indian Health Board; and the National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers. He also led the effort to buy back the 880-acre Kashia Coastal Reserve for his tribe.

President and CEO | Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens

Richard V. Piacentini, President and CEO of Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens since 1994, has led that organization’s exemplary green transformation, including construction of its Center for Sustainable Landscapes, the only building in the world to meet Living Building Challenge™ and LEED®, WELL™, and SITES™ Platinum certifications. Under his leadership, Phipps has received numerous personal and professional honors, including APGA, ILFI and USGBC leadership awards.

Oakland-based Artist and Organizer

Robin Bean Crane is an Oakland-based artist and organizer who uses storytelling as a tool at the intersection of climate, racial and economic justice to spotlight community-driven solutions to current crises. With a focus on participatory, non-extractive media and experimenting with stop motion and digital animation, Robin works with nonprofits and community groups to create content that meets their needs.

Director, Research & Development | Environmental Defense Fund

Rod Fujita, a marine ecologist and highly effective ocean conservationist, has studied ocean ecosystems all over the world and worked to protect them for 30+ years. He has helped protect over 10,000 square miles of ocean habitat, created a novel financing system for sustainability, and developed innovative analytical and conservation tools for improving the wellbeing of the ocean and the humans that depend on it.

| Third Mesa village

Ruby Chimerica (Hopi) from the Third Mesa village, Bacavi, on the Hopi Reservation in Arizona, specializes in hands-on demonstrations of Hopi basket weaving and the preparation of traditional Hopi foods, including piki bread-making. Piki, made with blue corn and culinary ash, is shared and eaten at many community celebrations, festival and dances.

Executive Director | Freedom Lodge

Ruby Gibson, Th.D., a longtime champion of women’s rights, earth-centered principles and prayer, Indigenous sovereignty, and somatic healing, developed two intergenerational trauma recovery models—Somatic Archaeology© and Generational BrainspottingTM. She is the author of My Body, My Earth, The Practice of Somatic Archaeolog, and the founder and Executive Director of Freedom Lodge, a non-profit in Rapid City, SD, whose mission is the healing and wellness of all Indigenous people.

co-founder | Dynamic Vitality Method

Russell Munsell, co-founder of the Dynamic Vitality Method, has had a 40+ year career training human capacities in a wide range of disciplines, including teaching Mathematics at Humboldt State and creating a number of Stress Management, Accelerated Learning and Performance Optimization programs. He continues to coach medically referred clients in his Dynamic T’ai Chi and Qigong, Swimming, and Walking trainings.

Certified Clinical Herbalist

Our Secure Future | Director

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.

Photographer

Salgu Wissmath, a nonbinary, Sacramento-based photographer whose work explores the intersections of mental health, queer identity, faith, and stories by and for people of color and the queer community, currently freelances for editorial publications and nonprofits in Northern California. Salgu's past editorial work has been published in a wide range of leading media, including The New York Times, Guardian, and NPR.

Marriage and Family Therapist | Behavioral Wellness Clinic

Sara Reed, MS, MFT, is a Marriage and Family Therapist at the Behavioral Wellness Clinic in Tolland, Connecticut and a Study Therapist for the Psilocybin-assisted Psychotherapy for Major Depression initiative at Yale University. A member of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) Advisory Board, Sara also served as a Sub-Investigator and Study Coordinator for MAPS' Phase 2 MDMA Clinical Study of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Author | Gaia Codex

Sarah Drew is the author of the popular eco-feminist novel, Gaia Codex, which describes how blueprints for our future can be informed by some of the deepest wisdom from our past. With a global social media following of 150,000±, Sarah has become a featured speaker at a wide range of venues.

Environmental Director | Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians

Sarah Ryan, the Environmental Director of the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians, works closely with tribal members, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Board and US EPA Region 9 on water quality and natural resource protection, including on: algal toxin testing; pesticide, nutrient and mercury monitoring in Clear Lake and its tributaries; storm water management; shoreline restoration; and other crucial water and environmental tasks.

Training and Supervision Associate | Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies

Sarah Scheld, a Training and Supervision Associate for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) Public Benefit Corporation, helps coordinate and develop curriculum for their MDMA Therapy Training Program. She recently collaborated on a Code of Ethics for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy providers. Her work focuses on trauma awareness, somatics, and the ethical use of psychedelic medicines to help heal people, communities, culture and the environment.

Deputy Director of Equity, Jobs & Climate | California Workforce Development Board

Sarah L. White, Ph.D., Senior Advisor for Jobs and the Economy in Governor Gavin Newsom’s Office of Planning and Research, is working on California’s efforts to make an equitable transition to carbon neutrality. Sarah has a long track record of public service at the highest levels in both governmental and non-profit sectors. One of the nation’s leading experts on jobs and training in the low-carbon economy, she has written widely on inequality, de-carbonization, and social change.

Head of Curriculum & Director of Indonesia Programs | Women’s Earth Alliance

Sarita Pockell, Head of Curriculum & Director of Indonesia Programs at the Women’s Earth Alliance, is an education-for-sustainability specialist (as well as a musician, playwright, theater director, backyard farmer, mother, diversity/inclusion facilitator with the ADL, garden educator with West County Digs, and on the advisory board of the Urban REAL School). Previously at the Green School in Bali, Sarita has also worked in Mexico, Peru, Argentina, and Croatia.

Organizing Director | Rainforest Action Network

Scott Parkin, a trainer, coordinator and organizer, has worked with anti-corporate, global justice, anti-war, labor, environmental and climate movements in North America, Europe and Australia. Currently Rainforest Action Network’s (RAN) Organizing Director, Scott previously spent 12 years as Senior Campaigner on RAN’s Climate Team, helping lead often dangerous frontline campaigns against, among others, Wall Street banks, mountaintop removal coal mining, and the Keystone XL pipeline.

Founder & Strategist | Innate Strategies

Scott Spann works with businesses, NGOs, foundations and government institutions to bring stakeholders together to seek solutions to complex problems. His remarkably varied CV includes being a practicing trauma psychotherapist, doing consulting work for a number of leading corporations, founding the Texas office of The Nature Conservancy, heading the Rolf Institute, working with former guerrilla and indigenous leaders in Guatemala, and stints as a a cowboy, sailor, and competitive athlete.

Executive Director | Greenhorns

Severine v T Fleming, Executive Director of Greenhorns and a leading organizer and cultural worker within the young farmer movement for 12+ years, co-founded the National Young Farmers Coalition, FarmHack and Agrarian Trust. A part-time farmer and board member of the Schumacher Center for New Economics, her work has spanned many media to celebrate, bundle and broadcast the voices and life-ways of young agrarians.

Assistant Director | New Media Rights

Shaun Spalding, a former commercial filmmaker, is a highly experienced IP attorney specializing in digital entertainment transactions and licensing and the Assistant Director of New Media Rights, a non-profit representing creators and startups otherwise unable to afford legal services. He is also a professor at California Western School of Law and teaches highly popular online courses in legal basics for creatives.

Co-Director | Soil Born Farms

Shawn Harrison is the founder and Co-Director of Soil Born Farms, a non-profit urban farming and education center located in Sacramento, CA, which provides hands-on training at its 55 acre urban farm and at school gardens in the community to educate youth and adults about the connections between food, health and the health of the environment.

Teacher

Shelbey Cook, a Karuk tribal member, is an up-and-coming traditional basket weaver and teacher of that craft who comes from a family lineage of renowned weavers.

Founder | End Well Project

Shoshana Ungerleider, MD, a physician, philanthropist and speaker, works as an internist at Crossover Health in San Francisco. She is the Founder and President of End Well, a media platform and annual interdisciplinary symposium on design and innovation for the end of life experience. This is a premier convening for thought leaders from design, technology, healthcare, policy, spirituality, entertainment, the arts, education and patient advocacy with the goal of creating solutions to make the end of life more human-centered.

Food Sovereignty Program Coordinator | Indigenous Environmental Network

Simone Senogles wears many hats for the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) as its: Food Sovereignty Program Coordinator, Mining Affected Communities Mini-grants Administrator, and Office Manager. She is dedicated to bringing people together across boundaries by building strong connections around food, community, health, and well-being and to revitalizing traditional Indigenous food systems.

Founder | The Bodhi Project

Sonali Sangeeta Balajee, former Senior Fellow at The Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society at UC Berkeley, is the founder of The 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, and also has 20 years’ experience in dance and music performance and 35 years’ practicing yoga and mindfulness.

Principal | Shepley Bulfinch

Sonja Bochart, IIDA, a principal with Shepley Bulfinch, has 20+ years’ experience as a wellness focused designer. Her work includes education, healthcare and workplace design, including Living Building Challenge™, LEED®, WELL™, and SITES™ Platinum certified projects. Sonja also leads immersive and experientially based biophilic design workshops, focused on fostering human-nature connection and promoting designs that support human and ecological vitality and health.

Tribal Councilman | Santa Ysabel Tribal Government

Stanley Ralph Rodriguez, Ph.D., a Tribal Councilman for the Santa Ysabel Tribal Government, Director of Kumeyaay Community College, board member for Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival, faculty member at Cuyamaca Community College, and a navy Desert Storm veteran, is an award-winning educator and fluent Kumeyaay speaker dedicated to preserving the language and indigenous songs of his people as well as a renowned Kumeyaay singer and musician.

Director | Earth Activist Training

Starhawk, an activist; leading eco-feminist thinker; documentary filmmaker; and permaculture designer, rancher and teacher; directs Earth Activist Training, which teaches a form of regenerative design grounded in both spirit and activism. She is the author of 13 books on earth-based spirituality and activism, including The Spiral Dance, The Earth Path, and The Empowerment Manual; as well as highly influential novels, including The Fifth Sacred Thing.

Writer/Producer

Stephen Most, a writer, filmmaker, and playwright, is the author of Stories Make the World, Reflections on Storytelling and the Art of the Documentary and River of Renewal, Myth and History in the Klamath Basin. The writer/producer of River of Renewal, Nature's Orchestra, and Wilder than Wild, he has writing credits on four Academy Award-nominated documentaries and five Emmy winners.

Publisher | Mother Jones

Steve Katz, Ph.D., Publisher of Mother Jones, has been with the magazine since 2003, wearing a wide range of hats in the organization over that time. He currently devotes most of his time to development, membership and special fundraising campaigns. His previous jobs have included Vice President for Development at Earthjustice, activism in the South Bronx in the 1970s. and work in the nonprofit theater scene in the Bay Area.

Environmental Architect

Stuart Muir Wilson, an environmental architect, lecturer, writer, development consultant, Permaculture teacher and mushroom grower with a special focus on ecological justice issues, has worked at both international and grassroots levels in Mexico, Germany, Nepal the U.S. and Australia on a range of projects that seek to catalyze positive environmental and social systems change.

Executive Producer and Writer | Wild Hope

Suez Jacobson, Ph.D., a writer, activist and board member of Great Old Broads for Wilderness, is the Executive Producer and writer of the film Wild Hope (being shown at Bioneers this year). Suez, a ski bum in her youth, became a top echelon Wall Street financial analyst, and until last year when she became Emerita, a distinguished professor of economics who developed innovative economics curricula rooted in ecological awareness.

co-founder | Dynamic Vitality Method

Suki Munsell, Ph.D., co-founder of the Dynamic Vitality Method (a blend of sports science, somatic awareness and Asian internal arts), began her career in 1974 under the guidance of her mentor Anna Halprin (still going strong at 99!). Suki has been teaching dance, fitness, biomechanics, and her unique Dynamic Walking program (detailed in Prevention’s Complete Book of Walking), to people of all ages for decades.

Founder | Standing in Our Power

Taij Kumarie Moteelall is a writer, performer, facilitator and coach as well as a highly successful fundraiser for social movements. She founded Standing in Our Power, a national network of women of color leaders committed to holistic transformation, sustainability and wellness for all across the gender spectrum, and co-founded Media Sutra, which seeks to be a vehicle for self-determination and collective liberation for creative entrepreneurs of color.

Multimedia Artist

Tara Trudell is a socially and environmentally “engaged” multimedia artist who weaves poetry, photography, film, and audio components into her work. Recently she has tackled issues such as the crisis at the USA/Mexico border. One of her techniques consists of writing poems about topics, then rolling the poems into paper beads that become prayers that transport each poem’s purpose and energy into the world.

President | The Democracy Collaborative

Ted Howard, co-founder (in 2000) and President of The Democracy Collaborative, an action-oriented progressive think tank, has been named one of “25 visionaries who are changing your world” and identified by the Guardian newspaper as “the de facto spokesperson for community wealth building” internationally. He is co-author of the new (2019) book, The Making of a Democracy Economy.

Executive Director | Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth

Teiahsha Bankhead, MSW, Ph.D., Executive Director of Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth (RJOY), is a social justice activist, licensed psychotherapist and a professor who has taught racial, gender and sexual orientation diversity, theories of criminal behavior, and US social policy. Formerly a Research Fellow at both the National Institute of Mental Health and the U.S. Psychiatric Congress, she is the co-author of Preserving Privilege: California Politics, Propositions and People of Color.

Senior Director of Programs and Research | Bioneers

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

Theresa Marquez, a passionate advocate for organic food and farming since 1978, was inducted into the Natural Products Hall of Fame in 2018 for her pioneering work in the organic and natural foods industry. Marquez served as CROPP/Organic Valley Cooperative’s Chief Marketing Executive for 18 years and another 6 as its Mission Executive. Although recently retired, she remains an activist working to change the food system and support the cooperative movement.

| 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.

Co-Founder | Frontline’s to Power

Tianna Arredondo (they/them), of African-American and Mexican ancestry, is co-founder of the Frontline’s to Power (F2P) initiative (affiliated with the Power Shift Network), which works to build a national coalition of environmental justice leaders dedicated to story-based strategy, anti-oppression tactics, and decolonization in daily interactions.

Artist

Tim Merry works with major businesses, government agencies, local communities, and regional collaboratives to help engender breakthrough systems change through coaching, training, keynote speaking, engagement, and facilitation designed to energize and shake up the status quo. Tim is also a traveling spoken word artist inspired by poets from the ancient Anglo Saxon oral tradition all the way through history to modern poets such as Kate Tempest.

Founder/Director | Daily Acts

Trathen Heckman, founder/Director of the NGO, Daily Acts (dedicated to “transformative action that creates connected, equitable, climate resilient communities"), serves on the board of the California Water Efficiency Partnership, the advisory board of Norcal Community Resilience Network and co-founded Climate Action Petaluma. Trathen lives in the Petaluma River Watershed where he grows food, medicine and wonder while composting apathy and lack.

Founder and Director | Radical Joy for Hard Times

Trebbe Johnson, the founder/Director of Radical Joy for Hard Times, a global network devoted to finding and making beauty in wounded places, is the author of Radical Joy for Hard Times, 101 Ways to Make Guerrilla Beauty, and The World Is a Waiting Lover, and she leads workshops and wilderness trips worldwide devoted to the discovery of wisdom and insight in nature.

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.

Creator | Planet Protector Academy

Vanessa LeBourdais is the creator of the Planet Protector Academy, an award-winning interactive digital program that trains young kids to be change-agents on environmental issues. Her unique combination of digital arts, comedy, and ”gamification” creates transformative experiences that have activated a million kids in North America and India. Vanessa recently co-led a successful equity initiative in the Nonprofit Happy Hour Facebook group and is an Ashoka Changemaker Fellow.

Co-founder | Queer Ecojustice Project

Vanessa Raditz, MPH, a queer farmer, environmental educator, and culture-shifter with an academic background in Environmental Health Sciences, is dedicated to transformative youth programming that supports community healing, opens access to land and resources, and fosters a thriving local culture and economy based on human and ecological resilience. Vanessa co-founded the Queer Ecojustice Project collective, which educates and organizes at the intersection of ecological justice and queer liberation.

Founding Member | California Indian Basketweavers Association

Wilverna Reece is an award-winning master basket-weaver and Karuk Tribal Council member who travels extensively sharing her art at numerous tribal events, educational institutions and museums nationally (including the Smithsonian), as well as a leading advocate for traditional ecological knowledge and the co-management of tribal lands. Wilverna also serves on several boards and was a founding member of the California Indian Basketweavers Association.

| Truong & Associates

Vien Truong, JD, a leading expert on building an equitable green economy, has helped develop many major energy, environmental and economic justice policies and programs at the state, federal, and local levels. A former President/CEO of the Dream Corps, her firm, Truong & Associates, advises lawmakers and organizations globally on developing sustainable, equitable environmental policies. Among her many award-winning achievements Vien co-led the coalition to pass California’s law creating the biggest fund in history for the most polluted communities.

Co-Founder | Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education

Will Scott is a co-founder and member of the teaching team at the Weaving Earth Center for Relational Education. He co-creates nature-based, relationally-focused educational initiatives that reside at the intersections of ecological health, human development, social justice, and emergent response.

Articulator of visions, dreams and symbols and spiritual counselor

Woman Stands Shining (Pat McCabe), a northern New Mexico-based mother of 5, born into the Diné (Navajo) Nation and later adopted by the Lakota Spiritual way of life, is a highly sought after articulator of visions, dreams and symbols and spiritual counselor who speaks and teaches extensively, nationally and internationally.

Project Manager | Bay Area Climate Adaptation Network

Yeshe Salz, Project Manager for the Bay Area Climate Adaptation Network, is a coalition-builder, facilitator and climate justice advocate working at the nexus of climate resilience, community-driven planning and racial justice. Yeshe has organized with environmental justice organizations across the Bay Area such as PODER and CBE and worked internationally in the fields of indigenous community empowerment, cultural sovereignty and clean water rights.

Yustina Salnikova and Joel Stockdill are dedicated to re-imagining our relationship to what we call 'waste'.

Zarina Kopyrina, born in the Siberian tundra of the Sakha Republic (aka Yakutia) in a large family, was introduced to the magic of traditional folkloric music and local Indigenous shamanic cultural practices at a young age by her grandmother and others. After graduating from the University of Yakutsk in Economics, Zorina became very politically and culturally active and eventually began a musical career, traveling globally and becoming a widely sought-after performer, one who has created a unique combination of authentic Yakut traditional shamanic sounds deeply rooted in nature and modern musical forms.

Founder | Revolutionary Love Project

Valarie Kaur, born into a family of Sikh farmers who settled in California in 1913, is a seasoned civil rights activist, award-winning filmmaker, lawyer, faith leader, and founder of the Revolutionary Love Project, which seeks to champion love as a public ethic and wellspring for social action.

Founder | 350.org

Bill McKibben, our nation’s most significant environmental activist, is also a leading journalist, author and academic. A Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College, Bill’s The End of Nature (1989) was the first book for a general audience about climate change. A founder of 350.org, the first planet-wide, grassroots climate change movement, he has won slews of prestigious awards, including the Right Livelihood Award and the Gandhi Prize and Thomas Merton prizes.

Founder | V-Day

Eve Ensler, Tony Award-winning playwright, performer, and one of the world’s most important activists on behalf of women’s rights, is the author of many plays, including, most famously the extraordinarily influential and impactful The Vagina Monologues, which has been performed all over the globe in 50 or so languages.

National Field Director | Moms Clean Air Force

Heather McTeer Toney, born and raised in Greenville, Mississippi, was elected that town’s first African-American, first female, and youngest ever Mayor at the age of 27. After her 2nd term, she became Regional Administrator for the EPA’s Southeast Region, appointed by President Obama. A nationally and internationally renowned, award-winning leader in Environmental and Climate Justice, she is currently Field Director for Moms Clean Air Force, an organization of over 1 million parents committed to fighting climate change and air pollution.

Author

Terry Tempest Williams, one of the greatest living authors from the American West, is also a longtime award-winning conservationist and activist, who has taken on, among other issues, nuclear testing, the Iraq War, the neglect of women’s health, and the destruction of nature, especially in her beloved “Red Rock” region of her native Utah and in Alaska.

Climate Justice Organizer | Youth Vs. Apocalypse

Isha Clarke is a dynamic, passionate high school student environmental and social justice activist born, raised, and educated in Oakland, CA. Her experience has taught her first-hand that threats to the environment disproportionately affect people of color, low-income folks, and young people, and this realization has fueled her passion to fight to create a just and equitable world while maintaining a livable climate.

Founder | Project Drawdown

Paul Hawken, one of the most important environmental authors, activists, thinkers and entrepreneurs of our era, has dedicated his life to sustainability and changing the relationship between business and the environment. His many bestselling books include such massively influential texts as: The Next Economy; The Ecology of Commerce; Blessed Unrest; and most recently, Drawdown, The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming.

CEO | Mother Jones

Monika Bauerlein is CEO of Mother Jones, the American Society of Magazine Editors’ 2017 Magazine of the Year. Previously, she served as co-editor with Clara Jeffery, who is now editor-in-chief. Together, they spearheaded an era of editorial growth and innovation, marked by tenfold growth in audience and newsroom staff.

| Sacred Circles Center

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.

Co-Founder and Executive Director | New Consensus

Demond Drummer is the Chicago-based co-founder and Executive Director of New Consensus, a nonprofit working to develop and promote the Green New Deal that has advised many progressive leaders and organizations, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Sunrise Movement. Demond’s other notable projects include CoderSpace, a computer science learning lab where youths develop leadership skills, and LargeLots.org, a community-driven effort to reclaim and city-owned vacant lots in Chicago.

Director of Green Strategy | Data for Progress

Julian Brave NoiseCat, Director of Green Strategy at the think tank, Data for Progress, and “Narrative Change Director” for the Natural History Museum artist and activist collective, is also a correspondent for Real America with Jorge Ramos and a Contributing Editor at Canadian Geographic.

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.

Executive Director | Amazon Watch

Leila Salazar-López, the Executive Director of Amazon Watch, has worked for 20+ years to defend the world’s rainforests, human rights, and the climate through grassroots organizing and international advocacy campaigns at Amazon Watch, Rainforest Action Network, Global Exchange, and Green Corps. She is also a Greenpeace Voting Member and a Global Fund for Women Advisor for Latin America.

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.

Founding Member | Cooperation Jackson

brandon king is an community organizer and cultural worker originally from Hampton Roads VA, currently living in Jackson MS. After graduating from Hampton University in 2006 with a BA in Sociology, brandon moved to New York City where he worked as a union organizer and later as an organizer working with New York City homeless people.

Councilwoman | Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma

Casey Camp-Horinek, a tribal Councilwoman of the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma and Hereditary Drumkeeper of its Womens' Scalp Dance Society, Elder and Matriarch, is also an Emmy award winning actress, author, and an 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, and has traveled and spoken around the world.

Co-Founder | Utah Youth Environmental Solutions

Mishka Banuri is an 18-year-old organizer from Salt Lake City, Utah. After moving to Utah from a suburb in Chicago, she fell in love with the Colorado Plateau's mountains and red rock. She has been politically active since 7th grade, holding statewide organizations, institutions, and politicians accountable for their actions on climate and social issues.

Professor | Oberlin College

David W. Orr, a Professor of Environmental Studies & 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.