FRANCESCA LYNN ARNOLDY (she/her)

Francesca Lynn Arnoldy is a community doula who has worked in the realms of birth, death, and grief since 2009. She is the author of Cultivating the Doula Heart (a guidebook), Map of Memory Lane (a picture book), The Death Doula’s Guide to Living Fully and Dying Prepared (a workbook), and a forthcoming publication about community grief care. Francesca is a published researcher with the Vermont Conversation Lab with a focus on StoryListening, and she runs a transformative online program for Death Literacy Educators. Through her heart-centered work, she aims to inspire courage, connection, cultural humility, and compassion to help create stronger community ties for times of loss and transition. You can find Francesca contemplating beginnings and endings at FrancescaLynnArnoldy.com.

JO AYUSO

TIFFANY BELLFIELD EL-AMIN

CRYSTAL BI (she/they)

crystal bi is a queer, mixed race, Taiwanese American, multimedia artist working in the public realm. Her participatory art projects explore themes of imagination, creative archiving, and belonging. Her practice includes creating space for dreaming in public, weaving sculptures with natural materials, installing a plexiglass phone booth, and sewing translucent fabrics to float on bodies of water. 

As a public artist, professor at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, former Boston Public School art teacher and Creative Civic Design Lead with Design Studio for Social Intervention, crystal works with others to design interventions that practice possible futures. 

She is currently fulfilling a dream to build a Department of Public Imagination, which creates infrastructure for horizontal dream work in Boston. Find out more at www.crystal-bi.com and www.departmentofpublicimagination.com

KATIE BRYDON (she/her)

Katie Brydon has spent the past 20 years working at the intersection of disability advocacy, social equity, and environmental justice. Rooted in the unceded homeland of the Wabanaki—the People of the Dawnland—Katie is the executive director of a nonprofit dedicated to creating welcoming, supported pathways to Maine’s natural woods and waters for adults with disabilities. Her work in rural communities focuses on building connections that foster a sense of belonging, particularly by partnering with local schools to expand access, opportunities, and inclusive experiences for all students, regardless of ability or background. Katie chairs the City of Bangor’s Committee on Racial Equity, Inclusion, and Human Rights, where she leads with a commitment to addressing the interwoven impacts of race, class, disability, and access. She is guided by a belief in collective care and community-led solutions, and her leadership is grounded in spiritual awareness, interdependence, and the understanding that liberation comes when we move gently, listen deeply, and honor the inherent worth of all beings.

ASTRID CALDAS (she/her)

Astrid Caldas is a Senior Climate Scientist for Community Resilience at the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Hailing from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, after a successful academic career in field ecology, she left academia to focus on climate change, working with and researching community resilience, science communication, environmental justice, and equitable and just adaptation and resilience policies. Through her expertise she has brought word of the science behind climate change impacts to town halls, panels, communities of faith, grassroots organizations, rallies, and beyond. Dr. Caldas holds degrees in Entomology, Ecology and Environmental Management and has been quoted widely in various media. Learn more about her here.

CHRISTIAN CHIN

CRYSTAL CRON

DÃNIA DAVY (she/her)

Dãnia Davy is the attorney-author-activist founder of Land & Liberation, LLC, a consultancy promoting liberatory relationships between humans, natural and financial resources, and land. To help farmers, land stewards and their communities of support navigate the challenges of the current political climate, she created the WTF?! (We’re the Future), through which she distributes a weekly newsletter, maintains an educational website, and hosts educational webinars. She is currently on a nationwide farm tour centering the mutual aid, solidarity economy, & safety net needs for the future of village farming. Dãnia is embracing her Better Selves Fellowship as sacred time to spiritually ground for her upcoming rematriation to Jamaica to learn ancestral, afro indigenous practices to steward the land that called her home.

RAMON DE JESUS

SHREYA DURVASULA (she/her)

Shreya Durvasula is a proud immigrant and community weaver. She currently serves as the Catalyst program director at Rachel’s Network where she creates grant programs grounded in justice and equity. She works to build a stronger environmental movement by investing in women of color’s leadership and wellness.  Shreya enjoys bringing people together, hosting lovely long meals, and helping you figure out your theory of change. Ask her about ceramics and for television recommendations.

SIMONE GAMBLE (they/them)

Simone Gamble is a NYC-based community organizer and DEIJ consultant with roots in the South Bronx. A graduate of Hunter College and the Silberman School of Social Work, they have worked across youth organizations to advance social justice in sectors such as education, immigration, and policing. Simone has led workshops and training nationwide focused on creating safer, more inclusive spaces for youth and staff, especially in camps and after-school settings. They are also the founder of OAAARS, a network of 90+ BIPOC consultants offering social justice-centered training to foster change in workplaces and beyond.

PAULA GARCÍA (she/her)

Paula García is the Senior Manager of Energy Justice Research and Policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. She leads initiatives to further clean energy policy through the evaluation of energy resource and equitable climate solutions in the electricity sector. Paula has contributed to the enactment into law of different key legislative pieces in Massachusetts, including the integration of cumulative impacts in the state’s new siting and permitting process, the definition of environmental justice population, and the establishment of offshore wind procurement and long term decarbonization requirements. She cherishes getting to know new people and building long-lasting connections.

OMANJANA GOSWAMI

MARIANNA PREETI ISLAM (she/her)

marianna is a fellow traveler, intuitive and guide. She serves the sacredness between us as a poet, circle keeper, liberatory coach, retreat curator, somatics practitioner and reiki master integrating earth based wisdom practices into her offerings. marianna’s love and purpose grows from a practice of embodiment and her medicine is interacting with the essence of what wants to be known. Anchoring spaces for individual and collective learning, healing and transformation has been a longtime evolving thread in her work. marianna invites a depth to her work and a necessary lightheartedness too. Through her work at The Goddess Sanctuary, marianna is called in this moment to partner with people who desire to connect with our highest selves and those of us who dare to experience ways of living out liberation and living into expansiveness as our birthright.
marianna is a seasoned community practitioner with a history of supporting progressive movement leaders. She also served as a strategist, with over two decades of experience working in philanthropy, at the Schott Foundation and most recently at Communities for Just Schools Fund.
Originally born into a newly independent Bangladesh, marianna and her family settled in the United States soon after. She grew up and raised her two children in central Massachusetts on Nipmuc land where she remains active helping to support and be guided by the next generation of leaders.

TRINA JACKSON (she/her)

Trina Jackson is the Senior Solidarity Program Officer of the US Internationalist Program and works to support and link environmental justice and social movements in the United States with the Global South. Trina coordinates the Martín-Baró Initiative for Wellbeing and Human Rights at Grassroots International. 

In her work, Trina integrates a Black feminist, anti-imperialist analysis grounded in the practices of love, land, culture, healing, and reparations which bring about social transformation and emancipated futures.She has a bachelor’s degree from Goddard College and a Master’s in Public Policy (MPP) from Tufts University’s Urban and Environmental Policy program. Her passions include writing, traveling, photography, and yoga. She lives and works in Boston.

BENJAMIN (BENHA) JOHNSON (he/him)

DJ Ben Ha Meen is a native of the Third Ward region of Houston, Texas. He is an alumnus of Howard University. Ben Ha Meen is the co-author of the Eisner Award Nominated graphic novel Jimi Hendrix: Purple Haze, as well as a self published author of the children’s book The World Is Yours, a world renowned DJ and music producer, a WGA screenwriter (American Gods), and a pioneering and award winning podcaster (ForAllNerds Show, The Combat Jack Show). One of the guiding mantras of the ForAllNerds podcast is “Inclusion Is Revolution”, that by fostering a more inclusive environment will lead to the revolutions needed in our society.

ROMAN JOHNSON (he/him)

Roman Johnson, PhD is a native of Memphis, TN where he was mentored by the prolific children’s book writer, Alice Faye Duncan. He is currently a MFA scholar in poetry at Brown University and trains under novelist, memoirist, and performer, Arthur Flowers, in the tradition of Literary Hoodoo. He is a co-founder of The New England Hoodoo Society.  His artistic obsessions are grief, memory, belonging, desire, and masculinity. He is the current Radical Reversal Poet in Residence at the Suffolk County House of Corrections and has received fellowships from Harvard, Brown, Breadloaf, Tin House, Lambda Literary,  Hudson Valley Writers, New England Poetry Club, Knoll Farm, University of Illinois, and other prestigious institutions. As a Better Selves Fellow at the Knoll Farm, he will be working on his debut poetry collection, an interdisciplinary video project, and spending time with the sheep.

NIA KEITH (she/her)

Nia Keith is a social justice advocate and facilitator, Pagan minister, and self-proclaimed nerd. She’s also Vice President for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Justice at Mass Audubon, and co-founder of Professionals of Color in the Environment, a statewide organization for BIPOC professionals working in the environmental field. An educator by vocation, Nia has spent more than 15 years motivating people to address environmental, social, and economic injustice in nonprofits, schools, and cultural institutions across the country. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Women’s Studies from Ohio State University and a Master of Science in Environmental Studies from Antioch University New England and is currently working on her Master of Business Administration through Southern New Hampshire University. Nia finds peace and meaning through kinship with Nature, which includes spending many hours hiking, camping, and stewarding her garden. Asé.

KEIOSHA KENNEDY

JENNY LAU

LYDIA LAWRENCE (she/they)

Lydia is the Conservation Director at Nature Forward, leading the organization’s advocacy and community outreach across the DC-metro region. They serve as the Taking Nature Black Co-chair, which saw the highest number of sponsorships in the conference’s history. Prior to their work at Nature Forward, they founded and led Fairfax NAACP’s Environmental and Climate Justice Committee. Concurrently, Lydia founded the Fairfax Parks Coalition, a coalition dedicated to increasing park equity in Fairfax county. They currently serve as a Gubernatorial Appointee for Virginia’s Council of Environmental Justice.

REX LEBEAU (they/them)

Rex is a nonbinary, trans, ace, autistic queer community builder in Newport, Rhode Island.  They lead and assist with numerous queer events in Newport and RI including the Born This Way Prom – a dance for LGBTQIA+ young people, Newport’s Transgender Day of Remembrance, the RI Trans Health Conference, and Newport’s Pride Flag Raising ceremony.  Rex facilitates a weekly support group for nonbinary people and runs Newport Pride’s Queer Connections program which brings queer adults together in ways that foster creativity and sharing. They’ve had an eclectic career that included mapping the ocean floor to community organizing to activism. They are currently a Community Health Worker in the East Bay Community Action Program’s new Transgender Whole Healthcare Program where they provide peer support to trans clients. Rex is also an artist. They currently draw a monthly comic about a nonbinary dinosaur for the RI publication Motif Magazine and their art representing “No Pride in Genocide” was on the cover of the 2025 Queer Issue. Rex always has an atrocious pile of books to read. They enjoy topics centering collective liberation as well as queer sci fi. They also enjoy rock climbing at the rock gym, hiking, and gathering friends around beach fires.

MYLES LENNON

ROBERTA LOGAN (she/her)

Roberta Logan has been an educator for over thirty years and is now twice retired. During those thirty years, she engaged in school reform initiatives and efforts to create a more inclusive historical narrative. As a retired educator, she continued to participate in efforts to introduce African literature to full time educators. For over fifteen years, she has co-facilitated a literature discussion group as an extension of Boston University’s African Studies Program, K-12 Outreach Center. She feels her legacy is embodied in the young people she has taught and those preservice educators she has mentored. Her former students have taught her that middle school teachers can have a profound effect on their understanding of the world.

Beyond being an educator Roberta is a woman and mother originally from South Philadelphia, who now lives in Dorchester, MA. She enjoys gardening in the spring and making soup in winter and walking throughout the year. For several years she has been a member of two local writing groups and is excited by the challenge that each offers. This year she has been coming to terms with aging: directly through writing and indirectly through creative arts play. On the topic of aging she says, “78 years feels more substantial than 70 or 75. I have lived longer than three generations of women of my mother’s lineage and feel as if I am walking in unknown territory.”

ANIKA NAILAH (she/her)

Anika creates to stay free. As a little girl, her mother held her hand and walked her through the door of books. The world opened, and she was never the same. 

African American and Pocasset Wampanoag, she is a healer and community builder. Anika helps others find their voice, not the one they’ve been told to use because of the skin suit into which they were born, but the one that sings them back to their full humanity. She is a cultural liberationist, antiracism strategy consultant, fiction/non-fiction author, poet, and former professor at Wheaton, Cambridge, and Smith colleges, as well as the founder of Books of Hope, a Boston-area program that helps young writers publish and sell their books. Author of Free, National Liberation Poetry Tour Experience, and Every Day in the USA: 30 Black Moments, she is also a Kindle Project Awardee and a Contributing Writer at Medium who was featured on BBC’s Americana Series, and in USA Today, Nice Racism, and The Facilitator’s Guide for White Affinity Groups. She seeks to live the change she envisions. Learn more about Anika here.

CHIOMA NNAJI (she/her)

Chioma Nnaji, MPH, MEd, brings over 20 years of experience at the intersection of public health, racial justice, and immigrant health. She began her career as a community health worker and organizer and currently serves as Senior Program Director at the Multicultural AIDS Coalition in Boston, where she founded and directs the Africans For Improved Access (AFIA) Program – an HIV/STI outreach, screening and navigation program engaging Black immigrants in Massachusetts. Her leadership has helped shape national efforts that center African immigrants through decolonized and Africanized approaches to service delivery, civic engagement, and research. She is also the founder and CEO of Ocha Transformations, a firm that leverages the power of facilitation to guide leaders, organizations, and communities in scaling social impact initiatives and fostering sustainable change.

ADRIAN OGLE

Adrian Ogle is an executive strategist, producer, curator, convener, and educator. He serves as the Global Director of Events at the Ford Foundation, a global grantmaking organization that supports visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. He oversees all events and engagements at the foundation and the Center for Social Justice. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Public Service at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University, where he teaches courses on management, leadership, consulting, and social impact.

Adrian is an event architect, having produced artistic, cultural, corporate, and programmatic conference meetings and special events in 14 U.S. cities and abroad since 2010. His expertise in curating intentional spaces and experiences supports people and communities to tell their own stories and show up for themselves and each other – more authentically, radically, and lovingly. His portfolio includes events that have received national press coverage, including CNN, New York Times, Huffington Post, and Vogue Magazine.

For 15 years, Adrian’s career in public service leadership has sat at the intersection of queer liberation, social impact and innovation, and philanthropy. His past roles include senior non-profit leadership, communications, fundraising, and public policy. He is the Board Chair Emeritus of COLAGE, a national organization for people with LGBTQ parents. Adrian has earned degrees from the University of Florida, Hunter College, and New York University.

STEFNE PARKS (she/her)

Stefne Parks has spent her life living, learning, and working in rural communities in both Maine and New Hampshire. It is her childhood spent in the local library and witnessing the challenges and resilience of her family and fellow community members that fostered her desire for justice and strong belief for the need for community organizing in rural communities. Beginning her organizing journey at fifteen, Stefne has spent the last nine years organizing in rural NH communities leading to her current role as Programming Director with the Rural Youth Organizing Project. Outside of her work Stefne loves reading, binge watching romances, and cuddling with her cat Cookie.

ROSE PERCY (she/her)

rose j. percy is a being becoming. She thrives on an expansive spirituality that draws from the wells of Christ and (Lucille) Clifton, among others. As a self-described “Midwife of Divinity,” rose collaborates with communities to reimagine vocation—centering embodied rest, communal care, and creative spiritual practice. She brings together digital media literacy, spiritual formation, and a deep ethic of care to help people and institutions engage online life with more intention.

She holds a  Master of Divinity (‘22) and Master of Sacred Theology (‘24) from Boston University School of Theology, with certifications in Spirituality Studies and Religion and Conflict Transformation. Her formation grounds her work at the intersection of healing, faith, and social imagination.

rose weaves together faith, justice, and identity through a deep commitment to spiritual care. Her work draws from womanist theology, Black feminist poetics, trauma and disability wisdom, and the everyday practices that help people live whole and grounded lives.

She currently serves as Director of Spiritual Formation and Small Groups at New Roots AME Church in Boston, where she builds structures for collective discernment, small group ministry, and spiritual care that honor rest, relationship, and radical belonging.

She is the writer and curator behind “A Gentle Landing,” a newsletter offering essays and poems for restless dreamers and those seeking slower, more spacious ways of living. rose enjoys singing (loudly), playing guitar, and practicing calligraphy—all as expressions of the softness and vulnerability she invites others to explore. She lives in Massachusetts.

JEN SALINETTI

STACEY VAZQUEZ (she/her)

Stacey spent much of her free time as a child gardening with her father. Her love of balance in nature grew from using beneficial insects to mitigate pest issues instead of pesticides. As an adult and single mother, she was always looking for green spaces for her and her daughter to participate in, as outdoor space in NYC is mostly non existent. After hearing about an urban beekeeping course at Brooklyn Grange, she became fascinated with learning about bees and the balance they create. This is where she met her future Island Bee Project co-founder Carolina Zuniga Asia. With a desire to continue learning and growing the knowledge she started at Brooklyn Grange, her beekeeping journey began. During IBP’s time on Governor’s Island, it became clear that people also wanted to learn more about their connection to nature while living in NYC. It also became clear that access to free spaces for learning are in short supply. This was the joyful beginning of the mission that she holds to this day. With the addition of Brenda Alvarez in 2019, the project continues to grow and thrive. Stacey attained her Master Beekeeper Certification through Cornell University in 2024, and is presently an instructor and mentor in the Northeast Beekeepers Alliance for LGBTQ/BIPOC farmers along with They Keep Bees. She looks forward to continuing to sharing knowledge and providing access and education to our people, regardless of financial, social, racial or sexual orientation. We hold a powerful connection to our land, and she strives to help people reawaken that connection.