With a background in community organizing, non-profit fundraising, and environmental activism (formerly with Greenpeace USA), I find joy and purpose in forever seeking transformative opportunities for radical collaboration, and community co-creation. I am a co-founder and co-creator with the EcoVista project; an attempt to develop a localized model of grassroots, bottom up “just transition” in college communities and beyond. In pursuing a systems-level approach to problem solving and solution design, I have amassed a diverse body of experiences as a non-traditional student, mother, dreamer, activist, researcher and communicator. Across all areas of my work I seek to co-create opportunities for meaningful dialogue, community based strategy, healing, and design informed by decolonized practice and methodologies.

Joanna Macy PhD, teacher and author, is a scholar of Buddhism, systems thinking and deep ecology. As the root teacher of the Work That Reconnects, Macy has created a ground-breaking framework for personal and social change that brings a new way of seeing the world as our larger body. To learn more, visit www.joannamacy.net.

Shawn Van Valkenburgh, Ph.D.: I am a sociologist and amateur activist who has participated in various climate justice movements and direct actions. I currently study popular media at USC. For me, Buddhist heart practices and meditations are contemplative insofar as they help create connections among beings.