Meet the Contributors to “A People’s Green New Deal”
Volume 23, number 2, A People’s Green New Deal
Sam Anderson
Sam Anderson is a Brooklyn, New York, native and a founding member of the Coalition for Public Education and the National Black Education Agenda. He is the author of several books and essays on science, technology, and the history of slavery, among them The Third World Confronts Science and Technology and The Black Holocaust for Beginners. He was an editor at Black Dialog, NOBO Journal, and The Black Activist. He was the first chair of a Black Studies department in 1969–70 at Sarah Lawrence College and taught mathematics, science, and Black history at SUNY Old Westbury, City College of New York, New York University, Rutgers University, and Brooklyn College. He has been active in the civil rights and Black liberation movement since 1964 as a member of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, the Black Panther Party, and the Black reparations movement. Visit his website and blog at blackeducator.org.
Nnimmo Bassey
Nnimmo Bassey is director of the ecological think tank Health of Mother Earth Foundation, with head office in Benin City, Nigeria. He is an architect, poet, and writer. His books include We Thought it Was Oil, But It was Blood – Poetry (2002), I Will Not Dance to Your Beat – Poetry (2011), To Cook a Continent – Destructive Extraction and the Climate Crisis in Africa (2012) and Oil Politics – Echoes of Ecological War (2016). Visit his website and blog at nnimmobassey.net.
Sergio Belda
Sergio Belda, PhD is a Lecturer at the Faculty of Economics of the Universitat de València (Spain). He is interested at both practical and theoretical levels in alternative consumption practices, grassroots innovation, international development, and the right to the city. He is engaged with several applied and participatory research processes and with local activism. He can be reached via Twitter at @serbelmi.
J A Billingsley
J A Billingsley holds MLA and M.Arch degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA in geography from the University of Chicago. His portfolio can be found at authenticanthropoceneculture.info.
Kelsey Breseman
Kelsey Breseman works on data ownership models, environmental accountability, and intentional community as Archiving Program Lead at the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative. She holds a degree in Neural Engineering, helped create an open source hardware/software connected device for data sensing, wrote a book on Embedded Node.JS, and founded a company to fight climate change with engineering. She lives in the woods north of Seattle experimenting with food forest design and beekeeping. She can be found on Twitter at @ifoundtheme.
Kelsey Brewer
Kelsey Brewer studies agroecology and biogeochemistry as a PhD student at the University of California, Davis. His research explores agroecosystem design and utilizing enhanced biodiversity to improve climate change adaptation. Kelsey also works collaboratively in site-specific design and implementation of ecologically-based farming plans and is a founding board member of Three Sisters Gardens, an anti-incarceration farming non-profit based in Broderick, CA. He is a member of Sacramento DSA and the socialist surf-punk band, ¡Las Pulgas! He can be found on Instagram at @mariqopa.
Andres Chang
Andres Chang is an artist and a research lead at CDP (formerly Carbon Disclosure Project), where he supports the development of global climate action initiatives and frameworks. In his creative practice, Andres pieces together historical artifacts, familial memories, and scientific research tools in a form of speculative performance. Visit his website at andreschang.com.
Ciencia para el Pueblo
Ciencia para el Pueblo is the Mexico chapter of Science for the People. They can be reached through their website, cienciaparaelpueblomx.org, or on Facebook.
Emily Cohen
Emily Cohen is a poet and painter based in California. She leads art and writing workshops and is a hub coordinator for the Sunrise SoCal Desert hub.
Rachael Creager
Rachael Creager, PhD is a recent graduate from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania and is now a Machine Learning Engineer at Iterable. During her time at Penn, she was both the Co-President of Penn Data Science Group (PDSG) and a board member of Diversity & Inclusion in Physics at Penn (DIP).
Anna Darling
Anna Darling is currently a designer at PORT Urbanism where she works on large scale public realm projects. Anna holds an MLA from the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design where she was awarded the Faculty Medal for Leadership and an ASLA Merit Award. In 2019 she was nominated as an Olmstead Scholar to the Landscape Architecture Foundation. Her graduate thesis, “ground/surface,” examined issues of groundwater over-withdrawal in her home state of Arizona. She can be found on Instagram at @a__adarling.
Zakia Elliott
Zakia Elliott works with the Sierra Club Pennsylvania Chapter as the Program Manager of Philadelphia Climate Works, a local coalition uniting labor, environmental allies, and community activists to move the city to build climate resilience through equitable investments in the community and workforce. Zakia was born in Philadelphia and raised in a union family. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Environmental Studies from Brown University, where she focused her studies on legislative solutions and public participation on climate change policies. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram as @zakiamichelle.
Denise Fairchild
Denise Fairchild, PhD is the inaugural President and CEO of Emerald Cities Collaborative (ECC), a national non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. with affiliates in major urban centers across the United States. She focuses on building community-led partnerships with labor, environmental, and business organizations to increase energy efficiency, clean energy, sustainable foods, and clean water with a focus on the needs and opportunities for low-income communities and communities of color. Denise is the co-editor of Energy Democracy: Advancing Equity in Clean Energy Solutions. She lives in and raised her family in South Los Angeles.
Ansar Fayyazuddin
Ansar Fayyazuddin, PhD is a theoretical physicist.
Billy Flemming
Billy Fleming, PhD is the Wilks Family Director of the Ian L. McHarg Center in the Weitzman School of Design. Billy is co-editor of the forthcoming book An Adaptation Blueprint (Island Press, 2020), co-editor and co-curator of the book and now internationally-traveling exhibit Design With Nature Now (Lincoln, 2019), and author of the forthcoming Drowning America: The Nature and Politics of Adaptation (Penn Press, expected 2021). He is also a co-author of the Indivisible Guide (2016). He can be found on Twitter and Instagram at @joobilly.
Michael Gasser
Michael Gasser, PhD is a former academic (Indiana University, Informatics and Cognitive Science, 1988-2012), now working as an independent researcher on software supporting low resource languages, especially those of the Horn of Africa. He is active in the Santa Cruz chapter of Science for the People, in SftP’s Militarism and Puerto Rico Working Groups, and in Santa Cruz DSA. He can be found on Twitter at @mapinduzi21k.
Gretchen Gehrke
Gretchen Gehrke PhD is a co-founder and the Website Monitoring Program Leader of the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative. She holds a PhD in Environmental Geochemistry, conducted research for several years, and most recently worked in the field of civic science. She can be found on Twitter at @gretchengehrke.
Anthony Giancatarino
Anthony Giancatarino, MPA is a father of three and director of the Just Community Energy Transition Project. He works with community partners in building out anti-racist practices and community-driven processes to support alignment, policy development, strategy, and collective governance to advance energy democracy locally, regionally, and nationally. He lives in Philadelphia, PA and can be found on Twitter and Instagram at @agiancatarino11.
Dina Gilio-Whitaker
Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Colville Confederated Tribes) is a lecturer of American Indian Studies at California State University San Marcos, and an independent consultant and educator in environmental justice policy planning. Dina’s research focuses on Indigenous nationalism, self-determination, environmental justice, and education. As a public intellectual, Dina brings her scholarship into focus as an award-winning journalist as well, contributing to numerous online outlets, including Indian Country Today, the Los Angeles Times and High Country News. Her most recent book, As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice from Colonization to Standing Rock, was released in 2019.
Shan Goshorn
Shan Goshorn (1957-2018) was an artist and member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee. She is best known for her baskets, which combine traditional Cherokee weaving techniques with non-traditional materials. In place of oak and river cane splints, her interpretations were woven from reproductions of manuscripts and photographs to document key themes important to Native people including removal, sovereignty, appropriation, health concerns, domestic violence, and boarding schools.
Emily Hamilton
Emily Hamilton, PhD is an Assistant Professor of the History of Science at the University of Massachusetts. Her research focuses on the cultural and political history of mathematics education reform in the United States. She has worked and taught extensively on a wide variety of topics in the history of science, technology, mathematics, and medicine, as well as on oral history methods and philosophy. She can be found on Twitter at @mathistory.
Zachery Hammaker
Zachery Hammaker is a design fellow for PennPraxis, the center for applied research, outreach, and design practice at the University of Pennsylvania. He holds masters’ degrees in landscape architecture and city planning from the University of Pennsylvania. His design interests lie at the intersection of planning, landscape architecture, and the environment- finding holistic solutions to the complexities of large-scale contemporary issues of climate change, cultural identity, socioeconomic disparity, and environmental degradation.
Morgan Hickory
Morgan Hickory is a writer living in Tennessee
Nafis Hasan
Nafis Hasan, PhD studies brain tumors as a Postdoctoral Scholar at Tufts University. He is a member of Science for the People Boston chapter, the editorial collective of the Science for the People magazine, and a climate organizer with Democratic Socialists of America. His interests lie in the intersection of science, society and politics, and the nature of humanity’s relationship with the environment. He can be found on Twitter at @cannafis_.
David Hofmann
David Hofmann, PhD is a physicist and organizer. He performs research in behavioral neuroscience, machine learning, and ecology. As an organizer and activist he helped rebuild Science for the People and co-founded the Atlanta chapter of SftP and the ecosocialist working group of Metro Atlanta DSA. In his leisure time he loves to play piano and study sociology or hang out at electro festivals in the woods or in abandoned industrial buildings.
Nicholas Jabs
Nicholas Jabs is a registered architect and Associate at PORT in Philadelphia, PA where he works on the firm’s landscape architecture, architecture, and urban design projects. Nick holds a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was awarded the Ian McHarg Prize for demonstrated excellence in design, and a Bachelors of Architecture from the University of Arkansas. He is also a 2019-20 Fellow with the Landscape Architecture Foundation’s Fellowship for Innovation and Leadership. He can be found on Twitter at @jabs_nick and Instagram as @_nickjabs.
Ragina Johnson
Ragina Johnson is a Native activist, socialist, mom, and graphic designer living in Ramaytush Territory, the lands of the Ohlone and Muwekma people in the Bay Area. Her relatives are from the Otoe-Missouria Tribe and Ojibway from the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. Ragina has been active with Science for the People in the Bay Area and is currently involved in struggles for Native liberation, and immigrant and environmental justice.
Alison Kenner
Alison Kenner, PhD is Associate Professor of Politics and faculty in the Center for Science, Technology, and Society at Drexel University. Her research and teaching focus on environmental health problems in the United States, including the asthma epidemic, climate change, and housing. Her first book, Breathtaking: Asthma Care in a Time of Climate Change examined how the asthma epidemic is tackled as an environmental problem using personal technologies, environmental education, and embodied knowledge of air quality. She can be found on Twitter at @alikenner.
Valérie Lechêne
Valérie Lechêne is a researcher and designer based in New York City. She is an active member of The Architecture Lobby and holds a Master of Architecture from the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.
Xuanang Li
Xuanang Li is a designer at James Corner Field Operations. He graduated from University of Pennsylvania with a Master of Landscape Architecture degree and a certificate in Urban Design. He can be found on Instagram at @xuanang.li.
Xan Lillehei
Xan Lillehei holds a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Arts with honors in Letters from Wesleyan University. Her interests lie in the body of landscape and the relationality of design in the present and as an act of futurity. She works on the built environment transition as a Research Assistant at the McHarg Center and previously worked as a landscape designer at VOGT in Berlin and SCAPE in New Orleans. She is co-founder and editor of Cline, an independent journal for emerging writers in landscape architecture and allied disciplines.
Becky Mansfield
Becky Mansfield, PhD is a Professor of Geography at the Ohio State University.
Krista Marshall
Krista Marshall is currently a PhD student in California studying agroecology through collaborations with researchers, farmers, and extension specialists. She was drawn to agroecology because of its foundations in food sovereignty as the basis for reconnecting us with our food productions and the ecosystems that support them. When not absorbed by the complexities of agriculture, she enjoys exploring the cultural, historical, community-building, and healing powers of the foods that end up on our plates. She can be found on Instagram at @almost_summ3r.
A.L. McCullough
A.L. McCullough holds a bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture from Pennsylvania State University. They are currently a Master of Landscape Architecture candidate at the University of Pennsylvania.
Matthew Moss
Matthew Moss is currently a PhD candidate studying the Molecular Basis of Medicine at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, where he studies the genetic and epigenetic underpinnings of endometriosis. He is active in the Young Investigator’s Society, where he facilitates local volunteer and educational outreach opportunities for aspiring biomedical professionals. He also is a technical editor for Science for the People magazine. He can be found on Twitter at @mattmoss5595.
Eric Nost
Eric Nost, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics at the University of Guelph. He has been a member of EDGI since early 2017, working mostly with its website monitoring and environmental enforcement watch teams. Eric can be found on Twitter at @ericnost and EDGI can be reached at @envirodgi.
David Opdyke
David Opdyke was born in post-industrial Schenectady, New York in 1969. He makes artwork that explores globalization, consumerism, and civilization’s abusive relationship with the environment. His work is held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, and The Washington Convention Center in DC. In Fall 2020, Phaidon will publish a book based on his large-scale postcard project This Land, including essays by Lawrence Weschler and Maya Wiley. David can be reached on Instagram at @david.opdyke.
Lydia Patton
Lydia Patton, PhD is an academic philosopher and activist living in West Virginia and teaching at Virginia Tech. Their focus is on building communities that support research, action, and mutual aid. Lydia can be reached on Instagram at @lydiatraveling.
Victoria Pellicer-Sifres
Victoria Pellicer-Sifres PhD is Energy Officer in Las Naves (the social innovation agency of the València, Spain, City Council) and researcher at INGENIO (CSIC-Universitat Politècnica de València). Her areas of expertise are Grassroots and Social Innovation, Energy Transition, Energy Poverty,and Human Development. She has a long research and activist trajectory in the field of energy cooperativism and energy poverty. Currently, she develops her activism in the renewable energy cooperative Som Energia. Victoria can be found on Twitter at @vicpelsi.
M.V. Ramana
M.V. Ramana, PhD is the Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia and the author of The Power of Promise: Examining Nuclear Energy in India (Penguin Books, 2012) and co-editor of Prisoners of the Nuclear Dream (Orient Longman, 2003). He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Leo Szilard Award from the American Physical Society. He can be found on Facebook.
Lauren Richter
Lauren Richter, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at the Rhode Island School of Design. Her work focuses on how social inequality shapes pollution production, exposure, and possibilities for recourse in the US.
Gema Rupérez
Gema Rupérez is a visual and plastic artist, director of Ababol Festival, and professor at the design school Hacer Creativo. Her work as an artist revolves around confrontation and the fight about hegemonic power. Instability, vulnerability and frustration are also part of the emotional content of her works. Through different means such as installation, photography, video, and drawing, her art reflects on the ability or inability to communicate, and ultimately on the dystopias of contemporary society. She can be found on Instagram at @gemaruperez.
Morgan Sarao
Morgan Sarao is a recent graduate from Drexel University with a B.A. in political science. She currently works as a research assistant for the Philadelphia Health & Environment Ethnography Lab. Her interests are in equitable urban greening practices rooted in ecofeminist principles and creating more-than-human cities that work to eliminate nature-culture binaries.
Christopher Sellers
Christopher Sellers, PhD is a Professor of History at Stony Brook University, and co-moderator and researcher at the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative. His scholarly research concentrates on the history of environment, health, inequality, and democracy, with a focus on the United States and Mexico. A co-founding member of EDGI, he has led the group’s interviewing project, co-authored numerous pieces, and is currently helping develop its Environmental Enforcement Watch. He can be found on Twitter @ChrisCSellers
Mimi Sheller
Mimi Sheller, PhD is a Professor of Sociology and founding Director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy at Drexel University in Philadelphia. She is founding co-editor of the journal Mobilities and past President of the International Association for the History of Transport, Traffic and Mobility. She is author of twelve books, including Mobility Justice: The Politics of Movement in an Age of Extremes (Verso, 2018) and the forthcoming Island Futures: Caribbean Survival in the Anthropocene (Duke University Press, 2020). Mimi can be found on Twitter at @mCenterDrexel.
Jennifer Tang
Jennifer Tang holds an MA in European Culture, Society, and Politics from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. She wrote her thesis on Royal Dutch Shell’s #makethefuture campaign, clean cookstoves, and the obstruction of climate justice in Nigeria. She double majored in economics and anthropology at Columbia University. She can be found on Twitter at @jenny4tang.
Lourdes Vera
Lourdes Vera is a PhD student and member of the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Northeastern University. Her dissertation research applies an anti-racist and anti-oppressive framework of “Environmental Data Justice” developed with the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative. With this approach, she collaborates with Texas communities living near oil and gas facilities on a citizen science project to monitor their air. She can be found on Twitter at @Lourdes_A_Vera.
Qi Wang
Qi Wang is a landscape architect at James Corner Field Operations and a graduate from the University of Pennsylvania with an Master of Landscape Architecture degree and a certificate in urban design. During his time at the University of Pennsylvania, he was a research assistant with the McHarg Center and was a speaker at the Design with Nature Now conference. He can be found on Twitter at @aragorn92.
Brian Ward
Brian Ward is an educator, socialist, and activist who lives in Madison, Wisconsin (occupied Ho-Chunk Land), and has lived and worked on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, home of the Oglala Lakota Nation. He contributed to the book 101 Changemakers: Rebels and Radicals Who Changed U.S. History and his writing has appeared in The Nation, Truthout, New Politics, Socialist Worker, International Socialist Review, and more. He can be found on Twitter at @brian_j_ward.
Richard Weller
Richard Weller is the Chair of Landscape architecture and urbanism at the Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania.
Sara Wylie
Sara Wylie, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Sociology/Anthropology and Health Sciences at Northeastern University. She is a Science, Technology, and Society scholar and co-founder of the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative and Public Lab. She can be found on Twitter at @SaraAnnWylie.
Ao Zhang
Ao Zhang is a landscape designer with a strong interest in relating ecological thinking with fast growing urban environments. After her graduation from South China University of Technology, she continued her study and attained MLA degree from the University of Pennsylvania. During her masters studies, she participated in several academic research projects, such as “The Next 100 Million Americans.” She currently works at SWA Sausalito. She can be found on Instagram at @aocheung.
