WOHESC

Dr. Sarah Jaquette Ray works at the intersection of social justice and climate emotions in service of climate justice, especially in Gen Z. She is the author of two books, The Ecological Other: Environmental Exclusion in American Culture (Arizona, 2013), on the political emotion of disgust in environmental thought, and A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety: How to Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet (California, 2020), an existential toolkit for the climate generation. Her most recent edited book brings together 30 scholars, activists, teachers, and students who explore climate emotions in higher-ed teaching and learning-- The Existential Toolkit for Climate Justice Educators: How to Teach in a Burning World came out in 2024. Ray is interviewed and has published widely on emotions and climate justice in the LA Times, Scientific American, The Cairo Review of Global Affairs, Edge Effects, KCET, and Zocalo Public Square. Ray is also a certified mindfulness teacher through the UCLA Mindfulness Awareness Research Center.

Judy BlueHorse Skelton, (Nez Perce/Cherokee), Associate Professor, Indigenous Nations Studies at Portland State University, developed and teaches courses in the Indigenous Traditional Ecological and Cultural Knowledge (ITECK) Certificate Program, including Indigenous Ecological Healing Practices, Indigenous Leadership for Sustainable Futures, Cultural Ecology: Indigenous Science, and Indigenous Gardens and Food Justice. She's worked with federal, state and local governments, Native organizations and tribes throughout the Northwest for more than 25 years, conducting cultural activities and research to reclaim the urban forest for food, medicine, ceremony, and healthy lifeways. Collaborative work includes the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, the Native American Rehabilitation Association, the Many Nations Academy at the Native American Youth and Family Services, and other Native organizations in the Northwest.

Suluafi Brianna Fruean is a Samoan climate activist who has been leading grassroots climate justice movements for most of her life. She is the youth representative of the Pacific Climate Warriors Council of Elders and is currently studying Politics and International Relations in Auckland, New Zealand. At 11, she became a founding member of 350 Samoa, becoming the youngest 350.org country coordinator. In 2019, Brianna joined New Zealand’s School Strikers who organized Auckland’s “Schools Strikes for Climate”, where 170,000 people joined the movement. The same year, Brianna gave a speech at the “Caring for Climate” Meeting, alongside former United States Secretary of State, John Kerry. She was also the youth representative and speaker during the COP25 High-Level Plenary Session on “Climate Emergency”. Brianna was chosen by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environmental Programme (SPREP) as their first ever youth ambassador in recognition of her efforts to include young people in environmental conservation, and the youth representative in the COP21 Samoan Delegation COP21 and the Paris Agreement negotiations.

Sophia is a 1.5 generation Filipina American who resides in Tacoma, Washington, on the traditional lands of the Puyallup people. She works alongside communities in the areas of racial equity, justice, and climate solutions, as they do the necessary work of imagining the world they want to build and animating others to join them in creating a more just society where all may thrive. She is the Race and Social Justice Lead Advisor for the City of Seattle, which is housed in the Office of Civil Rights. Before joining the City of Seattle, Sophia led equity efforts in the K-12 sector, Sound Transit, and with the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges—a federated system of 34 community and technical colleges in Washington state.

Madeline Ostrander is an award-winning science journalist and the author of At Home on an Unruly Planet: Finding Refuge on a Changed Earth, named one of Kirkus Review’s 100 best nonfiction books of 2022. Her work has also appeared in the The Atlantic, The NewYorker.com, The Nation, Sierra Magazine, PBS’s NOVA Next, Slate, High Country News, Audubon, and numerous other outlets. Ostrander has taught narrative journalism, science-writing, essay-writing, and nonfiction at Seattle’s Hugo House. Previously, she was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT and the senior editor of YES! Magazine, a trailblazing independent outlet focused on solutions journalism. She holds a master’s degree in environmental science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Makerusa 'mak' Porotesano (he/him) is climate activist with the Pacific Climate Warriors (PCW & 350 Pacific) and the Director of Multicultural Services at Portland Community College. Connecting his experiences in Oceania and the Pacific Northwest, mak combines indigenous framework and multicultural services to engage BIPOC students and Climate Justice. Mak is also the founder of the Pacific Islander Student Alliance (www.pisanw.org) and Conference, which hosts the only multi-campus/state student conference for Pacific Islander students in American Higher Education. Using his experience and networks, mak has been able to connect Pacific Islander Students from the diaspora to local and international climate campaigns. Makerusa is a 2nd generation American Samoan from the Village of Fogagogo and a product of Portland, Oregon. He is a member of the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity (NCORE) planning committee and the Second Nature BIPOC Climate Action group.

Thea Prieto is the author of From the Caves, which won the Red Hen Press Novella Award, the First Horizon Award, and the INDIES Book of the Year Award for Literature. Her writing has appeared in Poets & Writers, The Kenyon Review, Longreads, Seneca Review, CRAFT Literary Magazine, and New Orleans Review, among other journals, and she edited Stranged Writing: A Literary Taxonomy, which is a multimedia anthology of defamiliarized creative writing. She teaches creative writing and publishing at Portland State University and Portland Community College, and she also prunes orchards seasonally in Northern California.

Gabe is Cayuse and Walla Walla, an enrolled citizen of Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. Gabe has worked for the past twenty years on behalf of the advocacy, protection and restoration of Indigenous First Food resources, through the fields of education, sustainability, fisheries science, environmental restoration, and landscape reclamation. This work has positively influenced Tribes, federal, state, academic and non-profit organizations. Gabe is the Executive Director of the Friends of Tryon Creek, where he leads efforts focused on community building, environmental stewardship, education, and protection of natural ecosystems.

Erin Sharkey is a writer, arts and abolition organizer, cultural worker, and film producer based in Minneapolis. She is the co-founder, with Junauda Petrus, of an experimental arts collective called Free Black Dirt and is the producer of film projects including Sweetness of Wild, an episodic web film project, and Small Business Revolution, which explored challenges and opportunities for Black-owned businesses in the Twin Cities in the summer of 2021. Sharkey has received fellowships and residencies from the Loft Mentor Series, VONA/Voices, the Givens Foundation, Coffee House Press, the Bell Museum of Natural History, and the Jerome Foundation. Sharkey was awarded the Black Seed Fellowship from Black Visions and the Headwaters Foundation. She has an MFA in creative writing from Hamline University and teaches with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. Erin is a steward cooperative member of the Fields at Rootsprings Retreat. Rootsprings is a land-based Cooperative stewarding space for healing and development of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) artists, activists, healers, and community centering Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Queer (LGBTQ) folx in Central Minnesota.

Sarah Stoeckl, PhD, is program manager in the Office of Sustainability at the University of Oregon. Her work at the UO focuses on campus and community outreach, including support for sustainability in research, curriculum, co-curricular activities and student programming, and community engagements. She also supports the office's communications strategy and content creation that tells the university's sustainability story, and development of sustainability policy and plans. Before starting this position in 2018, she worked in technology and education. Sarah earned her PhD in literature from the UO in 2012.

Sofia (she/they) is a second year studying environmental studies and policy. She is passionate about recognizing the complexity of sustainability. As the CSF chair, she works to ensure sustainability actions and decisions are made by a diverse team that prioritizes inclusivity. She focuses on learning from those with different perspectives and experiences to create a beautiful, nature-filled UW campus where everyone can feel comfortable.

Mazzi (she/her) is a fourth year studying psychology. She approaches sustainability as a way to empower communities through opportunity and resources that address environmental and cultural needs. She believes it is important to listen to one another and live with humility so we can nurture reciprocity between each other and nature. Beyond her role with the CSF, she conducts research on how individuals varying in cultural, spiritual, and religious backgrounds define "nature".

Adam is the college’s Energy Resources Manager, primarily responsible for managing the Strategic Energy Management program, utility payments, overseeing the HVAC building control system, and energy savings projects throughout the district. Utilities include electricity and natural gas used to heat and cool buildings, water and sewer (including irrigation), and waste disposal. He has a B.A. from Purdue University and 12 years of experience designing and implementing energy savings projects on the East Coast before starting at PCC. His focus is the education of facility staff, students, and continuously improving building operations.

Emma Johnson, a Cowlitz Tribal member, received her BA in Cultural Anthropology from Washington State University Vancouver and her MS in Sociocultural Anthropology at Portland State University (PSU). Emma is currently the Indigenous Traditional Ecological and Cultural Knowledge (ITECK) Coordinator in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean’s Office at PSU. In this role, she focuses on community engagement, partnership development, and cultivating a sense of belonging for students. Emma is extremely passionate about place-based education and connecting people to the landscape by introducing them to plant and animal relatives. She feels at home in the world of tribal food sovereignty and strives to support the reclamation and restoration of traditional foodways in Indian Country.