Tiana Williams-Claussen is a member of the Yurok Tribe and comes from the village of Wehl-kwew’ on the Yurok Reservation. She received her BA in biochemical sciences from Harvard University, returned to serve her tribe, and is currently pursuing a master of sciences degree in natural resources from California Polytechnic State University, Humboldt, focusing on refining geospatial modeling for predicted California condor landscape use in the Pacific Northwest. Instrumental to formation of the Yurok Tribe Wildlife Department, she currently serves as department director. Her native upbringing and formal education allow her to bridge the gap between traditional understandings of the world, and those rooted in Western science, supporting a cohesive, well-informed approach to holistic ecosystem management.

She has been integral to the successful reintroduction of prey-go-neesh, California condor, to Yurok Ancestral Territory after a 130-year absence, contributing to the healing of a deep wound carried by the regional ecosystem and Yurok people, and contributing to cultural restoration. She has contributed significantly to development of innovative land management and restoration approaches which benefit not only Yurok lands, but also surrounding lands within the Klamath River Basin. The Klamath River Basin is deeply important to biodiversity and ecosystem health in California and Oregon, encompassing the last bastions of old-growth coastal redwood forest and the second most significant anadromous fish bearing river in California; and supporting several threatened and endangered species of grave conservation concern, including the California condor, Humboldt marten, marbled murrelet and northern spotted owl. These innovations were developed in collaboration with the Yurok Tribe Natural Resources Division and surrounding federal, state and private land managers, and include codifying sustainable forest management practices; restoration of critical prairie, wetland, and oak woodland landscapes; wildlife protection ordinances; invasive species removal; climate change and catastrophic fire mitigation and reincorporation of use of traditional fire; and strategies for re-integrating regional youth into their role as land stewards.

Finally, she is dedicated to reinvesting Yurok Traditional Ecological Knowledge into all aspects of her work, particular as gifted to her by Tribal elders. They have taught her that both system function and dysfunction are a result of the health of our relationships with our human and ecological community. It is clear that the biodiversity crisis is a human crisis and only through reestablishing humanity’s understanding of its own capacity and obligation to the natural world will we be able address it.

Thematic photo by NOAA

Vianey was raised in the neighborhood of Pacoima in the Northeast San Fernando Valley after migrating from Mexico, Oaxaca at the age of 3 with her family. As a DACA recipient and first-generation college student, she often found herself questioning the aid of other undocumented students and why her community was limited in resources. One of her early involvements started in high school in 2014 when advocating for the protection of her local environment. She engaged Northeast San Fernando Valley youth through mentorship and program development as an assistant for the Young Warriors Youth Mentoring Program. Her programs used arts, music, poetry, entrepreneurship and ancestral teachings as tools for self-empowerment.

Later, she continued on the same path by becoming taking on a lead role as a community naturalist with Community Nature Connection, where she would lead outdoor bilingual interpretive programs to the public and youth in local, state and national parks. With outdoor access under her belt at the local level, she would go on to advocate and lobby at the capital for state funding for outdoor equity programs in under-resourced communities like Pacoima. With a passion for environmental and social change, Vianey received her bachelor of arts degree in political science with a minor in sustainability. She is excited to continue to work as a youth mentor for the next generation of environmental stewards and advocates as a Youth Coordinator with Pacoima Beautiful. Vianey is also engaged in program access aimed at creating green spaces for park-poor and food desert communities in the Northeast San Fernando Valley. Vianey enjoys birding, camping, running and dancing cumbias during her time off from work.

Thematic photo by Manda Hansen

Natasha Allen is the co-founder and CEO of illu, a management software for field teams deploying, operating and maintaining distributed energy assets. She has managed operations and maintenance programs for remote solar energy systems across five countries, including for 1500+ decentralized renewable systems with international award-winning non-profit We Care Solar. She’s a solar expert and has delivered 1000+ hours of solar training and has extensive field operations experience in East Africa and Southeast Asia. Before illu, Natasha founded a social enterprise in Myanmar, called Mee Panyar, which coordinates fieldwork and maintenance for rural solar power plants providing first-time electricity to remote villages. She has a strong academic background in physics (B.S. from Harvey Mudd College) and engineering (M.S. from University College London) and was recognized as a Thomas J. Watson Fellow for her commitment to her work and strength of character. In her free time, she is an avid cook and experimentalist, trying to ferment anything she can and mixing flavors and ingredients she has come to love through her travels.

Thematic photo by Kyaw Zin Htet

Caleb Kruse uses artificial intelligence and satellite data at Earthrise Media to monitor and understand environmental change. He has led the technical development of Global Plastic Watch to find plastic waste before it reaches the ocean, and Amazon Mining Watch to track illegal gold mining in real time. He is now working to build tools that enable communities to leverage their on-the-ground knowledge to create environmental monitoring platforms like these. Previously, he studied oceanography at Stanford and led the machine learning teams at Leap Motion.

Caleb is also a National Geographic explorer. In this capacity, he has driven an ice cream truck across the US to speak with children about exploration and conservation, traced the saltwater aquarium fish trade, and told the story of the highest elevation road in the Himalayas. He continues to work with National Geographic on projects ranging from the oceans to the stratosphere.

Thematic photo by ANIRUDH

H.E. Aminath Shauna is the Maldives’ minister of environment, climate change­­ and technology. Her portfolio includes protecting the natural environment and its resources, action and advocacy on climate change, science and technology development, and the implementation of policies and regulations related to the provision of energy, telecommunications, water and waste management. She also provides policy direction to the Ministry’s affiliated agencies, namely, the Environmental Protection Agency, Utility Regulatory Authority, Communications Authority of Maldives, National Centre for Information Technology, Maldives Meteorological Service and the Biosphere Reserve Office.

Prior to her appointment as minister, Shauna served as Policy Secretary to H.E. President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih where she was responsible for oversight of the implementation and coordination of government policies, as well as advising the president on policy issues.

During President Mohamed Nasheed’s administration (2008-2012) Shauna served as undersecretary at the policy office of the president, where she was responsible for the management of all government policy matters, especially those pertaining to climate change. She was also responsible for management of the secretariat of the Climate Change Advisory Council, the expert body charged with providing climate change policy advice to the president. She led the national effort to realize its vision of becoming a carbon neutral country by 2020, steering the development of the Maldives’ renewable energy investment plan. In addition, she headed the monitoring and evaluation unit of the policy office, where her primary responsibilities included working closely with government ministries to oversee implementation of government policies.

Shauna started her career as a journalist at Minivan News in 2008, covering the Maldives’ first multiparty presidential elections.

Shauna was recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader 2020. She was elected president of the Maldivian Democratic Party’s (MDP) Youth Wing in 2010, serving a four-year term in which she institutionalized its role as a leader in policy formulation, campaigning, street activism and fundraising — using the power of art, music, and social media to ensure that the party continued to be a voice for Maldivian youth. She has been supporting the MDP since 2008 in planning its campaigns, rallies and protests, and assisting the party at a strategic level in communications, international engagement and political party development.

Shauna has a bachelor of arts in political science, environmental science and economics from Westminster College, Missouri, USA.

Born and raised in the Central Valley of California, André is an environmental and community advocate. He is involved at several levels with Latino Outdoors, a largely volunteer powered Latine-led organization that connects and engages leaders and community members in the outdoor, conservation, and nature movement. André is also the Community Engagement & Conservation Policy Manager for the statewide-focused environmental nonprofit, CalWild, where he engages, informs, and organizes communities to protect “public lands and waters”, as well as advocates on issues relating to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Justice, and Access. As part of his demonstrated leadership and commitment to “public lands” issues, André currently holds a secretarial appointment position to the Bureau of Land Management’s Central CA Resource Advisory Council where he helps balance decisions that serve the interests of all “public land” users.  

Beyond the aforementioned leadership roles, André also has current ties to Tuleyome (a conservation nonprofit focused on protecting and restoring the natural landscapes in the Northern Inner California Coast Range), Yosemite Gateway Prescribed Burn Cooperative (a group made up of landowners, community members, community-based organizations, and agency partners working together to conduct prescribed burns throughout Mariposa and Madera Counties), and has previous ties to Indigenous Oaxaca Cooperativa (a group of Oaxacan community leaders working to build solidarity among the Indigenous diaspora across Central & Southern California). 

André’s professional background originally lies in wildlife, restoration, and conservation, having worked on different natural resource programs and projects, including conducting aquatic restoration in Yosemite National Park (the most influential place visited during his childhood), monitoring trout populations in the Santa Monica Mountains of Southern California, and performing coastal climate change monitoring in the San Francisco Bay Area. 

Jack Pan is an oceanographer, data scientist and entrepreneur at the forefront of climate change and sustainable energy. He has pioneered new ways to track glacial meltwater in the polar regions using satellite imagery and advanced machine learning. These techniques help decision-makers and stakeholders to better understand, predict and respond to a changing climate. Jack is also the founder and CEO of Ocean Motion Technologies — a wave energy company that has received support from the United States Department of Energy, the California Energy Commission, and the Eastman Foundation. Ocean Motion is a Blue Tech company in the early stages of powering a paradigm shift to Big Blue Data and the Ocean of Things. It focuses on meeting power demands for big data at sea in ocean observation for tracking climate change, offshore aquaculture monitoring, and surveillance for coastal security applications. Jack is an advocate for an interconnected blue economy, and he is currently serving on the board of the Maritime Alliance and the Marine Technology Society’s SD Chapter.

In addition, Jack is also a fellow at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he works on satellite remote sensing projects for monitoring coastal oceans. As a polar oceanographer, Jack has participated in several expeditions to Antarctica and is a recipient of the Antarctica Service Medal. He is also an avid traveler and photographer. Jack received his Ph.D. from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Thematic photo by Derek Oyen