Conference Speakers

Conference Speaker and Session Facilitator

Director of Organizing, Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment

Gustavo Aguirre has over 33 years of organizing experience, getting his start with the United Farm Workers Union (UFW) after immigrating from Mexico at the age of 19. Aguirre started working full time with the UFW in 1996 as an organizer and by 2003 was appointed Regional Director of the San Joaquin Valley. From 2000-2006, he served as the National Vice President at UFW. In June 2006, Aguirre joined the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment, as the lead coordinator of a joint campaign with Californians for Pesticide Reform on pesticide protection zones around schools. Aguirre was an instrumental part of this campaign, helping to persuade Tulare, Kern, Stanislaus and Madera counties to approve new pesticide buffer zones around schools. Aguirre has played a key role in CRPE’s efforts to develop community leaders and build community power in the San Joaquin Valley. Currently, Aguirre sits as chairperson on the Steering Committee for the California Endowment’s Building Healthy Communities initiative in South Kern. He was on the Board of Directors of Lideres Campesinas from 2009 to 2012 and has helped several organizations undertake strategic and campaign planning processes, such as Californians for Pesticide Reform, Central California Environmental Justice Network, El Quinto Sol de America, Committee for a Better Arvin, Greenfield Walking Group, and Committee for a Better Shafter.

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Associate Professor, Biology, St. John's University

Braverman’s active areas of inquiry fall in the general framework of evolutionary biology. As a Jesuit (a member of the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus) and a Catholic priest (ordained in 2009), he is interested in the intersection between science and religion. He teaches on the intersection of religion and science with a course called God and Evolution, in which students learn the science of evolution as well as insights from the Catholic Church and Sacred Scripture. Not represented in his publications is his passion for nature and deep concern for the environment. The Jesuits are coming to express that concern and explore systematic approaches to caring for creation. Through involvement in Ecojesuit, Braverman furthers his interest in environmental justice.  

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Senior Advisor on Environmental Justice, Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States

Cecilia Calvo is the Senior Advisor on Environmental Justice of the Office of Justice and Ecology of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States. Calvo develops and leads the environmental justice efforts of the Jesuit Conference. Calvo is an expert on environmental issues, including climate change, children’s health and natural resource policy, and has worked domestically and internationally to help respond to these challenges. Her passion for the social justice dimensions surrounding environmental concerns stems from the impact of environmental degradation on the lives, health, and rights of poor and vulnerable people. Previously, Calvo worked at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), where she coordinated the education, outreach and advocacy efforts of the USCCB Environmental Justice Program. Calvo holds a master’s degree in law and diplomacy with a concentration in international environment and resource policy from Tufts University and a bachelor’s degree in environmental science and Spanish from Wellesley College.

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Program Director for Thriving Neighbors Initiative, Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education, Santa Clara University

Irene Cermeño serves as the Program Director for the Thriving Neighbors Initiative. The Thriving Neighbors Initiative works actively to promote strategic ties between Santa Clara University and the Greater Washington Community of San Jose in order to advance prosperity and education of both SCU students and neighborhood students as whole persons in whole communities. Irene received a B.S. in Political Science and Spanish Studies and M.B.A from Santa Clara University. Prior to joining the Ignatian Center in August of 2013, she worked at SCU’s Community Law Center for six years.

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Sandro Raul Díaz Flores

ASDENIC, Nicaragua

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Assistant Executive Officer, California Air Resources Board

Veronica Eady is Assistant Executive Officer of the California Air Resources Board. In this capacity, Ms. Eady is responsible for overseeing Environmental Justice activities of the Board. Her role is to serve as the primary internal and external contact for CARB on environmental justice issues and concerns and is responsible for providing policy consultation and recommendations to CARB staff. She also participates in decision making during the development and implementation of all major CARB programs ensures that environmental justice and tribal concerns are considered. Ms. Eady was formerly the Vice President and Director of Conservation Law Foundation Massachusetts and was the Associate General Counsel and Director of Environmental Justice at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, a non-profit civil rights law firm in New York City. Ms. Eady has also served as Director of the Environmental Justice and Brownfields Programs for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, where she was the principal author of Massachusetts Environmental Justice Policy. Ms. Eady was also Executive Director of Alternatives for Community and Environment, an environmental justice advocacy organization. She is the former chair of EPA's federal advisory committee for environmental justice, the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council. Ms. Eady has held appointments on several faculties, including Europe-Viadriana University in Germany, Tufts University, in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, Fordham Law School, and at the Stanford Law School. Eady received her B.A. in journalism from the University of Southern California, and her J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.

Conference Speaker

Lecturer, Yale School of Public Health and Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

Marianne Engelman brings to the Yale School of Public Health deep experience working with environmentally overburdened communities. She currently serves as Lecturer at both the School of Public Health and Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, where she supervises interdisciplinary teams of law, environmental and public health students. She is also of counsel with the Poverty & Race Research Action Council (PRRAC), a non-profit civil rights law and policy organization. As a Visiting Clinical Professor of Law at Yale Law School from 2017 through 2018, she directed an environmental justice clinic focusing on civil rights enforcement in the environmental justice context.  She served as senior staff attorney at Earthjustice, where she focused on civil rights enforcement, as well as related issues in the areas of toxics, waste, the health impacts of industrial agriculture, and the effects of environmental contamination on vulnerable and overburdened populations. Her experience includes ten years as General Counsel at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI), a non-profit civil rights law firm, where she directed a legal and advocacy program focused on racial and ethnic disparities in access to health care, environmental justice, and disability rights. She began her legal career as a staff attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), where she represented clients attempting to break barriers of access to health care and quality education. She holds a B.A. in government from Cornell University, a J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, and an M.A. in Politics from Princeton University.

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Executive Director, Center on Race, Poverty, & the Environment (CRPE)

Caroline Farrell is the Executive Director of the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment based out of CRPE’s Delano office. For over 14 years she has assisted low-income communities and communities of color throughout the country in their struggle for environmental justice.   Caroline has represented low-income communities and communities of color on issues related to dairy development in the Central Valley, hazardous waste facilities, land application of biosolids, and land use planning issues. Caroline serves on the Steering Committee for the Central Valley Air Quality Coalition, the Steering Committee for the California Environmental Justice Alliance, on the Impact Fund’s Grant Advisory Committee and on the Board of Directors for Communities for a Better Environment, the Planning and Conservation League, and Act for Women and Girls in Visalia.   Caroline graduated from Golden Gate University School of Law in 1999 with Highest Honors. She received her undergraduate degree in Political Science from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.

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Research Assistant, Department Environmental Studies and Sciences, Santa Clara University, Advocacy Program Coordinator, Multicultural Center, Santa Clara University, and Department Coordinator for Santa Clara Community Action Program, Santa Clara University

Kimy Grandi Soriano is a senior environmental studies and Spanish double major with minors in Latin American Studies and sustainability. She has been a research assistant for Dr. Chris Bacon since her first year at SCU, and traveled to Nicaragua in 2016 with the team. She has also spent almost all of her college career involved with SCCAP (Santa Clara Community Action Program) and has worked her way up to executive leadership. SCCAP is one of SCU'S largest social justice organizations. Kimy's work in SCCAP has centered on advocacy as opposed to service, with particular interest in environmental justice, LGBTQ+ justice, labor justice, and (im)migration justice. Kimy is also a staff member for SCU'S Multicultural Center (MCC) where she works as the Advocacy Program Coordinator. With this position, Kimy advocates for racial equity and justice and develops programming around intersectionality.

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Executive Director, Sacred Heart Community Service

Poncho’s professional career has been geared toward the advancement of economically disadvantaged communities –from providing direct services targeting low-income union members to serving in executive management roles in nonprofit housing development corporations. His experience has reinforced his dedication to creating systemic approaches to eliminating poverty through a combination of investments in human services and advocacy for wider public policy solutions. By cultivating and creating bridges between diverse constituencies, he has helped spearhead responses to critical issues in workforce development, children’s health care, homelessness and affordable housing. He has helped build respected nonprofit organizations from the ground floor including Working Partnerships USA, the Interfaith Council, and the Housing Trust of Santa Clara County, in addition to strengthening established community institutions, such as Emergency Housing Consortium and South County Housing Corporation. Poncho has also served in leadership roles for regional collaboratives and commissions such as the Santa Clara County Collaborative on Affordable Housing and Homeless Issues and the NOVA Workforce Board. A graduate of the University of California, San Diego, the Coro Foundation Public Affairs Fellowship, and American Leadership Forum.

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Community Water Solutions Manager, Community Water Center

Ryan Jensen joined the Community Water Center in 2014. As Community Water Solutions Coordinator, he provides support in organizing and trainings for environmental justice campaigns around drinking water issues to develop leadership capacity in disadvantaged partner communities throughout the San Joaquin Valley. Throughout his academic and professional career, Ryan has focused on collaborative and community-based approaches to the development and management of natural resources. From 2009 to 2012 Ryan served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mexico, working with the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas as a specialist in Integrated Watershed Management. Ryan holds a B.S. in Natural Resources Management with a concentration in International Development Studies, and recently completed his M.S in Watershed Science from Colorado State University.

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Professor of Law, Golden Gate University School of Law and Director, Environmental Law and Justice Clinic

She has devoted most of her legal career to environmental protection, first as Trial Attorney with the Environmental Enforcement Section of the U.S. Department of Justice. Since joining the clinic in 2000, working in collaboration with and representing community groups, she and her students have successfully litigated numerous cases against large sources of pollution such as agricultural industries and power plants, as well as governmental entities. She graduated from Berkeley Law, University of California at Berkeley, and Yale University.

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Director of Community Solutions, Community Water Center

Heather Lukacs rejoined Community Water Center in July 2018, after previously serving as CWC’s Project Director in 2015 and early 2016. Previously, Heather led CWC’s interim solution projects to address drinking water challenges in the San Joaquin Valley including the Agua4All campaign. In 2016 and 2017, Heather worked as the Central Coast Program Director and Technical Assistance Specialist for the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water. Heather’s diverse background includes research projects on community-based natural resource management, arsenic transport in sediments and water, and point-of-use water treatment. In 2014, Heather received a Ph.D. from Stanford University for her dissertation on community-based watershed restoration in Appalachia. Prior, Heather worked as a lecturer in MIT's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, where she also received undergraduate and masters degrees.

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Associate Professor, Urban and Environmental Policy, Occidental College

Matsuoka focuses her teaching and research at the intersection of community and regional development, organizing and social movements, and environmental justice.  She is the Executive Director of the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute, an applied community-based research center on campus. Her work in the field of community-based research draws on work with a wide range of NGOs including the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, the Urban Habitat Program,  the Liberty Hill Foundation, the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, and the International Women's Network Against Militarism. She currently serves on the Leadership Board of the Los Angeles Food Policy Council and the Board of Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity.

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Director of Community-Based Learning, Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education, Santa Clara University 

Jennifer Merritt, M.B.A., Ph.D., serves as the Director of Community-based Learning in the Ignatian Center. She is primarily responsible for overseeing the execution of the Arrupe Weekly Engagement Program as well as Thriving Neighbors, Santa Clara University Community Partnerships. She earned her B.A. from Vanderbilt University, her M.B.A. from Northwestern University, and her Ph.D. in Social Foundations of Education from U.Va., has worked in industry management with Johnson & Johnson and served on the faculty at John Carroll University in the Department of Education and Allied Studies.

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Professor, Environmental Science, Policy and Management and the School of Public Health, UC Berkeley

Her research examines race and class determinants of environmental health disparities among diverse communities in the US with a focus on environmental chemicals, climate change, drinking water and linkages between environmental sustainability and social equity.  In collaboration with regulatory scientists and community partners, Rachel and her collaborators have developed scientifically valid and transparent tools for assessing the cumulative impacts of environmental and social stressors to improve regulatory decision-making and advance environmental justice. She is applying these methods to inform the implementation of climate change policies in California.  

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Associate Professor, Environmental Studies, San Jose State University

Mulvaney teaches courses on energy and sustainability in the Department of Environmental Studies at San José State University. Before his appointment in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at UC Berkeley, he received his Ph.D. at UC Santa Cruz in the Department of Environmental Studies.  His experience includes working for a bioremeditation startup before graduate school as a project engineer on MTBE spills as well as a chemical process engineer for a Fortune 500 chemical manufacturer.  He is a member of the American Association of Geographers, the Society for the Social Studies of Science, and the Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences. He also participates in a group of academics known as alternative agrifood researchers without borders.

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Elvira Ramirez

Executive Director, Catholic Charities Diocese of Stockton

Elvira Ramirez has been the Executive Director of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Stockton since May 2009; prior to this posting, she was the assistant director of the agency since 2007. She has a Masters in Social Work from the University of Maryland at Baltimore, and a Bachelor of Science (Agricultural Science) from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Previously, Elvira was the Director of Religious Education at Good Shepherd Parish in Elk Grove. Her experience includes 11 years as a Maryknoll Missionary, serving 8 of those years in Tanzania, East Africa. While direct social service is very familiar work, the past ten years have involved Elvira in leadership and supervisory responsibilities. Elvira was born in Mexico, and was raised in the San Joaquin Valley of California.

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Jacky Riviera

La Mesa Verde, Sacred Heart Community Service

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Associate Clinical Professor and Director, International Human Rights Clinic, Santa Clara University, School of Law

Prior to coming to Santa Clara University School of Law as founding director of the law school’s International Human Rights Clinic, Francisco was an adjunct professor of international law and human rights at the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico. He is a former senior staff attorney at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights of the Organization of American States seated in Costa Rica, where he was also director of that court’s internship program. In the late 1990s, he also served as Executive Director of the Amnesty International Section in Puerto Rico. Francisco has worked on a number of high-profile cases involving grave human rights violations, particularly throughout Latin America. His publications include issues such as indigenous land rights, as well as corporate and individual responsibility for human rights violations before both domestic and international fora.

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President and General Counsel, Romaro Institute 

Daniel Sheehan is a distinguished Federal Civil Rights Attorney and President and general counsel for the Romero Institute, a non-profit law and public policy center in Santa Cruz, California. In Sheehan’s long and distinguished career he has been involved in multiple cases that have reached the United States Supreme Court. He has worked for multiple high profile law firms and other law organizations throughout his distinguished law career, notably, he co-founded the Christic and Romero Institutes. He holds a degree in American Government from Harvard College, a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School, and a Masters of Divinity Program in Comparative Social Ethics from Harvard Divinity School.

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Coordinator, International Campaign for Responsible Technology

Ted Smith founded the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition in response to the public health threat created by hazardous groundwater contamination from high-tech manufacturing facilities in San Jose. After organizing the community to clean up the groundwater contamination, the Coalition pressured computer and electronics manufacturers to make more environmentally friendly choices and use cleaner production methods. Hewlett Packard and Dell Computers led the industry in actively promoting the Coalition’s Computer TakeBack Campaign, which Smith started in 1997 to get computer companies to recycle obsolete computers appropriately. Several states including California, Washington, Maine, and Massachusetts have now passed e-waste legislation mandating safer disposal and recycling. Today, Smith is the coordinator for the International Campaign for Responsible Technology (ICRT) and is implementing a long-term strategy to promote sustainability within the global high-tech industry.

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Vice President of Litigation, Washington, D.C. Earthjustice

A leading environmental attorney and legal scholar, Patrice began his career as an attorney in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of General Counsel and later served as a counsel to EPA's Environmental Appeals Board and as a Senior Attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. Additionally, Patrice served in the Obama Administration as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division. Prior to joining Earthjustice, he was a Howard University School of Law professor, teaching, writing, and speaking on various subjects related to environmental law and environmental justice. Patrice served on the Earthjustice Board of Trustees for five years.

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Founding Dean, Institute of Environmental Sustainability, Loyola University Chicago

As the founding dean of the Institute of Environmental Sustainability (IES) at Loyola University Chicago, she has directed several flagship programs including using glycerin waste to produce soap to be sold in campus stores and growing food organically at a 4-acre student-run farm and campus urban gardens. Tuchman’s biology research focuses on human impacts on aquatic ecosystem structure and function. Her work ranges from the effects of greenhouse gases on stream ecosystem food webs, to the impacts of invasive plant and animal species on Great Lakes coastal ecosystems, to the effects of emerging contaminants such as plasticizers (Bisphenol-A), and pharmaceuticals (e.g. antibiotics and endocrine disruptors) on streams and lakes. Working with students in research is one of the most rewarding aspects of Tuchman’s career.

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Director, Apu Palamguwan, Director for Research, ESCC, and Coordinator, Ecojesuit

Pedro Walpole, S.J. works in sustainable environment and community land management in Southeast Asia, with mainly local communities, universities, international organizations, and governments. He has a people-focused approach to capacity building and seeks to promote more lasting partnerships through research, consultation, and policy building to support local populations and governments. Fr. Walpole is the Coordinator of Ecojesuit, a global ecology network of Jesuits and partners from around the world, moving an ecological agenda and exploring collaboration. He is the Director for Research of the Environmental Science for Social Change (ESCC) and also directs the Apu Palamguwan Cultural Education Center in the Philippines.