Alexis M. Pelosi is the Senior Advisor for Climate in the Office of the Secretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). She has a law degree from Berkeley Law and a master's in environmental science from Johns Hopkins University. Before joining HUD in 2022 as a Senior Advisor in the Office of Community Planning and Development, Alexis spent 20+ years working on complex real estate development projects throughout the Bay Area and Northern California.

Samantha Medlock holds the role of Assistant Administrator for Resilience Strategy, directing policy, strategy, and evaluation for FEMA's Resilience organization. Tasked with readying communities, lessening suffering, and hastening recovery, Resilience serves a vital mission.Before this position, Medlock acted as senior counsel to the House of Representatives Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, overseeing resilience, adaptation, and preparedness efforts across various domains. Transitioning from a private sector role focused on climate risk management, insurance, and finance, she previously served as a senior advisor in the White House Office of Management and Budget and deputy director in the Council on Environmental Quality.With over 25 years dedicated to land use, disaster law, and policy, Medlock has testified before Congress on flood risk, levee safety, and resilient disaster recovery. Her contributions earned her the Army Commander’s Award for Public Service due to her work on the National Committee on Levee Safety post-Hurricane Katrina.

Patricia Lock Dawson is a Riverside native and small business owner. She was elected Riverside’s 18th mayor in 2020. Mayor Lock Dawson is the first UC Riverside graduate and second woman to be elected to Riverside’s only citywide office in its 150-year history. She has an extensive record of service to Riverside, the Inland Southern California region, and the state. Mayor Lock Dawson served two political appointments under two gubernatorial administrations alongside serving in every level of government prior to being Mayor of Riverside.
As an environmental scientist and wildlife biologist by training, Mayor Lock Dawson was instrumental in passing legislation to secure tens of millions of dollars in state and federal funds for regional conservation, habitat, and infrastructure projects. She is well-known across the state as a champion of the Santa Ana River—the namesake of the City of Riverside.

Danielle Arigoni, an urban planner and community resilience expert, serves as the Managing Director for Policy and Solutions at National Housing Trust. In this role, she directs the organization's sustainability and resilience policies while overseeing NHT's state and local advisory services. She authored "Climate Resilience for an Aging Nation" (Island Press), focusing on climate change's impact on the elderly and advocating for community-level solutions to mitigate risks.Previously, as the Director of Livable Communities at AARP, Danielle spearheaded a nationwide initiative to foster vibrant communities across all age groups. Her extensive career includes leadership roles at US EPA and HUD from 2000-2017, where she drove initiatives promoting smart growth, climate resilience, and sustainable communities.Danielle earned a master's degree in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University and a bachelor's degree in Planning from the University of Oregon. Additionally, she serves on the board of Smart Growth America and chairs the League of American Bicyclists' Board.

Marina Gorbis, the Executive Director of the Institute for the Future (IFTF), has led the charge in bringing foresight to numerous sectors—business, education, government, philanthropy, and civic society. Her current research centers on work transformations and innovative value creation. Initiating the Workable Futures and Equitable Enterprise Initiatives at IFTF, Marina aims to understand evolving work patterns and prototype Positive Platforms for work.
Pioneering the Universal Basic Assets (UBA) concept, she frames various asset types' roles in economic security, advocating for wider distribution and increased equity. Her book, "The Nature of the Future: Dispatches from the Socialstructed World," delves into technology's impact on organizational landscapes, spanning education, governance, and health.
Marina frequently addresses future organizational, technological, and social issues through her writing and speeches. She holds a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master’s degree in public policy from the University of California, Berkeley.

Jesse Valdez is a North Fork Mono Tribe Council Member and Native American Monitor. He works to preserve indigenous history with every step and champions the thriving traditions of North Fork Mono Culture. He is passionate about preserving, the natural beauty of meadows through restoration, cultural burning, and sustainable forestry. He's been working with the North Fork Mono Tribe for over 20 years to accomplish this.

Councilmember Jesse has been married for 21 years and is a proud parent of three daughters who enjoy hiking and swimming at the Sequoia National Park every chance they get.

Jacob Virges is a passionate and dedicated Community Leader and Spoken Word Artist. Through the gift of creative expression and community activism, he uses his talents and time to bring more attention to youth voices as well as speak out against injustices. He has worked with non-profits including One East Palo Alto, Live and Peace and Jobtrain, and currently works with Urban Strategies Council to amplify community voices through Oakland General Plan. His purpose is to help guide his peers and the people around him to discover their purpose and how their voice, along with action, can change the environment around them. 

Debra Williams is a co-founder of Building Resilient Communities, a public benefit nonprofit corporation organized and operated exclusively for charitable purposes. Building Resilient Communities (BRC) advocates and provides disaster preparedness education, resources, and tools. BRC strives to mitigate systemic disparities that are based on climate conditions, environmental impacts, racial bias, and economic conditions that cause people to be disadvantaged and vulnerable in times of disaster. Debra is the President of Higher Ground International (HGI) management consulting firm and possesses over 30 years of experience providing training, business coaching, team building, and strategic planning services.

Luz Gallegos was born and raised in the Inland Empire. She began, "en la causa, el movimiento" as a very young child with the guidance of her parents. Advocating for social justice, organizing, and marching alongside with great leaders like Bert Corona, Soledad “Chole” Alatorre, and Cesar E. Chavez. Luz is a natural leader. Her organizing and advocating experience came firsthand throughout her childhood. At a very young age she developed a community conscious and commitment, what has become part of her life. She has led hundreds of community programs and campaigns dealing with an array of issues, immigrant rights, and civic engagement. Luz has mentored hundreds of youths and has motivated them to continue with their education while not forgetting their roots. She continues to lead in TODEC Legal Center to give continuity to her family’s community commitment and legacy.

Mario Ortega is the Chief Executive Officer of Abrazar.  He has held this position for 3 years and served as Abrazar Inc.’s Chief Operating Officer for 15 years before that.   He received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with an emphasis in Finance and Accounting from the University of California, Berkeley.  Before joining Abrazar, he was the lead Non-profit Audit Manager for a CPA public accounting firm.  Mr. Ortega was the Audit Manager leading financial, program, operational, and grant compliance audits.  He also assisted with business consulting projects with his non-profit clients. 

Naindeep Singh is Executive Director and one of the founders of the Jakara Movement. The Jakara Movement is a grassroots community-building organization serving 14 counties across California, working to empower, educate, and organize Punjabi Sikhs, and other marginalized communities; to advance their health, education, and economic, social, and political power. Formed and raised in the Central Valley, Naindeep's commitment and passion to social, racial, and class justice has helped shape his view of the world.  Educated at UCLA and Johns Hopkins University, he has received numerous awards for his community, academic, scholarly, and research interests.

Caelum Peyron is the Rapid Response Coordinator at the California Indian Manpower Consortium, Inc. He is dedicated to providing Tribal communities with educational messaging addressing the unique challenges commonly experienced by the Native American population.

Alex Morrison is a Resilience GIS Analyst with the San Francisco Office of Resilience and Capital Planning. In this capacity, he supports a variety of city-wide climate mitigation and adaption actions. This includes co-project managing the Heat and Air Quality Resilience (HAQR) Project with Matt Wolff at the San Francisco Department of Public Health's Climate Health Program and helping oversee implementation of the Hazard and Climate Resilience Plan (HCR) along with supporting the ClimateSF Program. Alex has previously worked in the academic field as a researcher on building lifecycle assessments and in affordable housing for the State of Georgia. He is most passionate about the intersection of climate change and urbanism (economically, socially, and environmentally) and also brings this lens to community organizing in his free time.  Alex holds a Master's in City and Regional Planning from Georgia Tech and a Bachelor's of Science in Sustainability and the Built Environment from The University of Florida.

Olivia Seideman (she/her) is the Climate Policy Coordinator at Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, where she works alongside communities in the San Joaquin and Eastern Coachella Valleys to achieve equitable outcomes for environmental justice and rural communities through statewide policy related to extreme heat and climate resilience, climate investments, transportation, direct emissions reductions policy, and equitable building decarbonization. Previously, she led civic engagement campaigns at Leadership Counsel and worked in economic justice in New Orleans. Originally from the Bay Area, Olivia enjoys hiking, visiting art museums, and spending time with friends and family in her free time.

Natalie Hernandez is a specialist in environmental policy and community planning. Since being at Climate Resolve, she has managed the “Ready for Tomorrow?” climate preparedness research, co-authored the State’s Adaptation Planning Guide, led community outreach for an urban cooling project in Canoga Park, and provided technical expertise on various climate grant programs. Natalie is knowledgeable about climate change government processes, funding, stakeholder engagement, and resilience. She has a strong passion for environmental justice and climate equity, which she attributes to growing up in Long Beach, a core hub of goods movement, air quality issues, and climate adaptation in the Los Angeles area. Her past experience includes positions at the California Natural Resources Agency, California Air Resources Board, Institute for Local Government, and USC Equity Research Institute (formerly USC PERE). Natalie holds a Master of Urban Planning degree from USC and a BA in Urban Studies and Spanish from Loyola Marymount University. In her spare time, she enjoys running, eating tacos with her familia, and learning from fun people and new places. Aside from her love of the Los Angeles region, she has lived in Sacramento, San Salvador, and Mexico City, and she claims that part of her heart stays in each of those cities.

Miguel Miguel, a native of the San Fernando Valley in the City of Los Angeles was raised in a predominantly Latino community faced with constant environmental injustices. Armed with a Master's in Urban and Regional Planning from UCLA's Luskin School of Public Affairs, he has dedicated over 6 years to various roles, including chairing the land use committee for his local neighborhood council, serving as a cultural resources consultant, and contributing as an academic student researcher at UCLA. Grounded in lived experiences and a passionate commitment to environmental justice, Miguel's research centers on the intersectionality between housing access and environmental injustices faced by BIPOC communities. His exploration of alternative homeownership models, particularly manufactured housing, seeks to establish more inclusive land ownership structures, aiming to empower marginalized communities and address environmental disparities.
As the Policy Director at Pacoima Beautiful, Miguel aims to holistically and systemically establish channels for community decision power. With the integration of community members as the sole decision makers on policy platforms, Miguel will help establish the necessary changes to cement the principles of environmental justice.

Shalini Vajjhala is the Executive Director of PRE Collective and a nationally recognized infrastructure and climate resilience expert with more than 15 years of experience designing, funding, and financing community-centered resilient infrastructure solutions. Over the last decade, she founded and led the design firm re:focus partners and co-founded The Atlas, an online platform for local government collaboration and innovation. Previously, Shalini held multiple positions at the US EPA and the White House Council on Environmental Quality. She is currently a Board Member of Smart Growth America and a nonresident senior fellow with the Brookings Institution Metro Program. Shalini holds a B.Arch in Architecture and PhD in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University.

Shasta Gaughen is the Environmental Director and the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Pala Band of Mission Indians in Payómkawichum (Luiseño) territory in what is now called San Diego County, California. She has worked for Pala since January 2005, and established Pala’s Tribal Historic Preservation Office in 2008. Dr. Gaughen received her PhD in Anthropology from the University of New Mexico in 2011 and a Master of Legal Studies in Indigenous Peoples Law from the University of Oklahoma College of Law in 2021. She taught for the Department of Anthropology at California State University, San Marcos, from 2006-2019. She is Chair of the National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers, a member of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, Vice President of the Board for the Native American Environmental Protection Coalition, Region 9 delegate and Tribal Co-Chair of the USEPA Tribal Science Council, and a member of the Institute of Tribal Environmental Professionals’ Climate Change Advisory Committee. Dr. Gaughen oversees the Tribal Climate Health Project, a grant-funded education and outreach project that includes a website, resource clearinghouse, webinars, videos, and in-person presentations on climate change and health adaptation in Tribal communities.

Vivienne Lee is an L.A. native who is passionate about creating an equitable economy by building community wealth, ownership, and assets. She brings deep expertise with over 25 years of experience working in both the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors with specialization in community development, social enterprise, and cross-sector impact. As the former Chief Impact Officer at Common Future, Vivienne advanced efforts to change the structures, terms, rules, and norms of utilizing grant and investment capital to better support BIPOC communities. At REDF, she built partnerships and created pilot programs that served as models to scale a nationwide social enterprise ecosystem. She was the lead architect of LA:RISE, a nationally recognized collaborative model that integrated the traditional workforce system and social enterprises to systematically address the overwhelming needs of the unhoused and re-entry populations. Prior to joining REDF, Vivienne led Citi Community Development’s efforts managing a philanthropic portfolio of grantees in Los Angeles focused on affordable housing, homeownership, small business, and financial inclusion in low-income communities. Vivienne started her career as an Americorps VISTA volunteer, with the Hawaii Alliance for Community Based Economic Development, helping low-income families in Hawaii build wealth and assets through matched savings accounts. She earned a Master’s Degree in City Planning from MIT and attended Occidental College.

Francis Bouchard serves as Managing Director for Climate in Marsh McLennan’s Advantage unit where he works with the company’s four business to craft and deliver climate related solutions for clients, communities and other stakeholders.  In addition, he recently joined the APCO Worldwide International Advisory Council, and will be serving as the 2024 Climate Leader in Residence at Duke University. Prior to joining Marsh McLennan, Francis spend 20+ years in a variety of external facing roles with Zurich Insurance Group, most recently as the Group Head of Public Affairs & Sustainability, where he focused on aligning the Group’s government affairs, sustainability and Foundation activities around impactful public affairs and social impact campaigns.   He also chairs the Board of Directors for the national resilience non-profit SBP, serves on the Board of Directors of the climate-focused insurtech incubator InnSure, and serves on the Advisory Council of the Syracuse University Dynamic Sustainability Lab.  He is a graduate of Syracuse University and the George Mason School of Law.

Lauren’s background in nonprofit development made her eager to activate more capital for social change, leading her to co-found Mission Driven Finance. As Chief Community Officer, she leads the design of a community-based strategy, providing a frame for both internal culture & partner relationships. Lauren’s blended heritage—Irish, Chinese, and Native Hawaiian—informs her approach to reconnecting capital and community. Prior to building Mission Driven Finance, she spent nearly 10 years fundraising for a wide variety of nonprofits—from large universities to small, volunteer-run initiatives. Lauren served on the steering committee of the Inclusive Capital Collective at Zebras Unite and on the board of Business for Good San Diego. She is a 2019 Social Venture Circle Innovation Entrepreneur and an active member of many philanthropic initiatives. Lauren is an alumna of Punahou School in Honolulu and Columbia University in the City of New York.

Don Hankins is a professor in the Department of Geography and Planning, Field Director of the Big Chico Creek Ecological Reserve, and instructs with expertise in phylogeography, water resources, and conservation at California State University Chico. Combining his academic and cultural knowledge as a Miwok traditional cultural practitioner, he studies Indigenous stewardship practices to aid in conservation and resilience. He engages in wildland fire research focusing on prescribed and cultural burns; ecocultural restoration; and environmental policy. Don has been involved in land stewardship and conservation for a variety of organizations including state, federal, and Indigenous entities in North America and Australia. He is internationally recognized for his work on Indigenous fire. He is an advisor to the Indigenous Peoples Burning Network; founder, co-lead, and recorder of the Indigenous Stewardship Network; and an appointed member of California’s Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force executive committee.

James Rattling Leaf is a global Indigenous consultant and Principal of the Wolakota Lab, LLC who serves as a guide and inspiration to organizations to work more effectively with Indigenous Peoples for a more equitable world. He has over 25 years’ working with the US federal government, higher education institutions and non-profits to develop and maintain effective working relationships with federally and non-federally recognized American Indian tribes, tribal colleges and universities and tribal communities. He specializes in developing programs that utilize the interface between Indigenous people’s traditional knowledge and western science. He sees a greater vision of human knowledge that incorporates the many insights of human cultures and provides a context for our better understanding of the planet and the world. Currently, he has projects with the Environmental Science Data Innovation and Inclusion Lab; North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center; Rosebud Sioux Tribe; GEO Indigenous Alliance; and the Ecological Society of America Governing Board of Directors. He is a citizen of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and has a degree from Sinte Gleska University.

Jenn Phillips serves as Assistant Secretary for Climate Change at the California Natural Resources Agency. She helps lead the Agency’s work on climate adaptation, nature-based solutions, and international engagement. She was formerly a senior policy advisor with the U.S. Climate Alliance, where she led the organization’s natural and working lands and resilience portfolios to best support a coalition of U.S. states. Prior to this role, Jenn worked in the California Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) as a senior scientist and worked on OPR’s Integrated Climate Adaptation and Resiliency Program and the advancement of key science initiatives to support the state’s climate goals. Prior to OPR she worked at the California Ocean Protection Council (OPC) and led OPC’s work on climate impacts on the ocean and coast, including on sea level rise. Before OPC, Jenn worked in the NOAA Administrator’s Office in Washington, D.C. as a Knauss Marine Policy Fellow and as key staff to the Administrator. Jenn received a master’s degree in environmental science from University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Julie Kalansky is a climate scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. She works on integrating climate, atmospheric, and hydrologic sciences to build resilience to extreme weather and climate by understanding past variability and future changes. With Dan Cayan, she co-led the last San Diego Regional Report and is supporting the current CEC funded project to develop the climate data for the next California Climate Assessment.

Nuin-Tara Key has nearly 20 years of experience in climate adaptation and mitigation policy, climate finance, urban and regional planning, and social and environmental equity. She has worked in the public, private, and non-profit sectors to better manage climate risks, guide the transition to a net zero economy, and build equitable community resilience in a rapidly changing world. Nuin-Tara is a Senior Advisor with Resilient Cities Catalyst (RCC) and was previously a Director at WTW, leading up the North America Public Sector practice in the Climate and Resilience Hub. Nuin-Tara worked in the California Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR), where she served as a gubernatorial appointee under Governors Brown and Newson, including as Deputy Director for Climate Resilience. Prior to joining OPR, Nuin-Tara co-founded an international initiative on community-based climate action. She has a Master of Urban and Regional Planning from Portland State University and a BA from Lewis and Clark College.