Ami Chen Mills-Naim
Alum 1999Ami Chen Mills-Naim is a global speaker, coach, trainer, editor and author of State of Mind in the Classroom: Thought, Consciousness and the Essential Curriculum for Healthy Learning and The Spark Inside: A Special Book for Youth. She co-founded the non-profit Center for Sustainable Change, and served as its Executive Director and Education Director for a decade. In this role, she raised nearly one million dollars in funding for Principles-based/innate resiliency programs across the U.S. She has been an international speaker on innate wellness and resiliency, and a trainer of the “Three Principles” for 20 years, as well as a “trainer of trainers.”
Chris Carlsson
Alum 1999Chris Carlsson, is a writer, San Francisco historian, “professor,” bicyclist, tour guide, blogger, photographer, book and magazine designer. He’s lived in San Francisco since 1978 and has been self-employed in various capacities since the early 1980s. Chris helped co-found Critical Mass in September, 1992, and has ridden with Critical Mass rides in a dozen cities on three continents since then. His book Nowtopia, along with his role in Critical Mass, has propelled him into extended world travels since 2002. Since 2011 he has been an intermittent “road scholar” in his capacity as an adjunct professor at the San Francisco Art Institute, the California Institute of Integral Studies and most recently, the University of San Francisco.
Charles Buki
Alum 1999Charles Buki is the founding director of czb, an urban planning and development firm. Before establishing czb, Charles was a consultant to the Millennial Housing Commission, a Mesa Fellow at the Common Counsel Foundation, a senior staff member of the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation, the Director of Housing for The American Institute of Architects and a project manager for several nonprofit community development corporations. He was also a Loeb Fellow in Advanced Environmental Studies at Harvard University.
Thomas L. Benson
Alum 1999Dr. Thomas L. Benson Is the chair of the board of directors of the Council for American Culture and Education (CACE). He is the founder and Executive Director of the World Leadership Corps, an international service organization that was launched at Oxford University in 2005. Dr. Benson is the President Emeritus of Green Mountain College, a liberal arts college in Poultney, Vermont. He publishes and speaks often on issues in philosophy and public policy, international education and trends in higher education.
Sarah van Gelder
Alum 1999Sarah van Gelder is a founder of a new nonprofit start-up, PeoplesHub, which offers live, online training to local groups around the country who want to make change where they live. She is also YES! Magazine Co-Founder and Columnist, a public speaker and the author of the new book, The Revolution Where You Live: Stories from a 12,000 Mile Journey Through a New America. She also edited Sustainable Happiness: Live Simply, Live Well, Make a Difference and This Changes Everything: Occupy Wall Street and the 99 Percent Movement (both with Berrett Koehler). Sarah has also written for Huffington Post, The Guardian and for other outlets.
Vicki Robin
Alum 1999Vicki Robin is a prolific social innovator, writer and speaker. She is coauthor with Joe Dominguez of the international best-seller, Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship With Money and Achieving Financial Independence. Vicki has helped launch many sustainability initiatives including: The New Road Map Foundation, The Simplicity Forum, The Turning Tide Coalition, Sustainable Seattle, The Center for a New American Dream, Transition Whidbey, the 10-Day Local Food Challenge and more.
Alexander Lee
Alum 1999Alexander Lee lives and teaches American history and English in Beijing, China. Previously, he spent two and half years as the Director of the Culture Club (adult division) of Perfect English Training School in Changchun, Jilin, PRC. He is the founder of Project Laundry List, which urges people to hang their laundry to dry and conserve energy. His writing has been published in such places as The Catholic Worker and the Albany Law Environmental Outlook Journal. His environmental efforts have also gleaned attention in Time, People and Reader’s Digest.
Maya Khosla
Alum 1999Maya Khosla is the Poet Laureate of Sonoma County (2018-2020). Her first book of poetry, Keel Bone, won the Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize and was published by Bear Star Press. Her chapbook, Heart of the Tearing, was published by Red Dust Press. A field-based biologist and a writer, Maya’s concerns for the natural world have led her through the wild, to the page and to the screen.
Chester Hartman
Alum 1999Chester Hartman, an urban planner and author, is Director of Research for the Poverty & Race Research Action Council (where he was founding Executive Director from 1989-2003) in Washington, DC, and Adjunct Professor, Dept. of Sociology, George Washington University. Prior to taking his present position, he was a Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, and of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. His articles have appeared in The Nation, Social Work, Virginia Law Review, Journal of the American Planning Association, University of Wisconsin Law Review, The Utne Reader, The Village Voice, Mother Jones and numerous other academic and popular journals and newspapers.
Claire Greensfelder
Alum 1999Claire Greensfelder is a lifelong environmental, peace and safe energy activist, educator, political campaigner and journalist. Claire presently serves as Policy and Organizational Consultant to the International Women’s Earth and Climate Initiative (IWECI) and to the international, multi-media exhibit-Conversations with the Earth: Indigenous Voices on Climate Change (CWE). Claire facilitated the installation of the CWE exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC in 2011.
Dianne Dumanoski
Alum 1999Dianne Dumanoski is an author and environmental journalist whose credentials in the field date back to Earth Day, 1970. Since then she has reported on a wide range of environmental and energy issues for broadcast and print media, including WGBH-TV, one of the nation’s leading public television stations; The Boston Phoenix, a weekly specializing in arts and politics; and The Boston Globe. During her time at Globe, she was among the pioneers reporting on the new generation of global environmental issues, including ozone depletion, global warming and the accelerating loss of species.
Nora Gallagher
Alum 1999Nora Gallagher is an American writer of memoir, fiction and essays whose work, as one reviewer put it,” is renewing the language of ultimate concerns.” Her most recent book, Moonlight Sonata at the Mayo Clinic, is a memoir that explores her experience with a baffling affliction poised to take her sight. Her essays, book reviews and journalism have appeared in many publications including The New York Times Magazine, DoubleTake, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, Utne Reader, The Village Voice, Mother Jones, The Los Angeles Times and the Psychotherapy Networker.