Sonny Lawrence D. Alea

Friends of the Urban Forest

My name is Sonny Lawrence D. Alea. I was born and raised in the Bay Area. I graduated from San Francisco State University with a Bachelors of Arts degree in Environmental Studies and have since been working in San Francisco within organizations delivering environmental education programs, workforce development programs within the environmental field, or focused on environmental justice as part of their work. I first began my career path as an Environmental Educator as an intern with San Francisco Recreation and Parks, leading outdoor activities and restoration projects with elementary, middle, and high school age youth. I continued delivering environmental education programs and mentored high school and college interns at the EcoCenter at Heron’s Head Park. I come to the Rising Leadership Fellowship as Friends of the Urban Forest’s Green Teens Manager where I work with youth to develop their professional skills through the work of tree planting and tree care in San Francisco neighborhoods.

Rebecca Au

Becca is an adventurous and well-traveled enthusiast of the outdoors. Inspired by her love for hiking and for education, she has joined the world of nonprofits to protect the beautiful forests she loves and to train and educate future environmental stewards of all ages. In her free time, she loves to hike, rock climb, garden, cook, and read. She'll join any book club she can find and create ones when she can't (you should join!). She is also an urban adventurer, always looking for new cities and cultures to explore. Her favorite places on the planet include Yosemite National Park, Tokyo, Durham (U.K.), and the beautiful and local Inner Sunset. Nothing beats a sunset from Grandview Park! She also loves a wide variety of music from the epic remasters by Gamechops to the musical stories sung by the Decemberists and many others in between. Whether it's a bluegrass festival in the park or a Vampire Weekend concert in Paris, she'll be there. But most importantly, as long as there is environment, you can bet she'll be working to protect it.

She uses her knowledge and experience gained by her heritage (as an immigrant daughter to Chinese immigrant parents) and education to enact change. She was the first in her family to graduate college as an undergraduate at San Jose State University, studying fine art and art history, and went on to graduate from Durham University with a masters degree in museum education. She believes that anybody with the will and know-how can impact the environment in a positive way.

Rachel Clemons

Grassroots Ecology

Rachel’s love of the natural world unfolded gradually while trail running through the eastern woodlands of Louisville, Kentucky. At Bellarmine University, she earned degrees in Biology and Environmental Science while researching topics like stream chemistry and urban agriculture. After graduating, Rachel served with the AmeriCorps Connecticut Food Justice Project, where she worked on an urban farm and frequently attended anti-racism and community organizing workshops. She pursued a second year of AmeriCorps service in California through the Watershed Stewards Program, restoring habitat along San Francisquito and Stevens Creeks in Silicon Valley with Grassroots Ecology. Rachel now continues her work with Grassroots Ecology as a Restoration Specialist, where she enjoys teaching and learning from community members of all ages. What Rachel enjoys most about her work is the interdisciplinary approach it requires. She believes that nature doesn’t just offer us beauty and enjoyment; it is also a pathway to justice and societal transformation. Likewise, it provides opportunities for personal wellness, healing, and connection to one another. Her professional goal is to facilitate outdoor experiences that are accessible, interesting, and rewarding to everyone—not just the “outdoor community” as it has been historically defined. She spends her weekdays happily watering plants and pulling weeds at Pearson-Arastradero Preserve, and on the weekends you might catch her mountain biking or reading in the park.

Francine Davis

Walden West Outdoor School

Francine Davis is an Environmental Education Specialist at Walden West Outdoor School providing high quality NGSS-aligned outdoor instruction to 5th and 6th graders in Santa Clara County. In addition to her role as an educator during the school year, she is also Program Head for three summer programs at Walden West: Trailblazers, Migrant Education Trailblazers, and Family Camp.  Although fairly new to the world of outdoor education, Francine brings a diverse range of skills to the profession including community outreach, process excellence, and environmental monitoring. With her students, she takes advantage of opportunities to foster social and emotional learning and builds a community of respect for our planet and each other. Francine has a deep interest in innovative ways to make outdoor education an accessible, inclusive, and safe place for all students to learn and was a recent participant in the BEETLES Project Institute Emerging Leaders Cohort.  When not at Walden West, Francine enjoys spending time with her pets and exploring gastronomy and performing arts in the Bay Area. Francine has a Masters of Science in Environmental Health Science from the University of South Carolina and a Bachelors of Science from John Carroll University.

Sherman Dean

Groundwork Richmond

Sherman Dean is Groundwork Richmond’s Workforce Development Manager. Born in Bakersfield and the oldest of nine siblings, Sherman has been a Richmond resident for 15 years. His personal hero is his grandfather Vernon V Robinson, who Sherman describes as a perfect community-driven family man, visionary, and wise leader! “His community was his Family,” describes Sherman. “He helped improve the lives of so many residents out here in Richmond!” Sherman believes that working with Groundwork for the past three years has brought meaning and purpose to his life. He is so grateful to contribute to and further develop his social and leadership development skills at this organization!

Toan Do

Ventana Wilderness Alliance Youth in Wilderness Program

Toan (he/him) is a first generation Vietnamese-American who grew up in suburban Orange County. Toan discovered his love for the outdoors when he began surfing late in high school. He deepened his engagement with nature during undergraduate years and throughout his 20's when he began hiking and backpacking. Toan is now the Director of the Ventana Wilderness Alliance's Youth in Wilderness Program - specializing in offering introductory overnight backpacking trips for young people of central California in the Big Sur backcountry (ancestral lands of the Esselen, Rumsen, and Salinan people). Toan is devoted to providing this service to young people who have not previously had access to experiences deep in wild places and is passionate about working in the intersection between environmental conservation, outdoor recreation, and social justice.

Annemarie Dompe

Annemarie grew up calling two very different California ecosystems home. Raised in the floodplains of the Central Valley, she also inherited a love of the Central Coast, where her great-grandparents had put down roots. Hours spent exploring the touch pools at the Monterey Bay Aquarium became formative for her, and her first work experience was as a student guide there during her teenage years. Weaving connections—whether it be between people to each other, to place, to plants, to the past —has been her driving force throughout her career. In the last five years, she has reconnected to doing this work in the context of environmental education. In her most recent position, she worked at a restored wetland adjacent to San Francisco’s only Superfund site, connecting youth to the history of struggle by grassroots organizers of color fighting for environmental justice, and to the lessons of resilience offered by the plants and animals of that place. As a queer white woman, she feels privileged to frequently encounter people working in this field who look like her, and recognizes that many who claim minority identities do not have this experience. While acknowledging the importance of representation for groups who experience marginalization in outdoor spaces, she also envisions moving beyond mere representation towards agency for those historically dispossessed of restorative connection with nature. She hopes that being a part of this cohort will help her co-create powerful coalitions that protect and expand access to such connection for all.

Jack Dorsey

Canopy

Jack Dorsey is the programs coordinator for Canopy, an environmental non-profit that brings trees to where people need them the most. He recently graduated from Santa Clara University with a major in Environmental Science and a minor in Economics. He believes green technology, green investment, and renewable energy is the way of the future. He plans on pursuing a law degree in the next year or two. As an avid Manchester United fan and surfer, Saturday mornings mean 5:00 AM wake-up alarms to catch the team in action and the swell. He hopes to become a more effective leader in order to inspire the next generation of environmental advocates.

Nicol Gaffney

Summer Search Bay Area

Nicol is a people person, an optimist, and strives to stand for the potential in every situation. His marriage and family are the best things that have happened to him. The values that drive him forward are self-reflection, authentic connection, and social justice. His passion is to create spaces where youth can experience new outdoor and social environments that excite them, empower them, and allow them to explore new aspects of themselves and others. 

Professionally, he is the Summer Program Manager for Summer Search Bay Area. In this role he has the privilege of bringing together a team of 15 professional mentors, over 20 summer program partners, and around 350 high school age youth every year. Before Summer Search, he lived and taught in Ecuador as a volunteer with WorldTeach, earned his degree in Anthropology, worked as an academic mentor at UC Santa Cruz, was a lead science instructor at a day camp in Cupertino, and volunteered as a youth mentor in his hometown community of Murphys, California.

Ever energetic, he loves playing soccer, frisbee, board games, card games, and anything that gets him running around between the grass and the sun. He also enjoys being a brother to his five siblings, cooking, building, hosting, and laughing often.

Devon Jackson

Grassroots Ecology

Devon’s love of the outdoors began in his hometown of Santa Barbara, where as a kid he enjoyed skateboarding, mountain biking, and surfing. Devon began his career at the City of Santa Barbara as a Nature Camp counselor. During this time he developed a passion for environmental education and advocacy. He continued this career path while studying Environmental Management and Protection at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. After graduating from Cal Poly, Devon accepted a position as an AmeriCorps member with the Watershed Stewards Program. Placed at Grassroots Ecology, Devon was able to pursue his passion of environmental education and stewardship while working with volunteers to restore habitat in Silicon Valley. Today, Devon continues his work at Grassroots Ecology as a restoration specialist, restoring habitats at two local nature preserves. In his free time he enjoys exploring the Santa Cruz mountains and making music.

Alba Estrada López

Point Blue STRAW (Students & Teachers Restoring a Watershed) Program

Alba Estrada López was born in Sinaloa, Mexico, where her family immigrated from to the small, agricultural town of Greenfield in the Central Coast of California. Alba then attended the University of California, Los Angeles, where she graduated with a Biology B.S. with minors in Mexican Studies and Spanish (2018). Through her multidisciplinary undergraduate education and lived experience, Alba began to understand the intersectionality between science, education, social justice, and the lack thereof in marginalized communities.

Alba is currently a Conservation Educator with Point Blue' STRAW Program (Students & Teachers Restoring a Watershed), a position afforded to her as a RAY (Roger Arliner Young) Conservation Diversity Fellow. Through her role as an educator, she ultimately aspires and strives to help change the narrative of who and how people are allowed to participate and succeed within the environmental field.

Richard Muñoz

California Department of Fish and Wildlife

Richard has worked for 10 years as a natural and cultural resources interpreter and outdoor educator. Richard began his work with California State Parks and now works at California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Richard is a kid at heart from Southern Cali, an explorer of the stunning beauty of California—its people and its history—and a man with a desire to serve. Richard has a heart to assist people in creating their own meaningful connections to the outdoors; connections that are as unique and special as the individuals making them. Richard works with many partners toward the common hope that his efforts will aid the collective work of many, to bring about positive change, in the short term and long term, for people and to systems. Richard’s thirst is for an inclusive, equitable, and correct pursuit of stewarding our two most valuable resources; our people and our environment. Richard is ready and thankful for the opportunity to be a be a part of the Rising Leaders Fellowship.

Sue Pitts

Student Conservation Association

Originally from the rural Midwest, Sue grew up in a world surrounded by cornfields, luscious green trees, and the Great Lakes. Her interest in the outdoor field was sparked while in high school, when she discovered you could have a career as a wildland firefighter. Sue went on to pursue Conservation Biology at Kent State University and spent her long summers working at the University Greenhouse and Herbarium. After graduating, Sue served as an intern within a residential conservation corps program hosted by The Student Conservation Association in New Hampshire.  While there she discovered a love of the outdoors, a commitment to serving youth, and a passion for volunteer work.

Sue has spent the last 11 years working as a staff member with the Student Conservation Association. During her tenure she has helped facilitate a residential corps program, has mentored and guided leaders, and more recently has been working to develop policies and trainings to support SCA staff. In her current role, she has a focus on equity, diversity, and inclusion, and has been working with a team of staff members on building SCA’s vision moving forward.

Hope Presley

San Francisco Bay Wildlife Society

Hope Presley grew up in the Central Valley of California, but spent a lot her time in the Bay Area visiting family and getting outdoors! She received her Bachelors of Science in Environmental Science and Conservation from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. She has also taken graduate classes through UC San Diego, earning her a Professional Certificate in Sustainability and Behavior Change. Her work experiences have combined endangered species management, pollution prevention, community outreach, and environmental education. Through her current work with San Francisco Bay Wildlife Society and the Don Edwards SF Bay National Wildlife Refuge, she strives to bring new audiences onto the Refuge and connect them to the natural resources through non-traditional programs and stewardship opportunities. She has expanded her program, Watershed Watchers, to include more volunteer opportunities for youth. Hope’s position is funded by a grant with Santa Clara Valley Urban Runoff Pollution Prevention Program (SCVURPPP), which aims to reduce runoff through educational campaigns and programming. In her free time, you can still find her out hiking the trails, playing fetch with her dog on the beach, photographing wildlife, and traveling to new places!

Matt Richter

Conservation Corps North Bay

Matt is a transracial Filipino adoptee, born and raised in Connecticut and now living in Oakland, California. He works as the Natural Resources Coordinator for Conservation Corps North Bay, where he helps run conservation and job training programs in Marin County. He has done conservation work throughout the U.S., from leading disaster relief projects with youth in New York City after Hurricane Sandy to helping launch an all-indigenous field crew at Canyon de Chelly National Monument on the Najavo Nation. He is dedicated to providing meaningful, transformative experiences for youth in the outdoors, especially for youth of color. Matt is honored to be part of the Rising Leaders cohort and is excited to bring back what he learns to his community and the outdoor field at large.