Jacqueline was voted one of 2022 Gambit New Orleans' 40 under 40 Changemakers. She is a scholar-activist and the eldest daughter of Chinese Vietnamese refugees with an extensive history in intersectional social impact and leadership development. As an inaugural Harvard University Climate Justice Design fellow, her project Rooting Storms has focused on story-based research to deepen the Asian American Pacific Islander praxis and challenge Data Equity and history around Climate Resiliency.

Her movement work has ranged from multilingual therapy to somatic and narrative healing as well as programmatic development and implementation with survivors of torture, houselessness, domestic violence, and human trafficking domestically and abroad. She is a clinically trained and trauma informed Human Rights Advocate who brings expertise in culturally integrative storytelling to an intersection of movement work. As the Executive Director of VAYLA New Orleans, she currently leads strategic initiatives on Environmental Justice and Reproductive Justice work in the Asian American Pacific Islander communities in New Orleans and the Gulf South.

A first-generation college graduate--she holds a B.A. in English from the University of California, Berkeley, a Master of Social Work and Global Health Administration and Policy Certification from the University of Chicago, and is a Doctoral Candidate at the University of Southern California in Design Justice and Social Innovation.

Rev. Dr. Dorthea Enrique is a world-renowned published author, spiritual counselor, and ordained minister. She is an accomplished environmental and climate justice advocate, reproductive justice politico, and women's empowerment enthusiast with an impressive 12-year background in community organizing and community engagement. She is currently a Contributing Author for Mom's Clean Air Force, which is committed to exposing environmental injustices in frontline communities, and MomsRising Together, an organization united by the goal of building a more family-friendly America.

A strong proponent of leadership and personal development, she uses her communication and motivating strengths to empower others to reach their greatest potential in life. A multi-self-published author, including her most recent publication “The EM: Power Dynamics” Building Community Power in the Environment Movement as a Black Woman is set to be released early next year. She is also the founder of the Detroit Environmental and Climate Justice Alliance, a community group dedicated to the pursuit of social justice – when it comes to clean air, clean water, and a just transition to a green energy economy for all. In addition, she is also the CEO and Founder of Modern Women in Leadership Commission, a nonprofit organization dedicated to mentoring and empowering women to increase their leadership capabilities through spiritual development and personal empowerment.

In the past, she has worked as an Environmental and Climate Justice Leadership Fellow with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to help create the first Climate Justice initiative. As a Climate Justice Leadership Fellow at the New Organizing Institute for WE ACT for Environmental Justice, she worked to implement an environmental justice perspective in the Obama Climate Action Plan. Also, she worked as an AmeriCorps Green Schools Coordinator with Detroit Public Schools and Ecoworks. In that position, she helped develop communication strategies, energy efficiency projects on energy, resource management, and nutrition, and manage utility bills to help improve student achievement, lower district costs and improve the health of the district.

As a Human and Civil Rights Activist, she has served as the 1st Vice President NAACP Youth and College Division in Michigan and an Environmental and Climate Justice Youth Ambassador for the National Headquarters; in the past, she also served as an Executive Committee member of the Sierra Club Michigan Chapter.

Rev. Dr. Dorthea Enrique identifies as a Pan-African Indigenous Woman, a loving Mother of Two girls Ally & Angel, and the dedicated Life Partner of her music producer Savior Monroe. Her environmental community memberships and involvement exist in many local, regional, and national organizations, such as the Sierra Club, the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program, Mom's Clean Air Force, MomsRising Together, and The C2C Fellows Network at the Bard Center for Environmental Policy. Her hobbies include writing personal development books and affirmation music about spirituality, divine feminity, just transition & eco-womanism, and holistic healing.

Jessica Guadalupe Tovar is an Energy Democracy Organizer with the Local Clean Energy Alliance, based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She grew up in housing projects near an industrial pollution corridor in East Los Angeles. The experience of cancer in her family led her to focus on preventing and reducing local industrial pollution and to advocate for policies to protect vulnerable communities. Jessica has worked for 20 years as an environmental justice and climate organizer in a variety of urban, rural, and indigenous communities throughout California and Arizona.

Jessica started as a youth with the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative in 2003, working with organizations across the U.S. on issues of climate justice. Since then she has battled various polluting corporations; PG&E’s gas fired power plant in Bayview Hunterspoint, the Richmond Chevron Oil Refinery and many others. She currently promotes equity in clean energy as the coordinator of the East Bay Clean Power Alliance, which has advanced local clean energy solutions by establishing a Community Choice program; East Bay Community Energy (EBCE) is now powering over 1.6 million people in Alameda County and City of Tracy. The Local Clean Energy Alliance’s advocacy is to hold EBCE accountable to jumpstarting a just transition to true clean energy with a Local Development Business Plan--A Green New Deal for Alameda County with net revenues from East Bay Community Energy. Since June 2019, EBCE has provided millions towards advancing clean energy programs and projects to bring Clean Power to the People!

Valencia Gunder or as most recognize her, “Vee”, is an enthusiastic, self-motivated and driven community leader who has been branded as the "Modern Day Fannie Lou Hamer”. A Miami native, Valencia is the Founder/Co- Director of the Smile Trust, Co-Founder of The Black Collective and National Co- Lead of the Black Hive at The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL’s Climate Justice Collective) Valencia assists many community based organizations with a variety of strategies around Florida to ensure that the community feels the impact in a positive way. Though she is not an environmentalist, Valencia has led conversations around climate awareness in many communities on topics including sea level rise, emergency preparedness, and climate gentrification, food safety and housing and has spoken around the country on her work around Climate Gentrification. She is the founder of the Community Emergency Outreach Center that assisted over 23,000 residents after Hurricane Irma. After Hurricane Dorian, Valencia and the Smile Team expanded their emergency response outreach to the global south with their "One Bahamas" programs, providing over 3 tons of supplies to the islands of Bahamas in less than a week, building coalition with local Bahamian Orgs and assisting Bahamians that were seeking refuge in South Florida. And now has scaled to 4 countries and 8 U.S. States. After experiencing the tragedy of losing her goddaughter Jada Page to gun violence, Valencia worked through her grief and pulled her community together to fight against the status quo, receiving the Soros Justice Fellowship, Valencia created a Rapid Response toolkit "LIFT" to help decrease Police and inter community violence in Miami. Valencia, who is a returning citizen, was a leader on passing Amendment 4 in Florida which restored the right to vote to 1.4 million Floridians and works alongside over 180 Formerly incarcerated Black Women (Dignity Florida) to change legislation to assist with de-carcerating women in the State of Florida. Valencia has been a faithful advocate fighting alongside the residents of her community to ensure they receive fair and just treatment. She believes that “No of us are free until aloof us are free”

Chantal is a Climate Programs Manager at Second Nature. In this deeply collaborative role, Chantal manages intersectional climate action initiatives focused on resilience planning, cross-sector climate action, and climate justice and equity. She also manages the Acceleration Fund, a mini grant program that fosters campus-community collaboration. Chantal enjoys working closely with Second Nature’s member institutions to understand challenges, identify opportunities, and develop tools and resources to advance their shared climate action goals.

An urban and environmental planner by training, Chantal’s work has broadly focused on strategic planning, cross-sector partnerships, adaptive program management, climate resilience, environmental justice, and community engagement, with experience working on projects related to strategic plan development, organizational trust, coastal resilience, water sustainability, and diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ). Prior to joining the team at Second Nature, Chantal worked for the Chesapeake Research Consortium and the U.S. EPA Chesapeake Bay Program Office’s Enhance Partnership, Leadership, and Management Goal Implementation Team. She also has experience working with students in higher education as a Program Coordinator and short course instructor at the University of Virginia.

When Chantal is not working on advancing climate action in, and through, higher education, she enjoys cooking fresh and wholesome vegetarian meals, listening to podcasts, spending time outdoors, and seeking out the world’s best cup of coffee.

Irene Ruiz is the daughter of Mexican Immigrants, she grew up in Hazelton, Id where she also worked in the fields with her family. She received her Master of Arts in Hispanic Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago and her Bachelor of Arts in Spanish from Boise State University. Irene currently lives in Boise, Id. Irene has been an activist for over 20 years. She has organized around immigrant rights and environmental justice. Irene has organized in Idaho, Chicago, and Washington, DC. She currently works for the Idaho Organization of Resource Councils as a Bilingual Community Organizer. She is a board member for the ACLU of Idaho, Indigenous Idaho Alliance, and the Stay at School Quinceñera program. Irene also organizes a coalition of 11 organizations to support the Latinx, immigrant, and farm working community called the Idaho Immigrant Resource Alliance who that started in 2020 to support those communities during COVID-19 pandemic and i climate justice issues. She enjoys to read, spend time with family and friends and travel.

Dr. Na’Taki Osborne Jelks co-founded the West Atlanta Watershed Alliance (WAWA), a community-based environmental justice organization that works to grow a cleaner, greener, healthier, more sustainable West Atlanta through authentic community engagement, organizing, education, watershed stewardship, community science, and participatory research. In her role with WAWA, Jelks leads efforts to advance environmental and climate justice, community-centered watershed restoration, equitable development, health equity, and resilience on Atlanta’s Westside. She also oversees the organization’s efforts to provide equitable access to place-based, culturally relevant environmental education and connections to nature for all Atlanta residents regardless of race, class, or geography.

When she is not revitalizing toxic spaces into healthy places, Dr. Jelks teaches and trains the next generation of environmental leaders as an Assistant Professor in the Environmental and Health Sciences Program at Spelman College. She investigates environmental health disparities; green gentrification and health; climate change impacts on vulnerable populations, and connections between urban watersheds, pollution, the built environment, and health. Jelks also champions community-academic partnerships in which she trains students and West Atlanta residents to be co-researchers who monitor local environmental condition---helping them produce actionable data to press for solutions to community environmental health challenges. A nationally recognized leader in engaging urban communities and youth of color in environmental stewardship, Jelks also co-founded the National Wildlife Federation’s Atlanta Earth Tomorrow Program, a youth environmental leadership and environmental justice program, in 2001 and served as the program director from 2005 until 2017.

Since 2018 she has served on the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC), a federal advisory committee that works to integrate environmental justice into the Environmental Protection Agency’s programs, policies and activities as well as to improve the environment or public health in communities disproportionately burdened by environmental harms and risks. Jelks is currently Co-chair of the NEJAC.

Jelks studied Chemistry and Civil and Environmental Engineering at Spelman College and the Georgia Institute of Technology respectively before earning a Master of Environmental and Occupational Health degree at Emory University and a Ph.D. in Public Health at Georgia State University.

In 2021, Dr. Jelks was named an Ecological Society of America Excellence in Ecology Scholar and was selected as one of six national winners of Rachel’s Network Catalyst Award for women of color environmental leaders. In 2022, Dr. Jelks was selected as a Harvard University/JBP Foundation Environmental Health Scholar.