People

Staff

Doyle Canning, Co-director

Doyle is a strategist, trainer, and organizer with a deep commitment to building 21st century social movements for ecological justice. She came to thesmartMeme collective in 2003 after studying critical pedagogy, working as a grassroots organizer, and being banned from Australia for her rabble rousing. As co-director at smartMeme, Doyle serves social movements a facilitator, messaging coach, and campaign consultant. She is a contributor to Letters from Young Activists (Nation Books, 2005), and has served on the advisory funding panel of the Haymarket People's Fund, an antiracist social change foundation for New England. Doyle practices yoga, sings, and celebrates life. She lives in Boston.

Patrick Reinsborough, Co-director

Patrick Reinsborough has been involved in campaigns for peace, the environment, and social justice for over twenty years. He co-founded the smartMeme strategy & training project in 2002 to explore the intersection of movement building, imagination and strategies to shift cultural narratives. Patrick is a campaigner, communications strategist, facilitator, and creative provocateur who has partnered with hundreds of high impact organizations to frame issues, strengthen alliances and win critical campaigns. He was previously the Organizing Director of the Rainforest Action Network where he mobilized thousands of people to confront corporations who destroy the environment and violate human rights. Patrick was also a prominent organizer, strategist and media spokesperson for the U.S. wings of the global justice and anti-war movements including helping to organize mass direct actions that shutdown the Seattle World Trade Organization meeting in 1999 and protest the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. He lives with his family in the SF Bay area.

Bernice Julie Shaw, Operations Manager

Bernice Julie Shaw was born and raised in sunny Los Angeles, and recently transitioned into her role as Operations Manager at smartMeme, following on her prior work in scaling and building small businesses. She feels incredibly privileged to provide support for smartMeme’s thriving movement-support training and strategy network. Bernice's political work evolved from her discovery of the role roots music played in anti-oppression liberation movements; she is a deeply committed ally in the Free Palestine movement. Bernice loves jazz, technology, and chinese food, and is even more delighted when those things happen to intersect somehow. Bernice is happily based in the Bay Area.

Danielle Connor, Program Manager

Danielle works as an event organizer/producer, media maker, and communications specialist. Her content creation portfolio ranges from print and web publications to documentary film and digital media. As Director of Communications for the hit documentary film Play in the Gray, Danielle helped the project gain international recognition through audience building and public relations. Co-directing the film company Rough Mountain, Danielle produced brand extension video stories for marketing and communication campaigns. She is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College where she studied creative non-fiction and just community development. She then completed the graduate program in storytelling at Salt Institute for Documentary Studies.

Nijmie Dzurinko, Training Program Coordinator

Nijmie wakes up everyday thinking about her role in the process of bringing about liberation for the world's 7 billion people and the planet itself. That's a lot to think about, so she offsets it by cooking some really amazing meals and posting pictures of them on Facebook. A movement strategist, organizer, and communicator, Nijmie co-founded the Media Mobilizing Project in 2005, served as the Executive Director of the Philadelphia Student Union from 2006-2012, and is currently working to launch Put People First PA, a statewide people power movement uniting poor and working people across the state of Pennsylvania.

Associates

Gopal Dayaneni

Gopal has been involved in fighting for social, economic, environmental and racial justice through organizing & campaigning, teaching, writing, speaking and direct action since the late 1980's. He currently serves on the staff of the Movement Generation Justice and Ecology Project, which works to bring a strategic understanding of ecological crisis and transition to racial and economic justice organizers. Gopal also serves on the board of the International Accountability Project, is an active trainer and organizer with the Ruckus Society and a member of the Progressive Communicators Network. He works at the intersections of war, corporate globalization, global ecology, environmental justice and democracy. Gopal is also an elementary and early childhood educator, working formerly as a teacher and as the co-director of the Tenderloin Childcare Center, a community based childcare center supporting children and families forced into homelessness. Currently, Gopal stays home with his daughter, Ila Sophia and son, Kavi Samaka Orion, and crams political projects in on the side.

Kiara Nagel

Kiara delivers training, consulting, and coordination services to foster collaboration and support equitable community development. She is an associate at the Design Studio for Social Intervention, and facilitates strategy work with the Interaction Institute for Social Change. Her work stems from an exploration of the historical patterns of development and forced displacement and she works to provide space for those most directly affected to be engaged in decision-making about how their places can be shaped, understood and represented. Current projects include a capacity building toolkit for NeighborWorks USA to support smarter green initiatives among national members. She serves as faculty at both the International Youth Initiative Program in Sweden and University of Orange, a free people’s university. Kiara holds a BA from Hampshire College and a Masters in City Planning from the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Maria Elena Letona

Ms. Letona is a native of El Salvador. She attended Oberlin College-Conservatory where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in piano performance and music history, and the University of Massachusetts Boston where she earned a Master’s and a Ph.D. in public policy. Ms. Letona has close to 25 years of experience working in and serving the non-profit sector. For 10 years, Ms. Letona directed Centro Presente, a member-driven, statewide organization dedicated to achieving the self-determination of the Central and Latin American immigrant community of Massachusetts. Ms. Letona has received numerous awards including the 2005 Barr Fellowship and the 2006 “Drylongso Award” which recognizes “outstanding individuals for their work challenging structural racism and working to build a just society”. Currently, Ms. Letona is an organizational development consultant, facilitator and trainer.

sujin lee

Through her coaching and consulting, sujin helps social justice organizations and alliances be strategic, innovative, and build strong relationships. sujin uses team coaching to help groups increase their effectiveness, realize their collective vision for change, and cultivate shared leadership. In executive coaching, she uses her strong intuition and non-judgemental approach to help individuals connect to their values, passion, and creativity. sujin has experience working with service, organizing, and policy advocacy organizations in various fields, including education, environmental justice, economic justice, domestic violence, reproductive health and justice, LGBTQ organizing, gender justice, youth organizing, and civic engagement. For almost 20 years, sujin has worked for social justice and healthy communities as an organizer, facilitator and program director in Los Angeles, Oakland, and internationally. As a former Community Fellow at Tides Foundation, she coordinated economic & reproductive justice funding initiatives. More information about sujin can be found on her website: www.sujingetsit.com.

Board

Alexa Bradley

Alexa is a Program Director at On The Commons. As part of the organization’s leadership team she works to support community solutions rooted in the commons principles of collective stewardship and equitable use of our resources. She has worked as an organizer, facilitator, trainer and popular educator for over 25 years, with a particular focus on linking community organizing to broader social movement strategies. Previously, she worked as a senior partner at the Grassroots Policy Project providing tools and training to build the resilience, vision and power of community change organizations throughout the US. She was an organizer and Co-Director of the Minnesota Alliance for Progressive Action, a groundbreaking labor-community coalition. She is also the recipient of a Bush Leadership Fellowship to research participatory processes and other transformational tools in organizing and leadership development. Her current work includes a focus on the Great Lakes Commons Initiative, an effort that links the goals of ecological stewardship, social equity and deepened democracy. Alexa just moved to Brooklyn, NY with her partner where she intends to enjoy exploring the city, yoga, performance and gardening.

Celia Alario

Celia is a media strategist, grassroots communications consultant, media skills trainer and facilitator. She works at the intersection of campaigning, grassroots organizing and marketing to support organizations, film makers, artists and authors in engaging key audiences for their stories, tapping both traditional media/marketing and new media/web 2.0 tools to create meaningful opportunities for engagement. She’s helped spin groundbreaking social action campaigns, trained thousands of spokespeople and placed hundreds of stories about critical social justice and environmental issues in prominent national and international media outlets over the last 18 years. Alario was a Producer on Michael Moore’s Emmy-nominated television show ‘The Awful Truth’ and served as an Outreach Producer to create publicity and audience engagement campaigns for a number of award-winning documentaries and television programs, including The Greater Good, On Coal River, Sir! No Sir! and Building Green (PBS). Alario has also worked in community radio journalism and currently produces public affairs programming for KZMU, the Pacifica affiliate in Moab UT. She got her radio start in the News Apprenticeship Program at Pacifica Radio’s KPFA in Berkeley, California, where she also co-produced and co-hosted ‘Terra Verde’ and ‘Flashpoints’. Alario serves on the Board of Directors of the Independent Television Service (ITVS) and the Advisory Boards of BEN (Business Ethics Network) and IVAW (Iraq Veterans Against the War).

Diana Pei Wu

Diana has worked as a researcher, organizer, activist, media maker, communications and popular educator on housing, gentrification, immigrant rights, youth organizing, environmental justice and climate justice locally and nationally sporadically since 1989, and deeply since 2002. Diana also holds a PhD in Society and Environment from the University of California, Berkeley, is fluent in Spanish and English, and also speaks Mandarin Chinese, French and Portuguese. Her current day job is Assistant Professor, Urban Communities and Environment, at Antioch University Los Angeles.

Gilda Haas

Gilda is an educator, organizer, and urban planner, who in past lives has helped start a credit union, a land trust, and numerous organizations (such as SAJE and the Right to the City alliance) — all towards building a more fair and democratic economy. She teaches in UCLA’s Urban Planning Department where she also started their Community Scholars Program , and divides her time between consulting, coaching, and Dr. Pop, her alter ego website. Dr. Pop is a popular education website that helps people become better story-tellers and strategic thinkers. Dr. Pop focuses on how the economy , urban planning, and democracy work, provide living examples of how they can work better, and offer tools for organizers, educators, students, activists and all manner of curious people who are interested in change. Gilda lives in Los Angeles and is married to mystery writer Gary Phillips, and has two adult children, Miles and Chelsea.

Ilyse Hogue

Ilyse is a social change practitioner, media consumer and analyst, and on-line engagement expert. She's worked for and with a multitude of progressive organizations, most recently serving as Senior Adviser to Media Matters for America. There, she focused on advocacy programs to undercut the power of right-wing media. From 2006- 2011, Ilyse served as Director of Political Advocacy and Communications for MoveOn.org. In her over five years at MoveOn, she was responsible for shaping political strategy and developing communications initiatives to give MoveOn's five million members a voice in Washington. An expert in both electoral and advocacy campaigns, she has mobilized MoveOn members and worked closely with leaders in Congress and the White House to advocate for progressive legislation on financial regulatory reform and health care. In these capacities, she has served as a spokesperson to the media, frequently analyzing breaking news on both televisions and in print. Ilyse serves on the board of Rebuild the Dream, Oil Change International, Story of Stuff, and Public Campaign. Ilyse holds an M.S. in Resource Ecology Management from the University of Michigan where she studied the impact of resource constraints in politics and culture. Her BA is from Vassar College. *Ilyse is a co-founder of the smartMeme Strategy and Training Project.

Jihan Gearon

Jihan is Diné (Navajo) and African American. Jihan grew up in Fort Defiance, located on the eastern part of the Navajo reservation in Arizona. She is a graduate of Stanford University with a Bachelors of Science in Earth Systems and a focus in Energy Science and Technology. In her current role as Executive Director of the Black Mesa Water Coalition(BMWC), Jihan leads her staff and network in building a just transition away from the fossil fuel based economy of the Navajo Nation and towards a green economy that uplifts the traditional economy and honors the culture of the Navajo people. Her experience and expertise includes work on Indigenous Peoples rights, environmental justice, climate justice, and the impacts of energy development, climate change, and related policies on Indigenous Peoples and people of color. Jihan is based out of Flagstaff, Arizona.

Myla Ablog

Myla is the Ecologist at Heron's Head Park, a 24 acre city park in San Francisco with areas restored with native plants and 8 acres of restored tidal wetland surrounded by a neighborhood with a long toxic legacy. She works for Literacy for Environmental Justice, a small grassroots non-profit whose mission is to empower local youth and serve the environmentally justice affected communities of Bayview Hunters Point and Southeast San Francisco. She is currently a candidate for a Masters in Environmental Management from University of San Francisco. Myla stays involved in the local Asian Pacific Islander arts community through volunteering and advocacy. In her spare time, she likes to throw craft parties and work on knitting projects.

Shahid Buttar

Shahid is a civil rights lawyer, hip-hop & electronica MC, independent columnist, non-profit leader, grassroots community organizer, singer and poet. Professionally, he leads the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC) as Executive Director. He also serves as co-Director of the Rule of Law Institute, a U.S.-based organization supporting international efforts to defend or restore the rule of law. Previously director of a program to combat racial and religious profiling by federal authorities, an associate director of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, and a litigator in private practice with a prolific public interest docket, Buttar has long advocated in defense of the Constitution. He graduated from Stanford Law School in 2003, where he served as executive editor of the Stanford Environmental Law Journal and as Professor Lawrence Lessig’s teaching assistant for Constitutional Law. As a musician, Shahid has performed around the world for audiences as large as 50,000, and released his debut CD, Get Outta Your Chair, in 2008.

Shana McDavis-Conway

Shana is the Co-Director of Emerson National Fellows Program at Congressional Hunger Center - a leadership development fellowship for young people interested in hunger and anti-poverty work. She has been a committed food justice and human rights activist for 10 years, working with organizations like D.C. Hunger Solutions, Hartford Food System, the Community Food Security Coalition, the National Family Farm Coalition, Sacramento Gay and Lesbian Center, Sacramento Hunger Commission, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Shana is a founding board member of smartMeme's Strategy Training and Organizing Resources for Youth (STORY) program, an alumna of the Emerson Program, and a former AmeriCorps*VISTA.

Trina Jackson

Trina is a social justice activist and organizer based in Boston. She has facilitated numerous trainings and workshops on racial justice, anti-oppression organizing, and reproductive justice for women of color. She works as an organizational development consultant to social justice nonprofits. Previously, she served as an advisory board member of the Mass CEDAW Project, a founding member of Boston Incite! Women of Color Against Violence, Boston Women of Color Coalition for Reproductive Justice, and the Board Chair at Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE), which works to achieve environmental justice for low income communities of color. Trina is interested in African American women's relationship with the natural environment. She lives in Jamaica Plain, enjoys nature photography, yoga, and talking daily walks around Jamaica Pond in her neighborhood.

Yvonne Yen Liu

Yvonne is a senior researcher at the Applied Research Center, a racial justice think and action tank, which publishes Colorlines.com. In addition to contributing regularly to Colorlines.com, Yvonne has been published in Yes! Magazine, In These Times, and Alternet. She serves on the advisory committee for the Food Chain Workers Alliance and is involved with a chapter of Bring the Ruckus. Yvonne has a BA in cultural anthropology from Columbia University and a MA degree in sociology from the CUNY Graduate Center, where she pursued a PhD. Yvonne considers herself part of the post-Seattle generation, global justice activists both influenced and critical of the anti-WTO mobilizations. She cofounded NYC Summer, a youth of color organizing school, and served on the boards of WBAI 99.5 FM and Seven Stories Institute. A native New Yorker, Yvonne is now based out of Oakland,California and her family lives in Shanghai, China.