Forum Network

Before joining the GreenRoots team, Sarah was a community organizer in Somerville focusing on affordable housing and displacement issues. She is passionate about language access and multilingual justice, and came to GreenRoots first as a Spanish interpreter through the Boston Interpreters' Collective, a community-based group that offers interpretation as well as trainings grounded in popular education. Through this work, Sarah has seen the connections between all of these systemic issues, and is excited to be working with GreenRoots around the intersection of public transportation/mobility issues and immigrants' rights.

Julia Ehrman is a program associate at TransitCenter. A foundation that puts transit in the center of cities and supports advocacy, research and leadership development for transit reform across the U.S.

Nicole Chandler works for Age Friendly Boston, a part of the City of Boston Elderly Commission.

Matthew Segal has been legal director of the ACLU of Massachusetts since 2012. Leading a team of civil rights lawyers, he has litigated cases that halted the Muslim ban, overturned 21,587 wrongful convictions and protected cell phone location data. Previously, as an assistant federal defender, Matt argued a case that led to hundreds of exonerations and re-sentencings.

Julia Preston is a Contributing Writer at The Marshall Project, a non-profit journalism organization focusing on criminal justice and immigration. She previously worked at The New York Times as the national correspondent covering immigration. Ms. Preston was a member of The New York Times staff that won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for reporting on international affairs, for a series that revealed the corrosive effects of drug corruption in Mexico.

Jessica Vaughan serves as Director of Policy Studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, DC-based immigration research institute. As an expert on immigration policy and operations, she educates policymakers and agencies on immigration topics. She has been widely published in the media, and has testified before Congress several times.

Rodrigo Saavedra is the Memory Program Director at the Ayni Institute, which focuses on creating a more reciprocal world through the development of training and research for social movements and preserving the wisdom and traditions of indigenous communities from around the world. A DACA recipient and community organizer, Rodrigo has appeared in major nationwide news outlets. Rodrigo Saavedra has worked at the Ayni Institute since 2016. His drive to support the Memory Program stems from his journey of being an immigrant who has been unable to visit his home of Peru since he was four years old. Rodrigo graduated from Clark University where he studied International Relations and was named a LEEP Fellow. For three years he worked in supporting Central American youth with their asylum cases. In 2015, he was one of researchers who contributed to the Joint US China Collaboration on Clean Energy’s environmental report that was presented at the EAT Forum in Stockholm, Sweden. He has worked as a Volunteer Organizer at Movimiento Cosecha assisting in campaigns and assemblies. He was also a featured guest writer on immigration in The Nation Magazine.

Sally Wen Mao is the author of the poetry collection, Mad Honey Symposium. Her work has won a Pushcart Prize and fellowships at Kundiman, George Washington University, and the New York Public Library Cullman Center. Her latest collection, Oculus, explores exile not just as a matter of distance and displacement, but as a migration through time and a reckoning with technology.

Jennifer Tseng is the author of three award-winning poetry collections; a collection of flash fiction, The Passion of Woo and Isolde, a Firecracker Award finalist and winner of an Eric Hoffer Book Award; and a novel, Mayumi and the Sea of Happiness, finalist for the PEN American Center’s Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction and the New England Book Award. Visiting Writer at OSU-Cascades, Tseng lives on Martha’s Vineyard.

**DeRay Mckesson** is a civil rights activist and author focused primarily on issues of innovation, equity and justice. Born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, he graduated from Bowdoin College and holds honorary doctorates from The New School and Maryland Institute College of Art. Mckesson has advocated for issues related to children, youth, and families since he was a teen. As a leading voice in the Black Lives Matter Movement and a co-founder of JoinCampaignZero.org, MappingPoliceViolence.org, OurStates.org and ResistanceManual.org Mckesson has worked to connect individuals with knowledge and tools, and provide citizens and policy makers with commonsense policies to ensure equity. He was named one of the World's Greatest Leaders by Fortune Magazine in 2015 and as one of the 30 Most Influential People On The Internet by Time Magazine in 2016. Follow him on Twitter at [@deray.](https://twitter.com/deray "")

As a Built-to-Suit Leader, Todd works closely with corporate clients, real estate owners and developers to maximize the design value of their new and repositioned buildings. Leading a studio in Gensler’s Boston office focusing on campus and building architecture, Todd is always working under the premise that good design can optimize organizational performance; and he applies his broad experience and expertise across all project phases to deliver complex building projects efficiently and effectively. Exhibiting his strong belief in the importance of teaching and mentorship – both within the firm and across the industry – Todd regularly addresses student groups and speaks at industry events. He holds a Bachelor in Architecture degree from the University of Cincinnati College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning. Bio from Gensler

Lyra Selene was born under a full moon and has never quite managed to wipe the moonlight out of her eyes. When she isn’t dreaming up fantastical cities and brooding landscapes, Lyra enjoys hiking, rainstorms, autumn, and pretending she’s any good at painting. She lives in New England with her husband, in an antique farmhouse that’s probably not haunted. Amber & Dusk is her debut novel.