Board of Directors
Judith Browne Dianis, Executive Director of Advancement Project
Vice Chair
Judith Browne Dianis is the Executive Director of Advancement Project, a Washington, D.C.-based multi-racial civil rights organization known for its pioneering, grassroots work to end the school-to-prison pipeline. Most recently, Advancement Project has challenged the growing trend of public-school closures and privatization in communities of color. Dianis joined the Advancement Project at its inception in 1999 after serving as the Managing Attorney in the Washington, D.C. office of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund. A graduate of Columbia University School of Law, she was awarded a Skadden Fellowship, served as a Tobias Simon Eminent Scholar at Florida State University Law School, and as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center.
Katie Eder, Founder and Executive Director, Future Coalition
Katie Eder (she/they) is an organizer, student, and climate justice advocate. Katie is a co-founder and Strategy Director of Future Coalition. Built by youth activists for youth activists, Future Coalition is a national network and community for youth-led organizations and youth activists across the country. Future Coalition works collaboratively to lower the accessibility barrier to youth organizing by providing young people with the resources, tools, and support they need to create change in their communities. Future Coalition has provided significant infrastructure and support to the youth-led climate justice movement over the last four years. Originally from unceded Kickapoo, Potawatomi, and Menominee land in Milwaukee, WI, Katie is now a Junior at Stanford University concentrating in transforming the American Political System.
Arturo Garcia-Costas, Program Officer, New York Community Trust
Arturo Garcia-Costas brings nearly 30 years of experience as an environmental professional and activist to Friends of the Earth, including working for both the legislative and executive branches of the federal government. He serves as the Senior Program Officer for the Local, National, and International Environment at The New York Community Trust, where he manages a program focused on climate change, environmental health, and biodiversity conservation. He has worked for the Environmental Protection Agency, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Congressman Jerry Nadler. In the early 2000s, Arturo also managed a United Nations Development Programme initiative to help developing nations implement the 1994 Earth Summit treaties. Arturo earned a B.A. from the City University of New York, a J.D. from Stanford Law School, and an M.S. in Urban Policy and Leadership from Hunter College.
Jeffrey Glueck, Founder & CEO, Salvo Health
Chair
Jeff is a longtime digital entrepreneur and environmental activist. Currently, he is CEO of Salvo Health, a startup aiming to improve access to better health care and make it more affordable for millions of Americans living with chronic health conditions. Previously, he helped found Hawkfish, a digital tech and data platform for progressive campaigns and causes, based in New York City. In 2019 he was named to Business Insider’s list of leaders inventing the future of marketing technology.
Jeff served for five years as CEO at Foursquare, the location technology company, and as CEO for Skyfire Labs in Silicon Valley, which built technology to make mobile networks more efficient around the world. He previously served as Chief Marketing Officer for Travelocity, where he launched the Travelocity Roaming Gnome, and created “Travel for Good” including the first carbon offset program of any online travel agency. He has held positions advising Latin American governments on sustainable development and as a White House Fellow in the Clinton administration working on green trade and renewable energy financing. He is married and lives in New York, and on the weekends enjoys hiking and spending time with his three young children.
Eva Hernandez
Eva has worked in the environmental movement for over two decades at the local, national and international levels. Most recently, Eva served as the Managing Director of the Sierra Club where she worked for over a decade. Currently, Eva works with The Management Center – helping social justice leaders across the US build and run equitable, sustainable, and results driven organizations.
In addition to Friends of the Earth US, Eva serves on the Boards of GAVA (Go Austin/Vamos Austin) and Mothers out Front. She believes in the power of people and communities and strives to put her core values of justice and integrity into practice every day.
To recharge, Eva reconnects with nature & community in the Texas Hill Country or in a swimming hole near Austin, TX, where she’s based with her family.
Dawn Knickerbocker, Vice President, National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) Foundation
Dawn Knickerbocker (she/her/Kwe) is Anishinaabe and serves as Vice President of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) Foundation. An enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe from the Ottertail Pillager Band and a citizen of the White Earth Nation, Dawn brings over two decades of experience in philanthropy, grantmaking, and advocacy. Her work prioritizes equity, sovereignty, and creating funding systems that lower barriers while fostering transparency and sustainability. Dawn has led national initiatives supporting Native mental health, public arts, and grassroots movements, designing programs that empower communities to achieve self-determined goals.
A Martin Luther King Drum Major for Justice Award recipient, she is also a writer, poet, and speaker dedicated to justice, solidarity and freedom dreaming. Dawn’s leadership reflects her commitment to fostering partnerships and ensuring Tribal Nations thrive on their own terms.
Bethany Maki, Executive Director, Progressive Multiplier Fund and Action Funds; CEO, Multiplier Effect
Bethany is a skilled nonprofit strategist and team facilitator with a passion for working at intersections – where people-powered movements create systemic change, where understanding incites activation, and where people, process and technology working in supported harmony bring progressive power-building strategies to life. As a grant maker, consultant and in-house at some of the country’s most impactful nonprofit organizations, she has spent 23 years partnering with nonprofit groups to grow in scale and self-determination through independent revenue generation. Bethany currently serves as the Executive Director of Progressive Multiplier Fund and Action Fund and CEO of Multiplier Effect, whose collective purpose is helping progressive movement groups achieve sustainability and scalability by strengthening their catalytic revenue generation capacities and diversifying their financial capital.
Dr. Adi G. Martínez-Román, Co-Director and Co-Founder, Right to Democracy
Dr. Adi G. Martínez-Román is Co-Director and Co-Founder of Right to Democracy, a non-profit that is building a movement to confront and dismantle the undemocratic colonial framework impacting people in U.S. territories. She has nearly two decades of experience working in community legal aid and empowerment.
She is the President of the Board of Director of the Resiliency Law Center (RLC) and the Founder Director of the non-profit organization, FURIA, Inc., which focuses on empowering community leaders through participatory advocacy. Also, this year she was named by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate of Puerto Rico as commissioner to the Puerto Rico Civil Rights Commission.
Adi began working as an advocate for climate resiliency in 2017 as the Executive Director of the Access to Justice Fund Foundation, where she led efforts to increase access to civil legal services for the impoverished, then as Senior Policy Analyst in Oxfam American, and as Director of the RLC.
Before her work in the resiliency sector, Adi served as the Assistant Dean of Students at the University of Puerto Rico Law School for seven years, where she also taught courses on the Legal Profession, Law and Poverty, and Law and Social Change. She has been part of several boards, including the Board of Directors of Puerto Rico Legal Services Corporation, where she held the position of President for a year and a half.
She holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy and International Affairs, a law degree from the University of Puerto Rico, and both a Masters of Law and Doctorate of Jurisprudence from the Instituto Bartolomé de las Casas at Universidad Carlos III of Madrid (Spain).
Nancy Metayer Brown, Senior Manager, Energy, and Equity Specialist
Nancy Metayer is an environmentalist and advocate. She is a graduate of Florida A&M University, where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree, and Johns Hopkins University where she earned her Master of Health Science degree. Nancy has over a decade of public service experience, with a record of championing community resilience and building pipelines for access and equity while leveraging the power of data and amplifying the importance of coalition-building.
Nancy has worked across multiple government agencies and nonprofit organizations – both domestically and internationally. She has brought long-term strategic expertise to programs seeking to improve environmental and public health conditions across vulnerable communities. She has worked extensively in response to the impacts of climate change and its intersectionality. In 2020 she made history by becoming the first Scientist, first Black Woman, and first Haitian-American elected to the Coral Springs Commission.
Stephen Nemeth, Founder and CEO, Rhino Films
Stephen Nemeth formed and heads up Rhino Films, the independent film company that originated as a division of iconoclastic record label Rhino Records. He has produced and executive produced dozens of films including, “The Sessions, C.O.G.,” “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” “Why Do Fools Fall in Love,” and recently released, “Fear and Loathing in Aspen.”
Nemeth’s documentary credits include, “Dogtown and Z Boys,” “Wardance,” “Fuel,” “Flow,” “Climate Refugees,” “Good Fortune,” “Higher Love,” “Kiss the Ground,” and “137 Shots.” In addition to Friends of the Earth, Nemeth has served on the boards of Children Uniting Nations, the Wildlife Eco station, the Woodstock Film Festival, Wheels for Humanity, Shine on Sierra Leone, and OneVoice. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and a graduate of UCLA.
Chris Paine, Writer/Director
Chris Paine is an environmentalist and filmmaker best known for his documentaries “Who Killed the Electric Car?,” “Revenge of the Electric Car,” and “Do You Trust this Computer?” about artificial intelligence. He also executive produced “Bikes vs Cars,” Charge,” “Faster,” and “No Maps for These Territories” among other projects. Environmental work includes campaigns against California freeway expansion, fracking, nuclear weapons testing, and corporate disinformation in the wake of oil spills. Chris is a graduate of Colgate University in New York and a native Californian. He is an avid mountain biker swimmer and advocate for renewable power.
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright, Policy Fellow, The Black Hive @ Movement for Black Lives; Spokesperson, Black Alliance for Peace
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright serves as a Policy Fellow with The Black Hive @ Movement for Black Lives and a spokesperson for the Black Alliance for Peace. With 15 years of professional experience, he uses his organizing, policy, and outreach experience to advocate for a variety of social justice campaigns including climate justice, affordable/accessible health care, and civil rights for LGBTQIA persons. In 2012, Anthony led the effort to remove transgender health exclusions from all insurance policies in Colorado. He advises lawmakers at all levels of government and has served as a policy advisor for Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Jay Inslee during their respective presidential runs in 2016 and 2020. Anthony also advises and collaborates regularly with Proceso De Comuninades Negras (PCN) the Political/Organizing Party of Colombian Vice President Francia Marquez as well as MANE’, an Ecuadorian-based Afro descendant political and organizing formation. He’s blessed to be the father of his energetic, entertaining, and VERY loquacious son, Zahir Cielo (aka “Bean”) and has no preference for 5 or 4-string bass guitars as long as they groove.
Soroush Richard Shehabi
Soroush has experience in finance, law, business, politics, and media, with expertise in energy/environmental security, foreign policy, and political organizing. Soroush served 10 years as Vice Chairman of Friends of the Earth and serves on the Legal, Communications, Program, Audit, and Executive Committees. He owns and runs an international media services company and publishes a magazine in Washington, DC. Soroush enforced environmental laws in the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he successfully litigated numerous complex multi-party cases in federal courts. He also worked in corporate finance at Salomon Brothers, focusing on pollution control and emerging clean energy technologies. Soroush has worked on three presidential campaigns, notably for Gen. Wesley Clark as Senior Policy Advisor for energy and environment and John Kerry as Political Constituency Director in Pennsylvania. He obtained a J.D. from the University of California and an A.B. from Harvard University with an honors thesis on global environmental security.
Rae Richman, Social Impact Advisor
Secretary
Rae is a cross-sector philanthropic leader with twenty-five years of experience providing strategic consulting and facilitation services to organizations of all sizes, including family and corporate foundations, leading nonprofits and a wide range of Fortune 500 corporations. She currently works at the intersection of psychedelics and philanthropy with corporate and individual donors. Previously Rae was the first Head of Global Citizenship at Airbnb and a Vice President at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA).
Rae holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia and Master’s in Business degrees from Columbia University and the University of California, Berkeley, through the Berkeley/Columbia Executive MBA program. Passionate about facilitating community-based transformative experiences, Rae was a founding Board Member and Strategic Advisor for Burning Man Project.
Mathy Stanislaus, Esq., Vice-Provost and Executive Director, The Environmental Collaboratory, Drexel University
Mathy (Vathanaraj) Stanislaus, Esq., passion is to support systematically burdened communities to drive climate and environmental justice solutions.
Mathy currently serves as the Vice-Provost and Executive Director of The Environmental Collaboratory which advancing climate and environmental justice priorities through partnerships with community based organizations.
Mathy led the establishment of a multi-stakeholder platform – the Global Battery Alliance – at the World Economic Forum to address child labor/forced labor and GHG impacts.
Mathy served in Obama Administration as the Senate-confirmed Assistant Administrator for the U.S. EPA Office of Land & Emergency Management.
Mathy was the founding co-director of the New Partners for Community Revitalization in NYC and chair of the Board of the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance.
Mathy was born in Sri Lanka and his family fled the ethnic discrimination to emigrate for the opportunities of the US. He has a Law Degree from Chicago-Kent Law School and Chemical Engineering Degree from City College of NY. He has practiced environmental law in the public and private sectors.
Mathy enjoys gardening, golf and beach vacations with his wife Suganthy.
Marc Zionts, CEO Synacor (Cloud ID & Zimbra), PE Advisor and Athlete
Treasurer
Marc Zionts, an executive, athlete, and environmentalist, has been successfully leading companies since 1987. Zionts is currently the CEO of Synacor, a Centre Lane Partners portfolio company. Zionts is also an Independent Board Director for TEOCO and an advisor to Precision Nutrition.
Zionts earned his bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in Management from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Zionts has been happily married for over 31 years and has four kind adult children. Besides enjoying spending time with his family, Zionts is an avid outdoorsman and an accomplished criterium, cyclocross, and velodrome bicycle racer.
Arlie Schardt, Founder and Director, Environmental Media Service
Chair Emeritus (deceased)
Arlie Schardt was Chair Emeritus of Friends of the Earth. He covered the 1960s civil rights campaigns for TIME magazine, was a staff writer for Sports Illustrated, Associate Legislative Director for the ACLU (where he co-chaired a national campaign to impeach Richard Nixon, one year before Watergate), executive director of the Environmental Defense Fund, News Media editor at Newsweek, chief of the News Service at Sports Illustrated, National Press Secretary for Al Gore’s 1987-88 presidential campaign, and editor of Foundation News magazine. He has written features and op-ed pieces in numerous national magazines and leading dailies. He has also contributed to three books on politics and national issues, including “Investigating the FBI.” His book, “Amnesty, the Unsettled Question of Vietnam,” went through three printings and was a factor in President Jimmy Carter’s granting amnesty to hundreds of thousands of Vietnam war resisters.