Eco-Faith from Home Presenters

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Sevim Kalyoncu is the Executive Director of Green Muslims. Growing up in Alabama surrounded by woods and creeks, Sevim discovered at an early age that her most direct connection with God came through nature. To this day, she still finds peace in natural surroundings and holds a deep concern regarding humankind’s responsibility as vicegerent of the earth.

Blair Beasley is the director of climate strategies for the Ray C. Anderson Foundation. Prior to joining the Foundation, Blair worked as a consultant supporting the Georgia Climate Project and Drawdown Georgia. She also spent seven years with the Energy Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, D.C., including as the project’s acting director. Blair holds a B.A. in Journalism and Mass Communications from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Master in Public Policy from Georgetown University.

Hermina Glass-Hill, MHP is a Creation Care steward, scholar activist, writer, and grassroots organizer in Coastal Georgia. As GIPL’s Coastal Engagement Associate, she works with Georgia coastal faith communities to assist with greening their worship practices – whether by coordinating a Power Wise energy audit or assisting with the launch of a Green Team.

Beth Remmes is a public school registrar and sustainability lifestyle consultant. She leads GIPL’s Four Directions Fund program. Beth attends Unity Atlanta and lives in Lilburn, Georgia.

 

 

Sarah Ogletree earned her Master of Divinity, with a concentration in religious leadership and ecology, from Wake Forest University School of Divinity. She has worked at the intersection of faith and environment for nearly a decade, partnering with organizations like GreenFaith, Work that Reconnects, People’s Justice Council, United Methodist Women, and Presbyterians for Earth Care. In her role, Sarah is blessed with the opportunity to support faith communities and people of conscience across the state in their climate and environmental justice initiatives. She is the recipient of the national 2018 Emerging Earth Care Leader Award from Presbyterians for Earth Care and was named a 2019 Re:Generate Fellow by Wake Forest University School of Divinity.

Rev. Dawn Cooley is a Unitarian Universalist minister living in Louisville, KY. She started as the ED of Kentucky IPL in November 2019, just in time to figure a bit out before everything changed with the pandemic.

 

Rev. Scott Hardin-Nieri is a dad, a partner to Becca and cares deeply about people and God’s planet. He is a Spiritual Director, ordained pastor with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and Director of The Creation Care Alliance. Before moving to Western North Carolina, Scott and his family served in the vulnerable cloud forest of Monteverde, Costa Rica. Scott continues to become aware of the deep connections among pollution, poverty, violence, racism, mental health, oppression, climate change and spirituality.

Rev. Dr. Gerald Durley is the former Pastor of the historic Providence Missionary Baptist Church of Atlanta, where he served for nearly 25 years. In 2011, Rev. Durley was inducted into the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame for his contributions during the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

 

Nathaniel Smith serves as Founder and Chief Equity Officer of the Partnership for Southern Equity (PSE), which advances policies and institutional actions that promote racial equity and shared prosperity for all in the growth of metropolitan Atlanta and the American South. Among PSE’s notable accomplishments was the creation the American South’s first equity mapping and framing tool, the Metro Atlanta Equity Atlas. Smith’s advocacy activities were instrumental in the ratification of a 15 percent set aside of Atlanta Beltline Tax Allocation District (TAD) dollars for the development and maintenance of affordable workforce housing within the Atlanta BeltLine Planning Area – $250 million dollars over the 25-year lifespan of the Atlanta BeltLine TAD.

Chandra Farley is an activist at heart and credits her parents with instilling a sense of duty to always do what she can to advance justice and fairness. As the Just Energy Director at the Partnership for Southern Equity (PSE), Chandra leads a team towards developing local and regional strategies to advance energy equity through coalition building, leadership development, community organizing and leveraging data and research.

Alicia Scott joined the PSE team as the Just Energy Manager in 2020. She has served as Executive Director for multiple non-profits in Georgia and worked heavily in Georgia politics since 2016 where she served as the Regional Field Director of the Bernie Sanders Campaign and has run several local and state level political campaigns. In 2018 Scott ran for the Georgia House of Representatives, before relocating from Savannah to Atlanta. Alicia sits on the Board of the Harambee House Citizens for Environmental Justice and is a 2019 graduate of Partnership for Southern Equity’s Just Energy Academy. She earned her BS at the University of Maryland and her Master’s in Diplomacy from Norwich University.

Veronica Kyle directs all of Faith in Place’s outreach. She supports our outreach and program staff statewide. Veronica, who created the Green Team Coaching program, has coached as many as 15-20 Green Teams. Previously, Veronica served as the Chicago Outreach Director with a particular passion for programs related to Sustainable Food & Land Use and community outreach. In her work she seeks to bring people to the table that are often not involved in conversations around Earth care, including African American, Latino, and affluent suburb communities. She has done this work by creating award-winning programs that bring about diversity and cross-cultural community engagement.

Rev. Michael Malcom is the Founder and Executive Director of the People’s Justice Council and Alabama Interfaith Power and Light. He is a United Church of Christ minister and considers himself a servant of God and community.

 

Dr. Sharlanda Baker is Professor of Law, Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University School of Law. She is a leading expert on environmental and energy law. In 2018, she co-founded the Initiative for Energy Justice to support the delivery of equity-centered energy policy research and technical assistance to policymakers and frontline communities across the country. She also works closely with colleagues in Northeastern’s Global Resilience Institute, linking it to the School of Law’s Center for Law, Innovation and Creativity (CLIC). She teaches courses at the law school and in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities related to her research interests and is the author of Revolutionary Power: An Activist’s Field Guide to the Energy Transition (Island Press 2021).  Professor Shalanda Baker is on a professional leave of absence to serve in the Biden-Harris Administration as the Deputy Director for Energy Justice in the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity at the Department of Energy (DOE).

Dr. Carol A. Newsom is the Charles Howard Candler Professor Emerita of Old Testament at Candler School of Theology. Newsom came to Candler in 1980, only the second woman to hold a tenure-track position. Newsom’s research focuses on the Dead Sea Scrolls, the biblical wisdom tradition, the book of Daniel, and apocalyptic literature. She has written and edited 13 books and scores of articles, book chapters, translations, encyclopedia articles and reviews.

Neha Pathak, MD, DipABLM is board certified in both internal medicine and lifestyle medicine. She completed her certificate in climate change and health communication from Yale School of Public Health. She works to educate healthcare professionals and the public about the health impacts of climate change and environmental pollution. She is a founding member of Georgia Clinicians for Climate Action and on the board of directors for Georgia Interfaith Power and Light (GIPL). She lives in Atlanta with her husband and children.

Na’Taki Osborne Jelks is a nationally-recognized leader in engaging urban communities and youth of color in environmental stewardship through hands-on watershed and land restoration initiatives, environmental education, and training. In 2001, Jelks co-founded the Atlanta Earth Tomorrow® Program, National Wildlife Federation’s multi-cultural, youth environmental education and leadership development program that engages urban youth in investigating causes of environmental challenges, helps them connect to nature, fosters their leadership of youth-led community action projects, promotes civic engagement, and nurtures leadership skills for building personal environmental stewardship.

As a community organizer, Jacob Johns’ work stems from an effort to innovate new ways of moving society forward. The out-dated models of how we live on this planet are failing, and we need new paradigms that uplift the planet to a higher state that heals our world. Johns’ organizing efforts have focused on multiple interconnected issues involving social justice and minority rights, as well as environmental protection.

Since 2005, the Reverend Dr. Raphael Gamaliel Warnock has served as the Senior Pastor of the Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, spiritual home of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The son of two Pentecostal pastors, Dr. Warnock responded to the call of ministry at a very early age, and at age 35, became the fifth and the youngest person ever called to the senior pastorate of Ebenezer Baptist Church, founded in 1886. Under Dr. Warnock’s leadership, more than 4,000 new members have joined EBC, enhancing the church’s legacy of social activism with both spiritual and numerical growth. Rev. Warnock was elected U.S. Senator (D-GA) in the January 5, 2021, special election runoff for the term ending January 3, 2023, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Johnny Isakson, a seat previously held by appointed Senator Kelly Loeffler, and took the oath of office on January 20, 2021.

Dr. Kim Cobb is the Georgia Power Chair, ADVANCE Professor in the College of Sciences; and Director, Global Change Program at Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research uses corals and cave stalagmites to probe the mechanisms of past, present, and future climate change. She received her B.A. from Yale University in 1996, and her Ph.D. in Oceanography from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in 2002. Kim has received numerous awards for her research and sits on the international CLIVAR Pacific Panel, serves on the Advisory Council for the AAAS Leshner Institute for Public Engagement, and is one of the Lead Authors on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report.

Kevin Ionno is the Chair of the Climate Reality Project Coastal Georgia chapter.

 

 

 

Rev. Zack Lyde is a leader of Principled Pastors for the Poor and a climate and justice activist based in coastal Georgia.

 

 

 

Helen R. Ladson is a Brunswick, Georgia-based cultural activist.

 

 

 

Codi Norred is Georgia Interfaith Power & Light’s (GIPL) Executive Director. In this role, Codi continues to lead all policy, program, and outreach efforts, spending much of his spring at the Capitol during the legislative session. He also directs one of GIPL’s flagship programs, Solar Wise, bringing sustainable and energy alternatives to communities of faith. He manages the development and implementation of all GIPL educational programs.

Hannah Shultz is GIPL’s Program Associate. She brings GIPL programs and workshops to communities of faith across Georgia to inspire faith-based responses to environmental concerns. Hannah manages GIPL’s signature programs, Power Wise and Water Wise, as well as GIPL’s Green Team Coaching program. She works directly with congregations to assist with developing sustainable spaces and practices, launching a Green Team, or taking environmental action in their communities.  Hannah’s interest in the intersection between justice, theology, and the environment led her to Candler School of Theology at Emory University where she received her Masters of Divinity (MDiv) with a concentration in Justice, Peacebuilding, and Conflict Transformation.

Avery Davis Lamb is an activist, ecologist, and public theologian working at the intersection of Christianity and environmental justice. He is the Resilience Coordinator for Creation Justice Ministries, where he shepherds Christian communities in re-shaping their role in the face of the climate crisis.

Register Now:

 

 

Event Location:

Via Zoom

Date:

April 13 – May 13, 2021