Erin Jones has been involved in and around schools for the past 26 years. She has taught in a variety of environments, from predominantly Black to predominantly White to some of the most diverse communities in the nation. Erin received an award as the Most Innovative Foreign Language Teacher in 2007, while working at in Tacoma and was the Washington State Milken Educator of the Year in 2008, while teaching in Spokane. She received recognition at the White House in March of 2013 as a “Champion of Change” and was Washington State PTA’s “Outstanding Educator” in 2015. After serving as a classroom teacher and instructional coach, Erin worked as an executive for two State Superintendents. Erin left the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction in 2012 to work in college-access at the school district level. She left her job to run as a candidate for State Superintendent and was the first Black woman to run for any state office in Washington state, a race she lost by a mere 1%. She and her husband of 25 years have a daughter who recently graduated from Central Washington University, a son who is a senior at Harvey Mudd College and one who coaches high school football with husband, James, who is a high school teacher in North Thurston School District.

Jorge L. Barón has served as the Executive Director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project (NWIRP) since April 2008, having previously worked as a staff attorney with the organization for two years. NWIRP is a nationally-recognized legal services organization dedicated solely to advancing and defending the rights of low-income immigrants and refugees. Jorge’s passion in advocating on behalf of immigrant and refugees is firmly rooted in his own immigrant experience: he is originally from Bogotá, Colombia, and immigrated to the United States at the age of thirteen. Jorge graduated from Duke University and spent five years working in the film and television industry in Los Angeles, California, before pursuing a legal career. Jorge received his law degree from Yale Law School. After graduation, he served as a law clerk for Judge Betty B. Fletcher of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Seattle. Jorge then served as an Arthur Liman Public Interest Fellow at New Haven Legal Assistance Association in New Haven, Connecticut, before moving back to the Pacific Northwest and starting his position at NWIRP. In 2017, Seattle Magazine recognized Jorge as one of the most influential Seattleites of the year.

Kristie L. Ebi is director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment (CHanGE), and Rohm and Haas Endowed Professor in Public Health Sciences at the University of Washington. She has been conducting research and practice on the health risks of climate variability and change for over twenty years, focusing on understanding sources of vulnerability, estimating current and future health risks of climate change, and designing adaptation policies and measures to reduce the risks of climate change in multi-stressor environments. She has supported multiple countries in Central America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific in assessing their vulnerabilities and implementing adaptation policies and programs. She has been an author on multiple national and international climate change assessments, including the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5[Symbol]C. She co-chairs the International Committee On New Integrated Climate change assessment Scenarios (ICONICS) that created five scenarios of socioeconomic development over this century.  Dr. Ebi’s scientific training includes an M.S. in toxicology and a Ph.D. and a Masters of Public Health in epidemiology, and two years of postgraduate research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.  She has edited fours books on aspects of climate change and has more than 200 publications.

Josh Lawler is the Denman Professor of Sustainable Resource Sciences in the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences and the College of the Environment and Director of Nature for Health at the University of Washington. He received his AB from Bowdoin College and his MS and PhD in ecology from Utah State University. Josh is an ecologist driven by applied conservation questions and their real-world applications, with climate change and land-use change at the root. In particular, he is interested in how climate change can drive shifts in plant and animal distributions, and the implications those shifts have for both natural systems and humans. He uses a combination of field and modeling techniques and works with collaborators to design tools that conservation planners can use to assess the impacts that climate change and to plan for the future. Josh has served as a lead author for the third US National Climate Assessment and as a contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 5th Assessment Report.

Cecilia Bitz, professor of Atmospheric Sciences and director of the Program on Climate Change at the University of Washington, has a research focus on ice and climate interactions, especially involving sea ice. Her research group is investigating Antarctic climate change and is predicting the influence of Arctic cyclones on sea ice. The primary tools for her work are a variety of climate models, from simple reduced models to sophisticated Earth system models. She develops and improves the sea ice components of these models. In 2013-2014 she was a Fulbright Senior Scholar to New Zealand, during which time she did field work in Antarctica. She has also spent time in northern Alaska and Norway. She is a member of the Board on Atmospheric Sciences of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. She was a contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2001, 2007, and 2013.

Andrea Rodgers graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1998 and the Arizona State University School of Law in 2001, where she served as co-executive editor of Jurimetrics: The Journal of Law, Science and Technology. After graduation, she clerked for the Hon. John C. Gemmill on the Arizona Court of Appeals. She has served as an Honors Attorney for the U.S. Department of Transportation, In-House Legal Counsel for the Snoqualmie Indian Tribe, and Staff Attorney for the Western Environmental Law Center. Her environmental law practice focuses on reducing pollution from industrial agricultural operations, protecting and enhancing instream flows for people and fish, and fighting climate change on behalf of young people and future generations. Andrea is licensed to practice law in Washington and Oregon and is admitted to practice in the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Washington, Oregon, Montana, and Northern California, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Tenth Circuit, the United States Supreme Court, the Snoqualmie Tribal Court, the Lummi Indian Nation Tribal Court and the Muckleshoot Tribal Court. In 2016, Seattle Met Magazine recognized her legal work representing youth in the Washington climate change case in King County Superior Court, Foster v. Ecology, and named her part of their “Perfect Party,” which includes the “month’s most interesting locals and newsmakers.”

Mia Eastman, age 18, has organized events within her community and showed dedicated involvement alongside leaders at the forefront of social justice issues, spanning March for our Lives, Black Lives Matter, the Women’s March, The Youth Climate March Zero Hour and more.Her presence in these, seemingly separate, movements has built her personal understanding of the interconnectedness of all of the differing obstacles that people face around the globe. Through this awareness, her focus shifted to the critical state of the planet and, more specifically, how we are directly contributing to it with our current lifestyles and dependency on fossil fuels. By providing opportunities to turn her aspirations into action, Earth Guardians has assisted Mia in facilitating the organic growth and amplification of her passion to create a more rejuvenative future for all people. Mia is a Co-Founder and the Creative Unification Director of Operation Earth Guardians, which is the organization’s youth-led direct action and documentation team. As part of the team, she works to further educate and inspire youth, and adults, to generate safe spaces for sharing the stories of people affected by climate change with the intention of finding solutions to the most pressing issues of today.

Sierra Robinson, 16, is a permaculture teacher, farmer, film-maker, environmental activist, homeschooler and director of the Cowichan Valley Earth Guardian Crew in beautiful B.C., Canada, where she works with her friends and family to combat issues from plastic pollution to the destruction of old growth forests. Sierra first began learning about permaculture (a regenerative design system modelled on nature) at the age of 8 on her family farm and completed her first Permaculture Design Course at 12 years old. She then went on take her Permaculture Teachers Training at 13 years old. Since then Sierra
has traveled and taught groups of children, youth, families, elders, and universities about permaculture, environmentalism, and how to use and design with regenerative solutions. She is an active member of her community where she works on campaigns and projects to better the environment and ensure a safer future for all. Currently she is helping to design and implement a foodforest garden at a local high school in her community. Recently she has been working together with Abundant Earth Foundation and Operation Earth Guardians to launch her newest project Chasing Change, a youth-led media project with the goal of inspiring, uplifting, and empowering young people to take action by sharing sustainable & regenerative ideas and solutions.

Marlow Baines is a 16-year-old from Boulder, Colorado. She began her journey finding her voice as an Earth Guardians National Council member. The National Council training in 2017, inspired her to do two major things. First, she launched her first campaign “Project Confidence”, which was geared towards shifting culture around school dress code from something negative and toxic to positively empowering for young girls. It emphasized the reality that our beauty shines from within, regardless of society’s standards of body type and physical attributions. Second, she realized that education could be as inspiring as her Earth Guardians work which propelled her to leave public High School and begin a new self-learning journey. Shortly thereafter, she began working with Earth Guardians at an exponential rate, resulting in a newfound responsibility as an Earth Guardians Regional Crew Director for the Central United States. Between planning multi-district dances for high schoolers, schooling herself, and working with Earth Guardians, she has found a passion for bringing people together and talking about self-care, because healing yourself, mentally and physically, is the first step in mending our relationship to the planet. Marlow, at 6’2, loves both slaying on the runway and balling up on the basketball court. She loves writing, traveling the world with her best friends, and representing the beautiful organization of Earth Guardians. Recently, she has been bridging her passion for fashion and bringing awareness to the fashion industry. As well as, the co-founder and Strategic Coordinator for Operation Earth Guardians, the documentation and action team for Earth Guardians.

Alex Trevino, is 17 years old, lives in Beaumont, Texas and is an EG national council member and crew leader. She took her first steps into activism in 2014. It was the first day of summer when she woke to messages that the fine arts programs were to be cut from their schools. So, herself and her fellow theatre students got to work. Within two days they had gathered about twenty of their fellow fine arts students, got the attention of the local media, and organized their first rally at the local ISD administration building. This lasted the whole two months of summer where they called the entire community to action, traveled to the state courthouse, saved over four hundred teachers jobs, and was able helped bring to light the corruption within BISD (local school board). In 2015, Alex again faced the school board, where she spoke out against standardized testing. After successfully opting out of standardized testing she made her transition into homeschooling, where it made it possible for her two passions to meet art and activism. In 2016, on Halloween day her family made their way to standing rock. Through this, she was called to actions and found her passion for climate activism. After many years of fighting for what she believed in, she found the community she was searching for, Earth Guardians. Recently, she began EG Beaumont crew despite the challenge of living in an area which is known for their oil refineries. Alongside the launch of her crew, she is co-founder of Operation EG with Marlow Baines and Mia Eastman. Not only is she an amazing youth leader but also a tattoo artist and incredible chef. With her dedication and fiery passion, she is making waves of change at a local and national level.