Project Advisory Board

Martha focuses her teaching and research on community-based organizing and social movements for environmental justice, particularly in planning and policy. Since 2015, she has served as the Executive Director of the Urban & Environmental Policy Institute, the applied community-based research and program in the department of Urban & Environmental Policy.

Her work draws on relationships with a wide range of NGOs including East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, Asian Pacific Environmental Network, the Urban Habitat Program, the Liberty Hill Foundation, the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, and the International Women’s Network Against Militarism. She currently serves on the Board of Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, a multi-racial, multi-faith organization working for the dignity and full inclusion of immigrants and people impacted by incarceration.

Qasimah is a Research/Scientific Advisory Board member for the Moving Forward Network and a member of the MFN Southeast Regional Network. She is President of the Board of Directors for the Tallahassee Food Network in Florida, whose vision is an educated world that has access to food that is healthy, green, fair, accessible and affordable. Dr. Boston is a human rights activist and a global public health practitioner.

Melissa is the Chief Equity and Justice Officer for the Natural Resource Defense Council. Melissa also holds a position as a Legal/Policy Expert Board Member for the Moving Forward Network. Melissa is Senior Director of Environmental Justice for the National Resources Defense Council. Her work focuses on improving air quality in environmental justice communities affected by the freight transportation system. She is an expert on the health effect of diesel emissions, technologies for reducing air pollution from ships, trucks and locomotives, enforcing the National Environmental Policy Act and defending landmark state and local clean air programs against federal preemption claims.

Melissa Miles (she/her) is an Environmental and Climate Justice advocate who began her career as a community organizer while living in an environmental justice community in Newark, New Jersey. She holds an MA in Anthropology from The New School, yet maintains that her knowledge of EJ is rooted in her lived experience, the training she received from veteran organizers, and her accountability to her community. Melissa is the Executive Director of the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance, an organization with a history of leadership in the local and national EJ movement. She is a recipient of the Governor’s Environmental Excellence Award for her work on the landmark Environmental Justice Law (2020). She serves as co-chair of the NJDEP Environmental Justice Advisory Council, a steering committee member of Coalition for Healthy Ports, the grassroots co-chair and a steering committee member of Building Equity and Alignment for EJ (BEA), and is the EJ Director for the NJ Reparations Council. Melissa is also a proud alum of the inaugural cohort of the EJ Disrupt Design Fellowship of the Tishman Environment and Design Center at the New School.

Taylor represents the Southern California region of the Moving Forward Network. She has supported organizing for quality and affordable education, and worked with folks experiencing homelessness. Taylor is the Co-Director for East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice and lives in Long Beach. Taylor aims to combine art, sustainability, compassion and social justice into a movement of love.