advisory committee
Michelle J DePass, Advisory Committee Chair
Michelle J. DePass is the President of DePass Paulson Advisors and the Immediate Past President of Meyer Memorial Trust. From 2013 to 2018, Michelle served as Dean of the Milano School of International Affairs, Management and Urban Policy and Director of the Tishman Environment and Design Center, which she re-launched in 2015, reinvigorating The New School’s commitment to sustainability rooted in social justice and community collaboration.
Throughout her career, Michelle has been a champion of social, economic, and environmental justice for people of color, women, indigenous peoples, and low-income communities, as she served as a civil rights lawyer, an Assistant Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency in the Obama Administration; a program officer at the Ford Foundation; and the founding Executive Director of the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance.
Rajasvini Bhansali
Rajasvini Bhansali is the Executive Director of Solidaire Network and Solidaire Action, a community of donor organizers mobilizing critical resources to the frontlines of social justice. She is a passionate advocate for participatory grassroots-led power building and a lifelong student of social movements. In a wide-ranging career devoted to racial, economic, and climate justice, she has previously led an international public foundation that funds grassroots organizing in Asia, Africa, and Latin America; grown a national youth development social enterprise; managed a public telecommunications infrastructure fund addressing the digital divide in the Southern United States; and worked as a community organizer, researcher, planner, policy analyst, and strategy consultant.
Born and raised in India, Rajasvini earned a Master’s in Public Affairs with a focus on Telecommunications and Technology Policy from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and a Bachelor′s in Astrophysics and Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences from UC Berkeley. Vini also spent several years working in rural Kenya with community leaders, an experience she credits as having inspired her to work to transform philanthropy and international development. To that end, she currently serves on several philanthropic boards.
Vini co-authored Leading with Joy: Practices for Uncertain Times, recently published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. She is also a published poet, essayist, popular educator, yoga instructor, and leadership coach. When not engaged with community organizations, Rajasvini can be found nesting with her family, taking long naps in the garden, or plotting the next dance party with friends.
Miya Yoshitani
Miya Yoshitani is the immediate past Executive Director of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN). Starting at APEN as a youth organizer in the 1990’s, Miya has an extensive background in community organizing and a long history of working in the environmental justice movement. APEN has been fighting – and winning – environmental justice struggles for the past 25 years and remains one of the most unique organizations in the country, explicitly developing the leadership and power of low-income Asian American immigrant and refugee communities.
Through many years of leadership, Miya has supported APEN’s growth and expansion from a powerful local organization in the Bay Area to having a statewide impact through an integrated voter engagement strategy and winning transformational state policy for equitable climate solutions for all Californians. A movement leader in many key local, state, and national alliances, APEN is helping to shift the center of gravity of what is possible when the health and economic well-being of working families, immigrants, and communities of color are put at the center of solutions to the economic and climate crises.
Rami Dinnawi
Rami Dinnawi is a Lebanese/Palestinian grassroots activist serving as El Puente's environmental justice campaign and policy manager dedicated to advocating for marginalized communities. With a Master's degree in Sustainability in the Urban Environment from City College of New York, he has experience in organizing campaigns, mobilizing stakeholders, and shaping policies that address environmental and social inequities. Rami is a skilled communicator, coalition builder, and community organizer, passionate about creating a more just and sustainable future for all. With over a decade of on-the-ground organizing, Rami's commitment extends beyond borders, as he actively engages with activism and movements on a global scale.
Sheila Foster
Sheila R. Foster is a Professor of Climate at the Columbia Climate School and is a recognized authority on the role of cities and city leadership in promoting social and economic welfare, achieving environmental and climate justice, improving global governance, and addressing racial inequality. From 2017-2020, she served as the chair of the advisory committee for the Global Parliament of Mayors and is currently a member of the New York City Mayor's Panel on Climate Change (serving as co-chair of the Equity Workgroup). Foster is also on the founding Advisory Board for the Journal of Climate Resilience & Climate Justice.
Foster also co-directs LabGov, an international applied research project that has pioneered a new model of urban governance and a path toward more equitable management of a city's infrastructure and services. This approach is set forth in her award-winning MIT Press book, Co-Cities: Innovative Transitions Toward Just and Self-Sustaining Communities (with C. Iaione).