LEADERSHIP TEAM
The MWEJN is led by and accountable to environmental justice organizations and frontline communities
MWEJN LEADERSHIP TEAM
-
Roxxanne O’Brien is o-Founder & Executive Director of Community Members for Environmental Justice. Roxxanne is a mother of three children and has been fighting for environmental justice in her neighborhood for over a decade. She has worked tirelessly to bring issues of industrial pollution on the northside of Minneapolis to the forefront, before many established organizations were engaged.
She was a key organizer around the elevation of Northern Metals facility for the past 7 years and for the purpose of pushing the city and state to face environmental injustice and racism in her community, she was on the Minneapolis Environmental Advisory Commission for four years. She also served on the city’s first official Green Zones Working Group and currently sits on the Northside Green Zone committee. Roxxanne OBrien co-founded Community Members for Environmental Justice in 2018.
-
Debra Taylor is a co-founder of We the People of Detroit (WPD) and serves as its Director of Finance and Development. She has previously held positions as Legal Legislative Analyst for the City of Detroit & held various senior staff positions in government, the non profit sector and the world of philanthropy. She is a nationally recognized advocate, most notably for her work during the recent Flint Water Crisis and Detroit Water Shutoffs. Her work on social and political advocacy of marginalized populations garnered her the Spirit of Detroit Award for the second time in 2012, for her work with We the People of Detroit.
Debra was named the 2015 National Lawyer’s Guild Unsung Hero for her service to the community and the work she has done managing relations between the nonprofit's, public officials and community leaders. She is a fellow in the Detroit Equity Action Lab (DEAL), operated through the Damon Keith Center for Civil Rights. She joined the MWEJN Leadership Team in the fall of 2019. Her motto in life is to treat others as you wish to be treated!
-
Brenda Coley is the Co-Executive Director of Milwaukee Water Commons. Over the years she has served in various positions in the non-profit and academic sectors and brings a long-standing commitment to social justice and community organizing. She has been a non-profit director, research coordinator and project manager with expertise in leadership development and organizational capacity building.
Before joining Milwaukee Water Commons, Coley was sole proprietor of Brenda Coley & Associates, helping local and national organizations build the cultural competence to approach marginalized populations around health, leadership development and social justice issues. In addition, she has served on many community engagement boards and public health initiatives, specifically focused on equality and health disparities within the LGBTQ and other minority communities in Milwaukee.
Coley is committed to exploring the influences of one’s own culture and understanding ways in which groups of people are treated in society, using that knowledge to develop strategies to effectively engage diverse groups of people in important community issues.
-
Kim is the Executive Director of the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO), where she has worked since 1998. Kim joined LVEJO as an organizer and helped to organize community leaders to successfully build a new playground, community gardens, remodel of a local school park and force a local polluter to upgrade their facilities to meet current laws. As ED of LVEJO, she has worked with organizers to reinstate a job access bus line, build on the recent victory of a new 23 acre park to be built in Little Village, and continue the 10 plus year campaign that won the closure of the two local coal power plants to fight for remediation and redevelopment of the sites. Kim is Chair of the Illinois Commission on Environmental Justice.
-
Eartha Borer-Bell has worked, for over a decade, in arts and environmental organizations in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, and across the Midwest, to create a more just and equitable community. Eartha is currently the Director of the Midwest Environmental Justice Network, a grassroots, women-of-color-led organization that convenes and strengthens EJ groups across twelve midwestern states. Eartha is also the Founding Director of Frogtown Farm, a 5.5-acre regenerative urban farm, where she led a community process to design, build, and program a thriving space for community healing and connectedness. She has also built a strategy consultancy for non-profits, foundations, and social enterprises focused on the intersection of social justice, food, agriculture, health, and environment. Eartha graduated with a B.A. in Art History & Environmental Studies from Macalester College and an M.B.A. from the University of Minnesota.
-
Shalini Gupta has been involved with energy, climate and environmental justice movement building - with a focus on building frontline community capacity - for the past 25 years. She comes to MWEJN with years of experience in nonprofit management, environmental justice policy analysis, coalition building, arts/culture narrative work, entrepreneurship, and philanthropic organizing.
In her consulting role, Shalini has worked with foundations, intermediaries, funder networks, donors, city and state government agencies, nonprofits, artists, and community based organizations across the country. Grounded in her community in Minneapolis, she was a leader in the 2023 push for zoning reform at the City of Minneapolis around heavy industrial facilities and cumulative impacts; and helped develop the city's groundbreaking 2013 Climate Action Plan, establishing Minneapolis' first environmental justice focused Green Zones Initiative.
She was a co-founder of the Midwest Environmental Justice Network when it was first started in 2009, and has also helped co-found and support many grassroots-based organizations in the region working toward environmentally just policy and land use development. Through her work with One Square World and ACE, she helped shape the City of Providence’s landmark municipal Climate Justice Plan, and the City of Boston's efforts to integrate community interests into their Building Emissions Performance Standard. A former governor appointee to the Minnesota Next Generation Energy Board, Shalini has held numerous board positions, including serving as co-Chair of the Headwaters Foundation for Justice Board of Directors and Chair of the Urban Bird Collective.
Committed to arts-based, culture-shifting organizing strategies, Shalini has worked with numerous community of color-led arts groups, most recently with Aniccha Arts on their Prairie | Concrete public arts project. She was a contributing author to the Walker Art Center's Fourth Wall magazine, is building a South Asian organic food business, and writing a children's book series that is intentionally shifting the current ecological paradigm toward one of reciprocity and social justice.
An immigrant as a child from Mumbai, India, since 1984 Shalini has lived in Minneapolis, the homelands of Dakota and Anishinaabe people. She is blessed to live here with her husband, two sons, mother, and a community of friends and extended family. She holds a BA in the Geophysical Sciences from the University of Chicago and a Masters in Environmental Management from Yale University.
-
Phoebe Young (she/her/hers) is a Saginaw Chippewa descendant born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She has worked for Midwest EJ Network partner, Dream of Wild Health, for the past 5 years as a community and youth organizer in Minnesota.
Phoebe is also a PhD candidate in the American Studies program at the University of Minnesota, where she is part of the Critical Indigenous Studies cohort. She has been involved in research, coordination, and community organizing efforts in nonprofit work across the country, and is dedicated to Indigenous sovereignty, Native youth development, and social justice work.
In her spare time, she loves to cook and bake, and she is usually running behind on a beading project that she started for one of her family members sometime during the pandemic.
-
Anthena is a social impact strategist using systemic design to address cultural and environmental complexity, with over a decade of experience in managing strategic projects and partnerships advancing social equity and inclusive climate action.
As Program Director - Urban Outreach, Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program at the Midwest Environmental Justice Network, Anthena is responsible for developing and implementing a community-centered outreach and technical assistance plan in EPA Region 5 to ensure that resources reach organizations that are accountable to a diversity of EJ communities and to support EJ organizations in successfully implementing projects.
Prior to joining MWEJN, Anthena led qualitative research and conceptual design at a social sector design studio and held various positions at Chicago-based nonprofits focused on equity, energy and economic development. During that time, Anthena served as a member of the Illinois Lead Service Line Replacement Advisory Committee; Buildings and Energy Lead for the Bloomberg American Cities Climate Challenge; member of the Historical Reckoning Committee for the We Will Chicago Citywide Plan; and as a member of the Elevate Energy team contributing to the American Zero Carbon Action Plan (UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network).
Anthena has also delivered innovative strategy and impact work for the Environmental Justice programs in her locale for the past eight years. As lead strategist for Environmentalist of Color, she developed the baseline operational framework and inaugural formal advisory council. Anthena had the honor of serving on the Wisdom Council for the AYA Initiative, a participatory grantmanking project of the Prince Charitable Trust to fund Black-led and Black-serving nonprofits leading environment projects in the Chicagoland area. Most recently, Anthena completed research and conceptual design projects for the Chicago Frontline Funders Initiative focusing on the Bryant Williams Fellowship, a program aiming to cultivate the next generation of environmental justice leaders and augment the capacity of environmental and social justice organizations. Anthena has also served as a board member of Black Oaks Center in Pembroke, IL and as a member of the Environmental Justice Designation Committee for the Illinois Solar for All Program.
Anthena holds a bachelor’s degree in communications and economics, a post-professional certificate in Public Interest Design from Archeworks, and a certificate in Business Management and Administration from the Quinlan School of Business at Loyola University.
Anthena’s highest calling is raising her daughter, and being reinvigorated with joy by spending as much time as possible eating, laughing and traveling with family and friends.