Fired Up Media

Richard Graves is a climate activist, social entrepreneur, and online journalist. He currently serves as Editor for It’s Getting Hot in Here - Dispatches from the Youth Climate Movement and served as communications coordinator for the SustainUS youth delegation to the UN climate negotiations in Bali. He helps over a hundred youth leaders from around the world tell their stories in the fight against global warming and for a more just and sustainable world. He is a member of the international committee of the Online News Association and contributes to numerous online news outlets. He launched the Climate Netroots Project, as well as assisted in the launch of the Roosevelt Institution and the Genocide Intervention Fund. He graduated from Macalester College with a B.A. in Asian and Environmental History, after founding the student group MacCARES and winning campaigns around green building, renewable energy investment, and energy conservation. He thinks that young people can use new media to create the revolutionary change necessary to solve global warming and has told people that at the World Bank, UN, and other stuffy institutions. He is a semifinalist for a 2008 Echoing Green Social Entrepreneur Fellowship.

David Solheim is student body president at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln studying economics and international studies. David has been active in numerous campaigns emphasizing the empowerment of young people and promoting civic activism at the grassroots level. Because most of his research background involves rural economic development issues, David became interested in the development and future of alternative energy sources and their impact on rural America, particularly wind and biofuels. Internships with the Nebraska Bureau for Business Research and Nebraska Renewable Energy Systems solidified his conviction that America should be quick to embrace a cleaner, more equitable energy future because doing so promises a form of rural economic renewal which the nation currently lacks. He has served as a journalist to the Daily Nebraskan and was a youth delegate to the UN climate negotiations in Bali.

Shadia Wood began at age seven as an advocate for justice and the environment, in an eight-year campaign to pass state legislation to take responsibility and act against the cancer clusters and deaths in her community. In recognition of her efforts, she received the Yoshiyama Award from the Hitachi Foundation and the Brower Youth Award from the Earth Island Institute. At age fifteen, She attended the World Summit on Sustainable Development, joining the youth energy caucus’ efforts to create the Official Global Youth Energy Policy Statement. Months later, Shadia attended the Second National People of Color Summit and there she helped create the Environmental Justice Youth Platform. She is a member of the Environmental Justice Climate Coalition Youth Committee and is on the Kids Against Pollution National Board of Trustees. Shadia graduated from West Canada Valley High School and has worked for the last two years as a leader of the Youth Climate Movement. A budding photojournalist, she will attend the American University of Beirut next spring and study Arabic and Photography. She is also a contributing editor for It’s Getting Hot in Here - dispatches from the youth climate movement.

Jesse Jenkins is a graduate of the Clark Honors College at the University of Oregon. While at the U of O, Jesse worked on a number of campus sustainability initiatives, including helping kick-start the Campus Climate Challenge at the UO and starting an initiative to bring clean wind power to UO dorm students. Jesse is still an active youth climate activist and recently helped found the Cascade Climate Network, the first ever, region-wide effort by Northwest youth to launch a coordinated campaign for climate solutions and a sustainable, just, and prosperous future. Jesse currently works as a renewable energy policy analyst and advocate with the Renewable Northwest Project, a Portland, OR-based non-profit promoting renewable energy development in the Pacific Northwest. He recently helped win a major clean energy victory in Oregon with the passage of the Oregon Renewable Energy Act which establishes a 25% by 2025 renewable energy standard for Oregon utilities. Jesse is a veteran blogger, having maintained the energy and climate change news and commentary blog, WattHead for the past two years and serving as a contributing editor for It’s Getting Hot in Here - dispatches from the youth climate movement.

Anna Rose, 24, founded the Australian Youth Climate Coalition in November 2006. The coalition unites a diversity of youth organisations to mobilise our generation in the struggle for climate justice and a clean energy future. A final year Arts/ Law student at the University of Sydney holding the University Scholarship with Distinction, Anna was a National Organiser for the National Union of Students in 2005 and is past National Convenor of the Australian Student Environment Network. She is a former editor of the Sydney University student paper, member of the United Nations Pacific Youth Environment Network, Sustainability Team Leader for Project Australia, and holds training sessions for young climate activists. She is also a contributing editor for It’s Getting Hot in Here - dispatches from the youth climate movement.

Juan Hoffmaister is currently a Watson Fellow and is researching community-based adaptation, response measures to extreme weather events and international aid for disaster preparedness in the South Pacific, South East Asia, and Africa. He is publishing updates from his travel and research at ChangingClimates.info and is a contributing editor for It’s Getting Hot in Here - dispatches from the youth climate movement. Originally from Costa Rica, Juan is devoted to improving global climate policy to protect vulnerable communities. Juan has a BA Human Ecology with emphasis in Environmental Health and Policy from College of the Atlantic, where he studied as a Davis Scholar. Juan believes in an interdisciplinary approach to solving the climate challenge. He has published work in the UN Chronicle and has served as North American representative to the UNEP - Tunza Youth Advisory Council.

Sherrie Waller is currently the webmaster for her campus climate group at Northeastern University. Sherrie and her group (HEAT) have organized some amazing events and are pushing Northeastern to be a leader in the fight to stop global warming. She is also a gifted designer who has made her group’s website and materials some of the hottest in the youth climate movement, including much of the design for Power Shift 2007. She served as digital organizing fellow for the Energy Action Coalition.

Juliana Williams grew up in Bellevue, Washington and graduated from Whitman College in 2007 with a degree in geology. Juliana began organizing in 2004, working to get her campus to purchase renewable energy. As a youth delegate to the UN Climate Negotiations in Montreal in 2005, Juliana became involved in the global youth climate movement and has been hooked ever since. During college she volunteered with the Sierra Student Coalition for three years and co-organized the first Northwest Climate Justice Summit in 2007. She was one of the lead organizers for the SSC’s March to ReEnergize Iowa, a four day march from Ames to Des Moines calling for smart national action on global warming. She currently works for the SSC as their Midwest Campus Organizer, supporting amazing students in MN, WI, IA, IL and MO working on global warming campaigns on the campus, city, state and regional levels.

Robert Van Waarden, a Montreal resident, graduated from the Western Academy of Photography in 2004. It was here that he was challenged to develop the keen eye and appreciation for light which is so apparent in his photos. With six years of travel and professional experience behind the lens he has produced some striking images. Since his formal schooling Robert has never stopped shooting and has had gallery appearances and numerous slideshow presentations. His work can be found in a solo exhibition at The Banff Centre in Banff Alberta. Robert believes in the power of photography to tell a different story, a more touching and true story which gives new meaning to the world. Through photojournalism he would like to contribute to telling the stories of other people and societies, their problems and their successes.

Sasha Pippenger, a Vancouver native, is currently pursuing a degree in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Her interests lie primarily with the intersection of transnational challenges, human rights, and international policy, with an emphasis on African affairs. Sasha has been engaged with environmental issues on many fronts, working with the Office of Sustainability Programs to draft greenhouse gas emission reduction policies for the University of New Hampshire, collaborating on sustainable development projects in West Africa, and deploying as a disaster relief worker to New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. A self-proclaimed nomad, Sasha spent the summer of 2007 leading a backpacking expedition in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She coordinated new media for the Canadian Youth Delegation to Bali.

Daniel Bachhuber is an undeclared sophomore at the University of Oregon and Lane Community College. On days he’s feeling particularly ambitious, Daniel enjoys photographing, adventure travel, and conspiring on ways to make a better world. Lazier days might find him taking advantage of everything the Great Northwest has to offer including, but not limited to, skiing, climbing, running, and kayaking. At this point in Daniel’s life, he aspires to be a pilot and fly for a living; given his track record, however, he’ll probably end up doing everything but that.

Amy Sample Ward is a blogger, activist, and lover of all things engaging and proactive. She graduated summa cum laude in 2005 from Valparaiso University with a bachelor of arts in English and New Media - Journalism. She returned to Portland, OR, to work with nonprofits, dabble in consulting and web design. Amy now gets paid to be a new media and communications specialist for a prominent Pacific Northwest private foundation. She doesn’t get paid to run a blog on nonprofit technology (http://amysampleward.wordpress.com) or assist with local and international organizations working to make a sustainable, just, and prosperous energy future and social climate. She has worked with many organizations, including: Energy Action Coalition, The Bus Project, Global Women’s Leadership Network, Chalkboard Project, Yes on Measure 49 Campaign, E3, and The Caring Place. She is most passionate about helping nonprofits take advantage of new media and the tools developing every day to make organizations more successful. At the foundation, she has the great opportunity to provide training events to nonprofits and maintain the organization’s new media blog. Amy believes that if we don’t save our environment, there won’t be much use in focusing on new media tools for communication and community building, though, so she moonlights as a climate activist. In addition to trying to save the world, like most people she knows, Amy enjoys biking, backpacking, hiking, writing, baking, and enjoying all that the Pacific Northwest has to offer with her husband, puppy, and wonderful friends.

Daniel Jones is a documentary videographer and an emeritus espresso slinger living in Washington, DC. He is spending $250 per hour for classes towards an MFA at American University’s School of Communications. He lived in the sticks of Kalamazoo, MI. He has filmed two features, one of which you can read about here, and a small number of smaller videos which you can find on my videos page. He was a 2002 Udall scholar and graduated in 2004 from CUNY Hunter College. He helped release a full-length documentary, “Two Weeks in Johannesburg”, a vivid personal portrayal of youth in the international process at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development

Amanda Hass is a student at New York University and is a coordinator for the National Campus Energy Competition. Amanda was vice president of Montgomery County Student Environmental Activists, a local environmental group that increased their county’s purchase of clean energy. She interned with the Sierra Student Coalition, volunteered with the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and tutors students after school. Amanda served as a delegate to the 15th Commission on Sustainable Development with SustainUS and has helped organized the New York Student Climate Summit.

Courtney Price graduated from Carleton University, in 2005, with a degree in journalism where she experienced local, national and international news events. This training honed her instinct to ask the questions ‘why?’ and ‘how?’ My interest in the environment has always been intrinsic, but became more prominent after living in Australia. Living in an area of the world where the native flora and fauna were so different than where I grew up in Southern Ontario built an appreciation of the diversity of life on the planet and sparked my interests in conservation. Upon return to Canada, I have been working in the environmental educational field with particular interest in wildlife and biodiversity. I hope to continue to combine my journalistic skills with my interests in environmental issues in hopes to help others understand the current climate crisis.

Lova Rakotomalala was born in Nice (France), and grew up in Antananarivo (Madagascar) but finished high-school in lycÈe Stanislas, Paris with a baccalaurÈat of science with concentration in mathematics and physics. After a year at UniversitÈ Paul Sabatier in Toulouse (France), Lova transferred to Tulane University (New-Orleans, LA) to receive a bachelor in Science majoring in Cell and Molecular Biology and a minor in business. While at Tulane University, Lova worked as a translator of English to French materials for a sustainable development course to be taught in Congo-Brazzaville. Lova received his Doctorate in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology/Basic Medical Sciences from Purdue University/ W. Lafayette. He is now a Post-doctoral Fellow at Purdue University Cytometry Laboratories, Indiana. His cyber activities include being a Global Voices Online author for Madagascar and translator for Global Voices. He is also a Contributor to the portal: BBC World Service/your story. He is the Health project manager for the Foko project. Lova is addicted to sports, unfortunately mostly from the comfort of his couch. His biggest regret besides not keeping in touch often with his family is to not have learned any Asian Languages yet.

Christine Irvine
Christine became an organizer within the youth climate movement after spending the summer of 2006 in the Greenpeace Organizing Term. She spent her sophomore year at Elon University running a successful Campus Climate Challenge campaign for carbon neutrality as a Sierra Student Coalition Building Environmental Campus Communities Fellow. In the summer of 2007, she worked as the New Media Fellow of the Energy Action Coalition. By the fall, she’d decided to leave school and dedicate herself to the movement full time. She worked with students throughout North Carolina organizing the North Carolina Student Climate Coalition and spent time in DC with Energy Action coordinating multimedia production for Power Shift 2007. Christine now works from Nashville, as the Tennessee Campus Organizer for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and the Southern Energy Network. She feels privileged and honored to be working with the staff of SEN. She looks forward to helping build youth power for clean, safe, and just solutions to dirty energy and climate chaos. Christine is also a photographer who enjoys documenting youth climate events: www.flickr.com/christineirvine

[Other Profiles Coming Soon!]