Our People
We are people powered! Our staff and board help motivate, lead, and create the change we hope to bring about.
Amara Ifeji
Anna Sommo
Olivia Griset
Directors
Red Fong
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Director of Policy and Advocacy
Amara Ifeji is an internationally awarded non-profit leader in climate and environmental justice. Amara contributes to and advances legislative and policy solutions focused on systemic transformation to ensure equitable access to the outdoors and climate justice education for ALL youth. In high school, her barriers to access to environmental learning compelled her to lead community science learning efforts for students of color like herself. As the Director of Policy with the Maine Environmental Education Association, Amara mobilizes youth-led, grassroots movements to advance state and federal environmental education policies, recently contributing to securing over $2 million for climate education professional development in Maine. In recognition of her work, she was named a 2021 National Geographic Young Explorer and 2022 Brower Youth Awardee.
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Director of Schools and Community Partnerships
Anna grew up in Appleton, Maine. Over the past 20+ years she has found that she enjoys working with others to build systems towards a more just world. She believes strongly in the power of environmental education to help people connect with each other and nature and has held positions in residential outdoor education and garden- based education both in Maine and on the west coast. She loves to learn and work with schools and community partners to support opportunities for environmental education (EE) for all Maine youth. As part of the MEEA team she aims to create a more just, equitable and inclusive EE sector in Maine. Anna enjoys riding her bicycle, working in her garden and cooking up meals from what she grows for her family and friends.
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Executive Director
Olivia Griset (she, her) serves as the Executive Director of the Maine Environmental Education Association (MEEA). MEEA is Maine's statewide network that supports educators, youth and individuals in building environmental awareness and action by centering equity and advancing systemic change_._ Olivia works in collaboration to innovate solutions that result in more equitable, sustainable, and healthy Maine communities. Olivia is deeply engaged in movement building at national and state level holding leadership positions at the North American Environmental Education Association and at the Maine Nature Based Education Consortium. Olivia’s experiences as a fisheries biologist, as a rural public high school life science teacher, community-based environmental educator, and family nature club organizer lend a unique perspective on environmental education movement-building. While a classroom teacher Olivia was recognized as a National Project Learning Tree Outstanding Educator, one of only 5 in the country in 2009. When not working on environmental education and equity projects you can find Olivia playing music, working in the garden, or skiing through the woods with her partner Todd and their daughters Lucy and Charlotte and puppy Cora.
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Director of Operations
Red is one of the co-directors of MEEA and a co-facilitator of the Relearning Place Program. From a small farm town in Nipmuc Territory in Berlin, MA, their love for the land stems from early childhood experiences with a hiking-oriented family. Their work with systems change focuses on community relationships with local environments, decolonial/queer approaches to conservation, Indigenous sovereignty, and empathy-based networking. They frequently facilitate cross-racial meetings with an emphasis on emotional processing.
These days their time outside is spent running with friends, road biking, and taking hammock naps.
Meet our Staff
At MEEA, we prioritize a strong diversity of perspectives and lived experiences while ensuring we maintain youth leadership throughout our staffing structure. We also operate using a Shared Leadership model on our 4 Director team to make decisions together and practice the types of relationships we want to see in the world!
Emory Harger
Changemakers Contractors
Staff
Negina Lowe
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Changemakers Program Coordinator
negina is a queer, Black, and Native Hawaiian person who is currently based in the Greater Bangor Area. While they have worked both professionally and voluntarily in advocacy, they developed their passion for environmental advocacy and justice through friends and colleagues, and exploring and appreciating the outdoor spaces around them. negina spent the beginning of their life in Hawaii and was taught to understand that nature is not something we are superior to, but something we exist with and are a part of. Living in Maine has given them the opportunity to connect to the land in a healing way. Having access to these spaces and this knowledge lit a flame in them to preserve them for generations to come. In wake of the climate change, Negina felt moved to pursue a role with Maine Environmental Changemakers because of their focus on equity and elevation of BIPOC youth voices. negina has worked in the fields of mental health, racial justice, and policy work and is most excited to combine the skills and knowledge they have developed to find points of intersect between these issues and environmental justice
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Communications Contractor
Emory Harger (they/he) currently lives on Penobscot land in Waldo County, Maine, where they work part-time as a vegetable farmer in addition to their work with MEEA as the Communication Contractor. Their roots are in community storytelling, where they’ve used their toolbox of documentary filmmaking, photography, audio, and writing to amplify narratives that help create community change.
From 2020 to 2022, they reported on environmental pollution as a producer for Business Insider's video series World Wide Waste. Emory also directed two short films _OUTSPOKEN (30 min.) _and A Space For Us (19 min.) that follow the lives of LGBTQIA2S+ people carving space for themselves in their communities. The films have screened across the country in partnership with PBS, film festivals and organizations like the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, universities, and church groups. Their work with the Center for Investigative Reporting on female incarceration in Oklahoma was nominated for an Emmy, and in 2018 they received an Emerging Video Journalist award from the Society of Professional Journalists. In their free time, you can find Emory gardening, surfing, hiking, and attending any community events they can find!
emory@meeassociation.orgItem description
Luke Sekera-Flanders
Audrey Hufnagel
Claudio Jimenez
Angie Flores Quispe
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MYCJ/Changemakers Liason
Luke Sekera - Flanders grew up in Fryeburg, along the Saco River. He has been involved in water justice advocacy since 2012 as a founding member of Community Water Justice, a network of communities across the state resisting water privatization and working toward just and responsible relationships between communities and the water bodies and sources they rely on. Luke is also a member of the Maine Youth for Climate Justice coalition, the Maine Environmental Changemakers Network, and works with other environmental organizations across the state.
lukesekera.flanders@gmail.com
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Listen Project Fellow
Audrey is a high school senior at Lincoln Academy and climate justice activist. She has grown up along the Damariscotta River where she first developed a love for nature and a passion for environmental advocacy. Audrey is a member of Maine Youth for Climate Justice, and has advocated for climate legislation including the Pine Tree Amendment and climate education bill. She is also a NOAA Young Changemakers Fellow and a member of the Maine Climate Council Energy Working Group. Audrey is super excited to be a MEEA fellow for this project!
audreyhufnagel@gmail.com
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Changemakers Fellow
Claudio (he/him) is a trans Latino activist with a focus on food sovereignty and multimedia artist living in a cabin in the woods. Some of his favorite hobbies include birding, bookbinding, gardening, and petting dogs :)
claudio@meeassociation.org
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Changemakers Fellow
Angie (she/her/ella) is a student at the College of the Atlantic studying Human Ecology, focusing on climate politics, climate policy and political ecology. Angie has been actively dedicated to environmental and climate justice in the diverse communities she's part of. She is passionately driven to work across fields, communities, visions, and resources and help connect bridges to build power within communities to effectively affect change. Guided by a pluriversal framework, the power of the collective andparticipatory and intersectional practices, Angie works towards fostering international networks of collaboration and care.
angie@meeassociation.org