PSN staff are dressed in earth tone colors near a brown cabin surrounded by lush green trees

Our Staff

We’re a staff made up of queer, trans, neurodivergent, disabled and/or chronically ill, Indigenous, Black, Latinx, multi-lingual, ethnically and regionally diverse organizers.

As an organization working to give young organizers the tools to become leaders in their space, we strive for the same with our younger staff members. 
 

Jasmine Butler

Network Organizer

Jasmine (Pronouns: They/Them) was born and raised in Memphis by way of deep Mississippi roots. They’re a Black queer writer, educator, and afrofuturist-abolitionist deeply committed to collective liberation through mutual care and education. Jasmine arrived to the climate movement after years of witnessing government neglect of communities impacted by disasters and toxicity, and they’re excited about organizing and learning alongside other young people for a liberated future. They hope to grow as a deeply principled and experienced movement trainer, educator, historian, and archivist. Outside of work, Jasmine can be found in the kitchen experimenting, at the park with their pup Birdie, reading (but mostly collecting) books, and playing music 25/8. 

Dominic Chacón

Convergence Recruitment Fellow

Dominic Chacón (Pronouns: He/They) is a two-spirit chicanx born and raised in the bi-national community of El Paso, Tx.. Dom has been organizing for the last 12 years around issues of environmental, immigration, and educational justice with experience that ranges from leading grassroots campaigns against abusers such as JP Morgan and Marathon Oil to leading direct actions/ community trainings across the country. Dominic believes in bringing fierce compassion and creativity to movement work in order to prioritize community care and emotional intelligence. When he is not raging against capitalism you can find him painting or drawing, singing a piano ballad, cooking, or spending time with friends & family. 

Kourtney Dunning

Social Media Lead

Kourtney Dunning (Pronouns: They/Them) is an artist, abolitionist, and grassroots organizer based out of the South West with a decade of experience growing local community power through direct action, mutual aid, art, and education. Their community roots emerged in Kinłani where they developed foundations in coordinating protest, community care, crisis response, skill sharing, and youth mentorship as a means to build the infrastructure and community interconnectedness required to make the state obsolete. They are a bipolar, queer, gender non-percievable, german, xicanx and Tigua descendent who is currently establishing roots in Tiwa Territory (Occupied Albuquerque). In their free time they create digital art and read dystopian sci-fi to gather practical tools and roadmaps for the steady decline of late stage capitalism.

Elizabeth Gilbert

Development Organizer

Elizabeth Gilbert (Pronouns: She/They) is a Huntsville, AL resident who was born in New York and raised in Florida. They come from an Irish-American, working class family. Her friends describe her as a nerdy anti-capitalist who goes hard for the environment and likes to rage on corrupt politicians and corporations. She is a proud, first generation college graduate from the University of West Florida where she got a bachelor’s in Pre-Professional Biology and got her start as a Climate & Environmental Justice Organizer. They were a founding fellow with Florida Student Power Network, led their climate and environmental justice program for 5 years, was their legislative policy co-lead for 2 years and now serves on their inaugural advisory board. She believes in grassroots social movements, especially those led by students and young people. You'll frequently find her supporting at the intersections of community and political organizing. When she isn't helping to build resilient and sustainable communities, she likes to spend time outside with her spouse and their toddler, gardening and creating art. 

Saren Glenn

Co-Executive Director: Communications & Culture

Saren Glenn (Pronouns: They/Them); An Autistic, anti-capitalist dedicated to radical change through collective action, community support, and mutual aid. With a political science background, Saren has spent much of their career working to integrate a historical analysis of political and economic systems with movement strategy. They combine this experience with their understanding of mycelial networks and decentralized systems to build a cohesive strategic vision for our storytelling and cultural thought leadership. Apart from Power Shift Network, you can find them studying fungi or painting in the New Mexico desert.

Sasha Irby

Convergence Coordinator

Sasha (Pronouns: They/Them) is a neurodivergent envrkopv weretv/two-spirit person of the Osage, Lakota, and Mvskoke peoples, with ancestral connections to other Indigenous Nations of the Southeast of Turtle Island. Born of and nurtured by the Gulf South, Sasha spent their childhood on a barrier island off the Northern coast of Florida, and has spent their adult life in Bvlbancha (so-called New Orleans, Louisiana) organizing around Indigenous futurism, land and water defense, mutual aid, radical hope, and community care through the lens of Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ (the fundamental knowledge that all beings are related and interconnected). They believe that the teachings of the interdependence of humans with all living beings are deeply transformative in the work of climate justice, and that to build the world of our dreams we must bring people together, celebrating and making space for their full selves. Apart from Power Shift Network, you’ll find them tending their community’s medicinal urban farms, learning their ancestral languages, screenprinting and zine making, making plant medicine and educational resources available to their community, batch cooking as an expression of their love language, and rebuilding ancestral trade routes.

Sam James

Convergence Logistics Fellow

Sam James (Prounouns: They/Them) are a Black and Indigenous organizer from Baltimore currently residing on Mvskoke territory (or “Atlanta”). They grew up in a close-knit Caribbean community where they learned the real importance of community care and mutual aid that laid the foundation for their nearly 10 years of  organizing work. As an abolitionist, they prioritize building alternative systems of living based on equity and inclusion that allow us to live in defiance of the carceral state. In 2020 they fulfilled their lifelong dream of starting a community-led community center in a historically Black neighborhood called Sol Underground. The center was open for 13 beautiful months of community care, workshops, and more and despite its closing, Sam has continued to build on that project in the months since. When they’re not at their computer, you can catch them daydreaming about starting a radical bookstore and trying out new recipes for their bi-weekly mutual aid dinners.
 

Xandy McKinley

Development Manager

Xandy McKinley (Pronouns: She/Her) is a proud Caribbean-American activist and resident of DC. She brings almost a decade of experience working in support of Pan-African communities, including through coaching on nonprofit management, healing practice, resource movement, and community organizing. As a passionate advocate for social and environmental justice, she is committed to resourcing grassroots movements that work in pursuit of solidarity, community, joy, and the protection of Mother Earth. When she's not at her desk, Xandy can be found honing her skills in West African Dance, repotting one of her plants, reading up on Afro-Indigenous healing practice, doing something outside with her dog Cupid, or watching adorable videos of her baby cousins. 

Nathalie Peña

Communications Coordinator

Nathalie (Pronouns: She/Her/Ella) is a NYC native and first generation Dominican-American. She is dedicated to creating a space of wellness and care culture centered around relationships in communications and movement spaces. Nathalie finds the most joy in pole dancing, an art form that has taught her what safety and freedom means in her own body. This practice has made her think deeply about the ways to replicate that feeling in movement circles she’s a part of. Now based in Chicago and still very much a baby organizer, Nathalie is in the process of finding her local movement home centered around immigration justice and body autonomy. In the meantime, she’s continuing her pole dancing journey, dreaming of traveling back to her homeland to learn more about her ancestry, and watching boring YouTube vlogs.

Akilah Sanders-Reed

Operations & Fiscal Sponsorship Coordinator

Akilah (Pronouns: She/Her) grew up in New Mexico before moving to Minnesota in 2012. She brings a desert kid’s understanding of the importance of water - and of what the driest places stand to lose if we keep burning fossil fuels. Minnesota is a thoroughfare for tar sands oil transportation, and Akilah has been active in organizing against major pipeline projects like Line 3. She sees this as one direct and tangible way of taking on the climate crisis at the scale that’s needed by resisting the racist extractive corporate power that drives so many forms of injustice. When she’s not working to thwart Enbridge, she enjoys hiking, learning about elephants, petting her cats, and rowing on Minnesota’s lakes.

Noel Schroeder

Administrative Coordinator

Noel Schroeder (Pronouns: They/Them) is an activist, educator, and organizer in Washington, D.C. with a decade of leadership experience in nonprofit management and international solidarity work. They are the Co-Executive Director of Girls Rock! DC, a Deep Time educator at the National Museum of Natural History, a core organizer with Cop Watch DC, and a strategic coaching consultant for social and gender justice organizations. They love creating fiber art, baked goods, jangly guitar noises, and alternative structures for community care.

Kayla Soren

Network Organizer

Kayla (Pronouns: She/They), born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, started their organizing journey in high school working on just transition with the Kentucky Student Environmental Coalition. In 2016, she became a co-founder of the International Student Environmental Coalition. They have organizing experience in workers’ rights, energy democracy, public transit equity, justice in Palestine, food sovereignty, and international solidarity building.

Audrey Suarez

Data & Development Coordinator

Audrey Suarez (Pronouns: She/Her) is a queer, neurodivergent, Puerto Rican-Polish Vermonter residing in Virginia. Before joining Power Shift Network, Audrey had a career in international development, where she worked on poverty alleviation for marginalized populations outside the US, integrating social and environmental safeguards into all her projects. After having two children, she didn't want to travel abroad for work anymore, and wanted to focus directly on her passions for social and environmental justice, and feels so lucky to have found an amazing workplace and movement home in PSN. Apart from Power Shift, you'll find her gardening, baking with her kids, or doing editing work for indie authors.
 

Mayana Nell Torres

Convergence Programming Fellow

Mayana (Pronouns: She/Her/Ella) is a born and raised Brooklyn gal with strong Black and Latina roots. Her roots serve as the basis for her commitment to nature, wellness, and community care. A visual artist, writer in training, and intersectional climate justice activist using different avenues of creation to not only tell her story, but amplify the ones of her community. Mayana uses her voice and passions to spread light and joy while also creating content as a young woman of color. She is committed to actively promoting the knowledge and mindset that supports global awareness of environmental and racial injustices working with national and local climate organizations. She is a recent graduate with a BA Degree Double Major In History and Peace & Justice Studies with a minor in Environmental Art and Social Practices. In her free time she likes to take part in printmaking, running, and reading everything and anything. 
 

Eriqah Vincent

Co-Executive Director: Network Weaving

With a decade and a half in environmental, climate, and social justice non-profit work, Eriqah R. K. Vincent (Pronouns: She/Her) self identifies as an EcoWomanist, committed to the intersectional fight for climate justice through her spiritual and moral connection to creation, Black women, and people of the African Diaspora globally. Eriqah has a long history with Power Shift Network. A proud native of Newark, NJ, Eriqah is a 2010 departmental honors graduate of Spelman College with a bachelor’s degree in Comparative Women’s Studies. While at Spelman, she became a member of an environmental student organization chartered at Morehouse College and attended her first Power Shift convergence in 2009. This event sparked a major shift that would set a new course for her life and she would go on to participate in PSN in every way possible from member rep, to convergence steering committee member, to staff. Eriqah’s "soul work" is to power build with, provide resources to, and help develop emerging leaders in the Black American Community, African descended communities around the world, and other communities of color. "An EcoWomanist way of being is rooted in commitments of social justice and human rights, as well as earthling rights to belong to the Earth community" - Rev. Dr. Melanie Harris