On March 5, 2021, CUER was proud to partner with the other Queens CUNY Campuses on behalf of CUNY Law in an event to learn from community leaders about how academic research and expertise can support their advocacy.
Community Roundtable Presenters and Speakers Bios
March 5, 2021
Stan Morse is a lead organizer for the Justice for All Coalition (JFAC). As someone who has grown up in public housing, the issues facing NYCHA residents have always been personal to Stan. He has over 10 years experience as an organizer, and in addition to working on the affordable housing and NYCHA issues, he has also worked on anti-gun violence and anti-bullying campaigns that were focused primarily on reaching the youth.
Kristen Hackett is a member of the Justice for All Coalition and a doctoral candidate at The
Graduate Center, CUNY. JFAC’s roots, base and leadership are in the local public housing
developments in western Queens and together, neighbors fight for fair and just
development and public investment in public housing. Her dissertation critically examines
public housing at the intersection of finance capitalism, racial capitalism and imperialism.
Avigail Aviles-Tecaxco is a powerful and dedicated community organizer from Corona,
Queens. She organizes with Queens Neighborhoods United (QNU). QNU is a grassroots group
that organizes against the displacement and criminalization of the immigrant working-class
communities in Corona, Elmhurst, Jackson Heights. She also works full time as a Housing
Justice Organizer with a Queens based non-profit.
Flushing Anti-Displacement Alliance
Seonae Byeon is a community organizer, writer, and filmmaker. As a MinKwon Center organizer, she mobilized multicultural and multigenerational tenants to fight for equity and economic justice. She is also a founding member of the Flushing Anti-Displacement Alliance, known as FADA. Before this role, she organized NYCHA tenants at CAAAV to build grassroots power across low-income and working-class Asian immigrant communities in New York City. Additionally, she’s produced and directed an independent documentary, “Owning”, that engages issues facing Native American reservations.
Bobby Nathan is a longtime Flushing resident and housing and social justice activist. He helped found numerous grassroots initiatives including Flushing for Equitable Development and Urban Planning (FED UP) that opposes the massive Special Flushing Waterfront District and rezoning.
Jose Miranda is Director of Economic Justice at Chhaya Community Development Corporation. Jose brings to Chhaya a passion for social justice and over 13 years of experience in the personal finance and nonprofit sectors. As Program Director for Trusted Advisor, he was responsible for the design, implementation, and management of a program designed to sustainably scale financial counseling services nationally.
New York City Council Member Costa Constantinides
Costa Constantinides represents the New York City Council’s 22nd District, which includes his native Astoria, as well as Rikers Island, parts of Jackson Heights, Woodside, and East Elmhurst. As chair of the Environmental Protection Committee since 2015, he has been committed to fighting the effects of climate change and keeping it from forever changing New York City’s landscape. A full bio here.
Mitch Waxman attended the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, and worked for many years as a comic book writer and artist. He worked in advertising production and as a photo retouching specialist for several advertising agencies. Mitch started the Newtown Pentacle website in 2009 to document his adventures along the Newtown Creek (and in the greater harbor and city beyond). He served the City of New York as a Parade Marshall three times, has been named the Newtown Creek Alliance’s group historian, is a Steering Committee member of the Working Harbor Committee, and offers regular walking, bus and boat tours of the Newtown Creek Watershed. His photography and unique point of view have attracted attention. Mitch has appeared in several documentaries about the Creek and is often quoted in news articles about the subject. A book collecting his photos and discoveries – Newtown Creek for the Vulgarly Curious, and a second book will be published soon.
RISE (formerly Rockaway Waterfront Alliance)
Judah Asimov is Senior Manager of Planning and Outreach for the Rockaway Initiative for
Sustainability and Equity (RISE). In his role at RISE, Judah designs and implements
community planning, outreach, and engagement initiatives with a diverse set of community
stakeholders. Prior to joining RISE in 2015, Judah worked in politics and communications.
Judah holds a MS in City and Regional Planning from Pratt Institute.
Emily Sharpe is a graduate of CUNY School of Law, and a public interest attorney with 15 years of experience working to obtain social and disability benefits for low-income clients. She is the founder of Stop Sunnyside Yards, a coalition of activists formed to stop overdevelopment in Western Queens. Emily has been actively working with such groups as Justice for All Coalition, Queens Anti-Gentrification Project, and Movement To Protect the People to fight overdevelopment, displacement and gentrification in NYC, and taught a course about the Sunnyside Yards Development project at Queens College. Emily has been a Sunnyside, Queens resident for the past 23 years, and is Democratic candidate for City Council, District 26 in Queens.
Rebecca Pryor is the Program Coordinator with Riverkeeper and Guardians of Flushing Bay. In her role, Rebecca facilitates and implements a community-based vision of the Flushing Waterways, coalition builds with the most climate-vulnerable voices in the Northeastern Queens watershed and advocates for healthy and equitably accessible waterways throughout NYC. Rebecca Pryor has an M.S. in City and Regional Urban Planning at Pratt Institute’s Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment, where she focused on community-based planning and environmental justice. While earning her degree, Rebecca led environmental education and recreation programs with the Bronx River Alliance and North Brooklyn Community Boat House.
Willis Elkins is Executive Director of the Newtown Creek Alliance, a non-profit
organization dedicated to restoring, revealing and revitalizing Newtown Creek, a 4 mile
industrial waterway that forms the border of North Brooklyn and Western Queens. Since
2013, Willis has developed and overseen a number of key organizational programs related
to water quality monitoring and environmental protection, shoreline restoration, community
access, and public programming. Willis is also co-chair of the Newtown Creek Superfund
Community Advisory Group (CAG), member of Brooklyn’s Community Board 1 and a
founding member of the North Brooklyn Community Boathouse where he serves on the
board and actively volunteers as a canoe guide.
Queens Solid Waste Advisory Board
Andrea Scarborough received an Associate Degree from LaGuardia Community College and a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from Baruch College. Andrea was employed at AT&T Communications receiving many awards for excellence before retiring as an Account Executive. She and her sister, Patricia, founded Jasmine’s Catering Service and owned and managed Jasmine’s Sugar & Spice Corner, a retail restaurant in the Jamaica Farmers Market for several years. She is committed to improving the quality of life in her community. She has served on various committees, including the Queens County Democratic Committee, the 29th Assembly District Task Force, United Coalition of Veterans & Community Rights (UCVCR) and the Southern Queens Residents Environmental Justice Council (SQREJC). Mrs. Scarborough is the former President of Addisleigh Park Civic Organization (APCO) and represented APCO on the Eastern Queens Alliance and the Queens Civic Congress. During her tenure as President, a vacant lot was successfully transformed into a beautiful community garden. Ms. Scarborough is a recipient of several awards for her community activism and remains a member of APCO as well as the newly formed Queens Solid Waste Advisory Board (QSWAB). Andrea and her husband, William, are members of St. Albans Congregational Church where she serves on the Archives Ministry. She continues to advocate for Southeast Queens.
Mortimer “Mac” Lawrence is the Founder of Loops Recycling + Recovery, LLC, a community recycling program in Queens Village that he has run for the last five years. The program aims to increase recycling and reuse, landfill diversion, and community participation in sustainable practices by engaging homeowners and local businesses to increase recycling rates and sustainable impact. Mac lives in Saint Albans.
Barbara Brown is known for her dedication and desire to help the southeast Queens community. In addition to being an umbrella organization for civic groups in southeast Queens, the Eastern Queens Alliance runs the Idlewild Park Environmental Center. As president and a founding member of the Springfield/Rosedale Community Action Association Inc., Brown has worked tirelessly to preserve the quality of life of the neighborhood by safeguarding its environmental, economic, political, social and cultural stability. She is the current chairwoman of the Eastern Queens Alliance as well as the Idlewild Park Preservation Committee. Its goal is to preserve and restore wetlands in Idlewild Park and to promote environmental education and stewardship through its Idlewild Park Preserve Environmental Science Learning Center project. The alliance embraces social justice and sustainability. She recently served as co-chair of the Community Planning Committee for a $6 million allocation for the New York Rising Idlewild Watershed Communities. Brown was employed by the city Dept. of Education as a teacher, reading coordinator, assistant principal, and elementary school principal. During her tenure as principal of PS 164, the school was recognized on a local and national level as an exemplary arts integrated school. To support its innovative program, she was successful in acquiring several federal and state grants.
Anthony Ng is an urban planner with over 20 years of experience in non-profits, policy analysis, advocacy campaigns and government. He’s passionate about equitable community development, civic engagement, and the transition to a net zero emissions energy system and economy. He’s worked at the Center for Working Families, supporting 18 community-based organizations statewide, who advised low to moderate income homeowners on completing energy efficiency retrofits through NYSERDA’s Green Jobs Green New York program. He is a core member volunteer of Queens Climate Project, collaborating with the other core members on the group’s advocacy, community education, and climate projects that promote renewable energy, and sustainability.
City University of New York
Guest Speakers
Tria Case, Esq. is the University Executive Director of Sustainability and Energy Conservation for the City University of New York (CUNY). Ms. Case coordinates and provides resources to CUNY’s 25 institutions to meet the goal of reducing CUNY’s energy consumption. Ms. Case secures and manages multi-millions in funding for O&M projects including a revolving loan fund, the Sustainability Investment Fund, which supports energy savings projects. Since 2006, Ms. Case has led the development and the implementation of multiple Federal, State and City funded solar and storage programs on behalf of NYC and NYS, working with stakeholder groups and leading to a significant growth in solar capacity. Ms. Case received her undergraduate degree from Union College and earned her J.D. from Brooklyn Law School and formerly served as the Director of the Office of Environmental Business Services for Empire State Development. Ms. Case formed the NYC Solar Partnership and the NY Solar Ombudsman Program in 2006. In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, Ms. Case formed the Smart Distributed Generation (DG) Hub, with City, State, and Federal participation. The Hub continues the work of addressing the soft costs for the mainstream adoption of solar and storage for all New Yorkers. A full bio is here.
Tamera Schneider is Associate Vice Chancellor for Research at the City University of New York, overseeing the Offices of Central Programs, Research Administration and Compliance, and Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The Office of Research team promotes and supports the research, scholarly, and creative pursuits of the CUNY community, provides assurance to funding agencies and to the public that research at the University is conducted in accordance with the highest ethical standards, and enhances technology commercialization, entrepreneurship, and economic development activities. A full bio is here.
CUNY Queens Sustainability Consortium Members
CUNY Law
Rebecca Bratspies is a Law Professor at the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law, where she is the founding Director of the Center for Urban Environmental Reform. She is an internationally recognized expert on environmental justice, the regulation of new agricultural technologies, and the human right to a healthy environment. Professor Bratspies has written scores of law review articles, op-eds, and other publications including four books. Her most recent book Environmental Justice: Law Policy and Regulation is used in schools across the country. A full bio is here.
Andrea McArdle, Professor of Law at City University of New York School of Law, takes an interdisciplinary approach to teaching and scholarship, holding law degrees and a Ph.D. in American Studies. She teaches property and real estate transactions courses, and seminars in urban land use and judicial rhetoric. Her articles and essays focus on housing, urban and community studies, climate governance and community resilience, pedagogy, and the intersection of law and narrative, with special attention to issues of equity, access, and voice. A full bio is here.
LaGuardia Community College
Holly Porter-Morgan is a Professor of Environment Science at the City University of New York (LaGuardia Community College) and Director of the Environmental Science Program. She also serves as the Program Manager for President’s Society Environment. In these roles, she collaborates with community partners and conducts research on urban ecology, green infrastructure, and coastal resilience. She holds a Ph.D. in Biology with a specialization in Plant Science from the Graduate Center, CUNY and a Master’s in Interdisciplinary Studies from New York University.
Filip Stabrowski is Associate Professor and Coordinator of Anthropology at LaGuardia Community College. He received his Ph.D. in geography from the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests include: immigration and gentrification; neoliberal urban planning and governance; platform urbanism; and immigrant foodways in contemporary New York City. He is also an affiliated faculty member of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the CUNY Graduate Center and involved in the Honors Program at LaGuardia CC. A full bio is here.
Queens College
George Hendrey is a distinguished Professor and ESA-Certified Senior Ecologist. He takes an engineering perspective into environmental research. Hendrey did his graduate work in civil engineering specialties, giving him a firm foundation for his later scholarly work. For the first half of his career he studied the effects of acid rain on lakes and streams. He has worked on limnological consequences of acid deposition and established multi-investigator limnology field labs in Norway, and the Adirondack Mountains of NY. Hendrey was Head of the Earth Systems Sciences Division at Brookhaven National Laboratory where he envisioned and led development of Free-Air CO2 Enrichment (FACE) technology. George has authored or co-authored over 135 peer-reviewed publications, and 156 other contributions to science. As VP and CTO of COAWAY LLC he has been working on an industrial method for direct extraction of atmospheric CO2, a process that was selected as one of the finalists in the Virgin Earth Challenge. A full bio is here.
Tarry Hum is an urban planner and Professor and Chair of the Urban Studies Department at Queens College. She is an affiliated faculty member at the Graduate Center’s Environmental Psychology doctoral program. A full bio is here.
Queensborough Community College
Joan Petersen is a Professor of Biology at Queensborough Community College. She is the coordinator of the college’s Environmental Science program, and the faculty coordinator for Undergraduate Research as a High-Impact Practice.
York College
Donna Chirico is a Professor of Behavioral Sciences at York College. Studying moral and spiritual development constitutes the foundation for Professor Chirico’s present research exploring the nature of transcendent imagination as it relates to aspects of psychological development. A central goal of this work is to come to understand the function of esoteric or transcendent imagination as it relates to personal development, attainment of valued goals, and the formation of personal identity. Professor Chirico is also an expert in the application of statistical analysis in sports who explores the use of statistical paradigms in sports betting and choices made by fantasy sports league participants. A full bio is here.