Board Members and Associates
The current ISE Board:
Bianca Bockman
[Biographical information for Bianca forthcoming.]
Daniel Chodorkoff
Daniel Chodorkoff, Ph.D., anthropology, New School for Social Research, is cofounder and former executive director of the ISE. He is an urban anthropologist and activist with special interests in community development and utopian studies, and has authored numerous articles on both subjects. Dr. Chodorkoff has been active in the Green movement and was a longtime faculty member at Goddard College.
Click here for more info and for links to Dan’s writings.
Grace Gershuny is internationally known in the alternative agriculture movement, having worked for over twenty-five years as an organizer, educator, author and consultant, as well as a small-scale market gardener. She has written extensively about soil management and composting, including The Soul of Soil and Start With the Soil, and was the editor of Organic Farmer: The Digest of Sustainable Agriculture for its four year existence. Grace has been involved with organic certification for many years, including five years on the staff of USDA’s National Organic Program. She is working on a book about the meaning of organic and what happened to it. She has taught at the ISE since 1986, and grows her own vegetables and chickens in Barnet, VT.
Click here for more info and for links to Grace’s writings and projects.
Ben is an alumnus of the Institute for Social Ecology where he studied from 2001-2003. During that time, he also interned as a community organizer with the ISE Biotechnology Project. He was the organizer the 2005 Social Ecology Intensive Colloquium. In December 2005, he finished his BA in anthropology of science and technology at Hampshire College, focusing on questions of democracy and technology. He currently works as a community organizer with the Northeast Organic Farming Association Massachusetts Chapter. Based in Western Massachusetts, he serves on the board of the ISE.
Click here for more info and for links to Ben’s writings and projects.
Chaia Heller, Ph.D., anthropology, University of Massachussetts, has been a teacher of social ecology and feminist theory at the Institute for Social Ecology for twenty years. In addition to being a writer, activist, and educator in the feminist and ecology movements, Heller is currently working on a book about the politics of agricultural biotechnology in France. Her book, Ecology of Everyday Life: Rethinking the Desire for Nature, was published by Black Rose Books.
Click here for more info and for links to Chaia’s writings.
Brooke Lehman
[Biographical information and photo for Brooke forthcoming.]
Bob Spivey
[Biographical information and photo for Bob forthcoming.]
Brian Tokar, M.A., biophysics, Harvard University, has been an activist, author and a leading critical voice for ecological activism since the 1970s, and is a long-time ISE faculty member and current director of the Institute. He is the author of The Green Alternative (1987, revised 1992) and Earth for Sale (1997), and edited Redesigning Life?, an international collection on the politics and implications of biotechnology (Zed Books, 2001), as well as Gene Traders: Biotechnology, World Trade and the Globalization of Hunger (Toward Freedom: 2004). Brian was the recipient of a 1999 Project Censored award for his investigative history of the Monsanto company (The Ecologist, Sept./Oct. 1998). He founded the Institute’s Biotechnology and Climate Justice projects, and initiated public events in response to the biotechnology industry’s annual conventions from 2000-2007.
Click here for more info and for links to Brian’s writings.
Associates of the Institute for Social Ecology
Lorita Adkins
Lorita Adkins, director of finances at the ISE since 2002, has been involved with the Maplehill School for the last 30 years, and currently serves as its director of operations as well as liaison between the academic program at Maplehill Farm. Ms. Adkins also works with Maplehill students on conflict resolution skills, culinary arts, and Aikido.
Ashanti Alston
Ashanti Alston, presently the Northeast regional coordinator for Critical Resistance, is a former member of both the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, and was a political prisoner for over 12 years. Currently, he is a member of Estacion Libre, a people of color Zapatista support group, as well as a board member for the Institute for Anarchist Studies. Mr. Alston also authors the zine Anarchist Panther.
Claudia Bagiackas
Claudia Bagiackas, M.A., social ecology, served as the director of the ISE until 2005. Involved in progressive education for 30 years, she is a founding board member of Center School Montessori, and has also participated in the Ladakh
Project in northern India.
Janet Biehl is the editor and compiler of The Murray Bookchin Reader (1997); the author of The Politics of Social Ecology: Libertarian Municipalism (1998) and Rethinking Ecofeminist Politics (1991); and coauthor (with Peter Staudenmaier) of Ecofascism: Lessons from the German Experience (1995). She has also authored numerous articles about or related to Murray Bookchin’s political and social thought. Biehl is currently working on a biography of Bookchin. She is interested in hearing from those who knew him and have stories, insights, or other recollections that they would be willing to share, at bookchinbiography (at) gmail (dot) com.
Click here for more info and for links to Janet’s writings.
Matthias Finger
Matthias Finger, Ph.D., political science and education, University of Geneva, studies globalization and the emerging new global actors, such as transnational corporations. A professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, he was previously at Teachers College of Columbia University. He has co-authored with Pratap Chatterjee The Earth Brokers: Power, Politics and World Development (Routledge, 1994) and with José Asún Learning Our Way Out: Adult Education at a Crossroads (Zed, 2000). He is currently a professor of public management at the Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration.
Click here for more info and for links to Mattias’ writings.
Karl Hardy
Karl Hardy lives in Kingston, Ontario where he is pursuing doctoral studies at Queen’s University. Previously, he was involved in several local activist projects and has worked as an organizer for the Michiana Social Forum and Michiana Community Currency initiatives. He received his MA in social ecology and social theory from Prescott College.
Click here for more info and for links to Karl’s writings.
Matt lives and works in East Vancouver with his partner and daughters where he directs the Purple Thistle Centre and Car-Free Vancouver Day. His writing has been published on all six continents, translated into nine languages and he continues to lecture widely. He holds a PhD in Urban Studies and teaches at SFU and UBC.
His last book is Watch Yourself: Why Safer Isn’t Always Better (2007), and his new one is called Everywhere, All the Time (2008). His book about Vancouver’s urban design and development titled Back Home: Thinking About Vancouver From Afar will be released in the spring of 2009. Please visit Matt’s website.
Click here for more info and for links to Matt’s writings.
Beverly Naidus
Beverly Naidus, artist, activist, education, and writer, has had her work exhibited internationally in venues including the Institute of Contemporary Art in London, the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Armand Hammer Museum at UCLA. She is the author of two artist’s books: One Size Does Not Fit All and What Kinda Name is That, and has authored several essays on activist art pedagogy. She is currently co-creating a program at the University of Washington, Tacoma on Arts in Community, with a focus on arts for social change within the Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Program. She lives on Vashon Island, WA with her husband and son.
Click here for more info and for links to Beverly’s writings.
Carmelo Ruiz
Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero, is a journalist, environmental educator, and founder of the Puerto Rico Project on Biosafety. His articles have appeared in Alternet, Corporate Watch, One World, IPS News, E Magazine, Grist, IRC Americas Program, New York Daily News, Yes! Magazine, La Jornada (Mexico), and in many other Spanish-language media. He is the author of Transgenic Ballad: Biotechnology, Globalization and the Clash of Paradigms.
Ruiz-Marrero is a Fellow of the Oakland Institute, a Senior Fellow of the Environmental Leadership Program, and was from 2002 to 2004 a Senior Fellow of the Society of Environmental Journalists. He frequently writes and lectures on the social and environmental impacts of genetic engineering and industrial agriculture and strategies for social justice and environmental sustainability.
Peter Staudenmaier is a social ecologist and historian who has been involved with the Institute for Social Ecology since 1989. He has been an active participant in the anarchist movement, the green movement, and the cooperative movement in the United States and Germany for two decades. He is currently a PhD candidate in modern European history at Cornell University. His research focuses on alternative cultural and political movements, the fascist era, and the history of racial thought.
Click here for more info and for links to Peter’s writings.
Lloyd Strecker
[Biographical information and photo for Lloyd forthcoming.]
Amoshaun Toft is a teacher, activist and carpenter in Seattle Washington. He got his BA from the Institute for Social Ecology in 2000 and his MA in Communication from the University of Washington. He has taught in carpentry and media activism in two ISE summer programs. He is currently working on his PhD in communication. Amoshaun studies language and social movements, focusing on communication in processes of collaboration across difference. He has worked on projects relating to a wide range of social movement media platforms, homeless organizing, homeless and immigration rights coverage, social forums, anti-human trafficking networks and criminal justice campaigns. He is also a member of the Social Ecology Education and Demonstration School (SEEDS) on Vashon Island. In his spare time he does building and renovations and plays in his garden. atoft [at] u.washington.edu
Click here for more info and for links to Amoshaun’s writings.
