Staff and Board
GreenFaith’s international team
Maxwell Atuhura
Uganda Organizer
Maxwell is a climate activist, human/ environmental rights defender, and team leader at Tasha Research Institute Africa (TASHA). He holds a Bachelor’s in Law and is pursuing a Master’s of Security Studies at Cavendish University specializing in Energy Security. Maxwell excels at community mobilization, legal counseling, mediation, public speaking, advocacy and community empowerment. He is a champion of movement-building against fossil fuels and always yearns for protection of the earth, nature, and people, and sustainable development for the environment.
Caroline Bader
Germany Coordinator
Based in Germany, coordinates GreenFaith’s work in Germany. She works with GreenFaith e.V., our new German affiliate. She previously coordinated GreenFaith’s global multi-faith initiative on sustainable living and the GreenFaith International Network, engaging with a diverse range of religious partners across the globe. She previously served as Youth Secretary of The Lutheran World Federation and has represented LWF and GreenFaith at UNFCCC COP meetings since 2013.
Rev. Amy Brooks Paradise
North America Organizer
Amélie Franco
France Organizer
Amélie is in charge of GreenFaith’s French-speaking base building and the Stop EACOP campaign. Her Master’s thesis in Theology was on restorative justice. Today, she accompanies groups for management and projects that take care of the people with human permaculture and popular education tools. When she’s not working, she plays a lot of sports and loves to have long talks with her friends about life, the world, and all that.
Rose Gwynn
Global Digital Manager
Rose works with GreenFaith’s global team and coordinates GreenFaith’s communications and digital processes. Previously, she was Director of Programs and Development at Christian Counseling Center. Over the years, she has served in numerous writing and editing roles, both freelance and in positions at Hope & Hard Pills and Hush Harbor Media. Rose lives in Sarasota, Florida.
The Rev. Fletcher Harper
Executive Director
Fletcher is a pioneer of the global religious environmental movement. He has helped spearhead the faith-based fossil fuel divestment movement, mobilized tens of thousands of people of faith for climate marches and public actions, and built GreenFaith from a New Jersey-focused group into a global organization. He co-founded Shine, an international campaign that brings religious leaders together to achieve universal access to clean energy, and the Interfaith Rainforest Initiative.
Muhanad Kharaz
Director of Operations
He designs systems and processes to make GreenFaith’s teamwork more efficient and effective. Muhanad has 10+ years of experience in the NGO sector, including serving as Executive Director at Taghyeer, an organization leading a nonviolence movement in Palestine. He is a Fulbright Scholar with a Master’s degree in Policy and Economics of Freshwater Resources from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Muhanad comes from Palestine, but is currently living between Turkey and Germany.
Oluwatosin Kolawole
Co-Director of the Fellowship Program
Oluwatosin organizes GreenFaith Circles in New Jersey, and supports GreenFaith’s outreach in Africa. In 2014 he convened the “People’s Climate March ” in Nigeria which later grew to become an annual climate action week event to draw national attention to impacts and solutions to the climate crisis. “Tosin” is a strong vocal critic against coal mining and a fearless advocate for earth conservancy. If he is not working, he is talking to someone about earth reciprocity.
Dr. Martin Kopp
Consultant
Coordinates GreenFaith’s organizing in the francophone world, as a consultant based close to Strasbourg, France. His campaigning focus is multi-faith opposition to the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), a project led by French multinational company Total. His doctoral thesis was on degrowth and ecotheology. He chairs the Commission on Ecology and Climate Justice of the French Protestant Federation and is a member of the Ecumenical Francophone Society of Eco-Theology.
Baraka Lenga
Tanzania Organizer
Baraka is a climate justice defender and researcher. He previously worked as a Young Digital Activist on issues pertaining to climate change with FORUM CC. Baraka has also worked as a consultant with various organizations on the issues of climate change such as Organization for Community Engagement (OCE), Green Conservers and Ujuzi Smart.
The Rev. Chelsea MacMillan
Climate Finance Campaign Organizer
Chelsea is ordained as an interspiritual minister, and is founder of THE ALTER, a community of spiritual changemakers. She also cofounded Brooklyn Center for Sacred Activism, an experimental new monastic community, and co-hosted The Rising: Spirituality for Revolution, a podcast for sacred activists.
William Morris
Faith Organizer
Holds his degree in environmental science with an emphasis on ecological restoration from Humboldt State University. William is a Faith Organizer with GreenFaith and also chairs Young Evangelicals for Climate Action (YECA). He spends his time engaging with faith communities, schools, universities, and organizations around the topics of faith-based climate justice and education. His work has been featured in Rolling Stone Magazine, BBC & ABC News.
Pius Oko
Africa Program Manager
With over eight years’ experience as a Climate Justice Campaigner, he previously worked as Project Lead at the African Coalition for Sustainable Energy Access (ACSEA) and the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA); building an inclusive African movement to amplify and unite the voices of local communities in over 8 African countries to advance policies and practice in support of climate justice within the context of the climate emergency.
Hening Parlan
Indonesia Organizer
Raising awareness for spiritual and multifaith organizations’ support for Indonesia’s coal phase-out and renewable energy initiatives. She was a GreenFaith Fellow in 2018, and later helped lead 75 “Faiths for Climate Justice” actions in 2021, and 200 actions in 2022. Hening has 15 years’ experience in humanitarian and environmental work, including with the Environment Institution at Muhammadiyah dan Aisyiyah and Palladium International Indonesia. Hening holds a Bachelor’s in Sociology and a Master’s in Disaster Management.
Dr. Julia Rossi
Brazil Coordinator
Julia lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and has a PhD in Geography, a Masters in Education and a degree in Biophysics. She is a consultant and works coordinating the actions of GreenFaith in Brazil, both at a local level with the creation of circles in communities of Faith, as well as with articulations at a national level with the Sacred Climate Alliance. Julia is the co-founder of the memoriaambiental.org platform, supported by the Ibero-American Secretariat of the European Union. She was a member of the Faith in Climate team at the Institute for the Study of Religion, and has also been a project coordinator at Redes da Maré. For 13 years Julia is seeking to build a fairer world with environmental education projects and mobilization for environmental justice in communities in Brazil.
Yoshiro Sada
Senior Advisor to GreenFaith Japan
Yoshiro received a BA at Gifu University and MEd. at Boston College in Religious Education. He worked for MOA International Japan for over forty years and financed UK-based Alliance of Religions and Conservation(ARC) as a finance officer of MOA from 1995 to 2019. Currently, he is also a student in a Doctoral Program at Kokugakuin University Tokyo, studying world religions’ environmental activities.
Rev. Kristina Sinks
Systems & Internship Coordinator
Kristina supports behind-the-scenes projects to make sure GreenFaith’s education and activism work runs smoothly. A graduate of Garrett Seminary in Chicago, Kristina is completing the ordination process in the United Methodist Church. She also sings and manages tours for the music collective The Many, which brings justice-oriented music to progressive Christians and spiritual communities around the world, and advocates for LGBTQ+ inclusion, racial justice, and creation care in Christian circles.
Aly Tharp
Senior Organizer, North America
The Rev. Ronald B. Tuff
New Jersey Organizer
GreenFaith’s New Jersey Organizer, specializes in organizing black churches for environmental leadership. He served as director of the Paterson Task Force, a community-based weatherization agency, for 15 years and is an associate pastor at First Bethel Baptist Church in Irvington, New Jersey.
Anna Wagner
Development and North America Director
Anna has over two decades of activist experience on environmental campaigns. Previously, she served as the Director of Network Engagement at the Laudato Si Movement and before that she worked with Greenpeace for 12 years as a Senior National Organizer, where she activated thousands of Greenpeace supporters on environmental campaigns. She believes faith organizing is essential to effective social change, and lives in the greater Los Angeles area with her family.
Meryne Warah
Global Organizing and Campaigns Director
Meryne is based in Nairobi, Kenya. She previously worked as Senior Project Director at the Panafrican Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), where she coordinated PACJA’s regional climate justice policy advocacy in 8 African countries. She also served as the Programme Officer for Gender, Environment and Climate Change at the Inter-Religious Council of Kenya.
Romy Dematons
French Muslim Community Organizer
Romy is a French Muslim community organizer and consultant for social and environmental justice, based in the Paris region. As a GreenFaith ‘Islam & Stop EACOP’ organizer, Romy Dematons unites multi-faith and Muslim communities in the Stop EACOP campaign (which opposes the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, a neo-colonial project spearheaded by the French multinational Total). Romy Dematons achieved a double degree in History and Arabic from Sorbonne University, as well as a Master’s degree in Political Science from the Doctoral School of Sciences Po Paris. As an advocate for peace and justice, Romy Dematons also organises spiritual retreats for Muslim women in the Ile-de-France region.
Yoshimi Sada
Japan Communications Coordinator
Yoshimi Sada is GreenFaith Japan’s Communications Associate. She graduated from Meiji Gakuin University with a degree in International Studies. She currently works with an global, environmentally creative and development-oriented company in Japan to improve the world’s water environment. Yoshimi has experience working globally and in multi-faith contexts, interpreting between Japanese and English, and creating publicity materials for overseas training programs.
Carla Lubanco
Brazil Communications Coordinator
Carla Lubanco, a native of Suruí (Magé), graduated in Environmental Management from IFRJ, a Master’s degree, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Geography at PUC-Rio, where she researches traditional communities, environmental and climate justice, fishing territories, and watersheds. She works as a popular educator and project and pedagogical coordinator at the Mirindiba Institute for Popular Climate Action, in addition to serving as the Communication and Mobilization Assistant at GreenFaith. Author of the book “Até o Rio tá Triste: Contos de Realidades” (“Even the River is Sad: Tales of Realities”), she has been dedicating herself to scientific dissemination through literary writing. Since 2016, she has been a socio-environmental activist and educommunicator, using audiovisual media as a tool for research and mobilization on social networks. She believes that the fight for climate justice and the strengthening of traditional communities are essential for the social and environmental transformation the world needs.
GreenFaith’s Board
Deborah Prinz
Chair
A New Jersey native, is the founder of the Achieve Foundation of South Orange and Maplewood and the Achieve Volunteer Tutor Program.
Prior to her work with the schools, Deborah was a counselor with North Jersey Mental Health Associates in Morristown. She studied in Israel with the Institute for Youth Leaders from Abroad, graduated from New College of Hofstra University and holds a MEd from Columbia University Teachers College. She currently serves on the board of the Orange Orphan Society Deborah and lives in South Orange.
Irene Woodard
Vice Chair
Irene is the owner of TrueBlooms, a floral business which uses seasonal, fresh, local flowers.
True Blooms was chosen to design the stage set and create the floral arrangements for the Dalai Lama’s conversation at Town Hall in New York City in 2010. She served as Director of Practice and Training at Sky Lake Lodge, a Buddhist Retreat Center in New York’s Hudson Valley and is founder of Touching the Earth, the Shambhala Buddhist environmental initiative.
Philip I. Brillant
Treasurer
Treasurer, CHMM, LSRP is the owner and CEO of Brilliant Environmental Services, LLC and a charter member of the Site Remediation Professional Licensing Board.
A well-respected specialist in the remediation of contaminated sites, he has been influential in New Jersey’s Licensed Site Remediation Professional program. Phil is also president of Congregation B’nai Israel in Toms River and founder of the Marilyn D. Brilliant Memorial Scholarship at Temple Beth El of Somerset, NJ
Mark Brescia
Secretary
Secretary, is an Account Manager at ICF International.
Pastor Leo Woodberry
Executive Committee, is pastor of Kingdom Living Temple in Florence, South Carolina.
In response to African American church burnings in the mid-1990s throughout the South, Rev. Woodberry’s work with the South Carolina Burned Church Restoration Coalition helped to bring the arsonists to justice, effectively shutting down the public operations of the Ku Klux Klan in South Carolina. In the early 2000’s, Leo joined the nascent African American Environmental Justice Action Network and organized community members around the issue of mercury contamination in fish and waterways due to pollution from coal-burning power plants. He continued to fight against the impacts of coal pollution as part of a coalition that successfully prevented the Pee Dee coal plant from being built.
Denise Patel
New York City-based human rights and environmental activist.
Her personal and professional work has focused on grassroots organizing, building coalitions, and leading advocacy campaigns to address occupational and environmental health impacts of climate change and toxic chemicals. She has previously worked for organizations such as the NJ Work Environment Council and has been a leader in the fossil fuel divestment movement working with the DivestInvest Network, 350.org, and the Peoples Climate Movement – New York. She holds a Master of Public Health from Columbia University with a focus on Climate and Health.
Sheikh Ibrahim Lethome
Sheikh Ibrahim Lethome Asmani – is a Kenyan Muslim Religious Scholar and an expert in Islamic law. He holds a Master’s Degree in Law and Shari’ah specializing in Muslim Personal Law from The International Islamic University, Islamabad, Pakistan; and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Legal Profession from the Kenya School of Law-Nairobi.
He is a member of both the Jamia Mosque Committee and Supreme Council of Muslims and advices both institutions on legal and Shariah matters.
Currently Sheikh Lethome is the Secretary General of Centre for Sustainable Conflict Resolution (CSCR) whose flagship project is known as BRAVE, and one of the leading Consultants on how religion can be used to address Violent Extremism, specifically training religious leaders, community P/CVE champions, youth and other stakeholders in this regard.
Sheikh Ibrahim Lethome is an active member of the Inter –religious Council of Kenya(IRCK).
Fred Profeta
Fred Profeta was Mayor of Maplewood Township from 2004-2008 and also served as the Deputy Mayor for the Environment. He was Chair of the New Jersey Mayors’ Committee for a Green Future from 2006-2011, co-founding the Sustainable Jersey Municipal Certification program. Profeta speaks widely around New Jersey and beyond to promote Sustainable Jersey, and presented at the 2009 Local Government Climate Change Leadership Summit in Copenhagen, Denmark. He is a recipient of the New Jersey Governor’s Environmental Leadership Excellence award and is also a New York lawyer, and has been the senior partner of Profeta & Eisenstein since 1987.
Jack M. Gorman, M.D.
Jack M. Gorman, M.D., Executive Committee, is CEO and Chief Scientific Officer of Franklin Behavioral Healthcare, providing expert guidance to health care organizations in order to improve the efficacy and cost effectiveness of mental health care. He was on the faculty of Columbia University, where he served as Klingenstein Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Professor of Neuroscience at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Jack has authored or co-authored more than 400 scientific articles and chapters, was continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health for his research from 1981 until 2006, and has won numerous awards for his research and service to psychiatry. Jack is an active member of his Orthodox synagogue and a Board Member of the UJA-Federation of New York. He is co-author of Denying to the Grave: Why We Ignore the Facts that Will Save Us. (New York, NY)
Katherine Hasnain, JD, MSc
Katherine Hasnain, JD, MSc, is a President’s Graduate Fellow and doctoral student at the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, focusing on climate & technology policy.
Her commitment to this cause is deeply rooted in her previous experience as a Duke-Faith for Our Planet Interfaith Climate Change Fellow, where she engaged with various faith communities for advocacy. As a Duke Law, London School of Economics, and UC Berkeley alumna, Katherine has enriched her advocacy as a Climate Team Fellow at the Environmental Defense Fund and as a Board Member & Co-Chair of the Diversity Committee for the Association for Environmental Studies & Sciences. Through collaborative action and faith-based advocacy, Katherine strives to promote a sustainable world where respect for life and nature is at the heart of all policies and practices.