Staff
Zenobia Barlow, executive director and cofounder of the Center for Ecoliteracy, has led the Center’s grant making, educational, and publishing programs since its inception. One of the nation’s pioneers in creating models of schooling for sustainability, she has designed strategies for applying ecological and indigenous understanding in K-12 education, including the Food Systems Project, Rethinking School Lunch, and Smart by Nature. She coedited Ecological Literacy: Educating Our Children for a Sustainable World (Sierra Club Books, 2005) and Ecoliteracy: Mapping the Terrain. Zenobia serves on the board of directors of the David Brower Center. In 2009, she was named a Fellow to the Post Carbon Institute and served on an international team of experts that advised the Bhutan government on integrating Gross National Happiness principles into education. Prior to joining the Center for Ecoliteracy, Barlow was editor of an international publishing company, a university program director, and executive director of the Elmwood Institute, an ecological think tank. She travels widely as a documentary photographer.
Lisa Bennett, communications director, is coauthor of Ecoliterate: How Educators Are Cultivating Emotional, Social, and Ecological Intelligence (Jossey-Bass, August 2012). A longtime writer, she has contributed to books including The Compassionate Instinct: The Science of Human Goodness (W. W. Norton, 2010) and Smart by Nature: Schooling for Sustainability (Watershed Media, 2009). Her articles have appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, Chronicle of Higher Education, Education Week, Greater Good, Harvard Review, and The New York Times. She blogs at The Huffington Post and is a former Fellow at Harvard University's Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy.
Karen Brown, creative director, is an award-winning designer who hails from a family of inventors, growers, and makers. Her work has been included in the Smithsonian Institution and Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, and featured in The New York Times, Architectural Digest, and dozens of other popular and technical publications as well as on Today on NBC. She has lectured on design and enviromental topics throughout the United States, Japan, and Europe. She is a contributor at Etsy.
Nate Evans, finance manager, has nearly 30 years’ experience in a variety of finance-related positions with both for-profit and nonprofit organizations. He served most recently as accounting manager and controller at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley, where his responsibilities included audit oversight, internal control procedures, daily accounting operations, finance functions related to grants, and staff training and education. He is a graduate of Golden Gate University.
Jeanne Henry, administrative coordinator, recently moved to the San Francisco Bay Area from New York City, where she worked in the operations department at Robeco-Sage. She has a background in intellectual history and literature, and has been an advocate for underserved and emerging writers as a contributing editor to small press publishers Cairn Press and Unmanned Press. She enjoys reading outside in her hammock and learning to grow her own urban garden.
Jim Koulias, deputy director, is a former bilingual/multicultural elementary school teacher with a degree in Intercultural Communication. After teaching for 10 years, he embarked on a career in the nascent computer-based filmmaking industry in 1987, developing new techniques for documentary films and television. In 1995, he became a producer and senior project manager, pioneering Web-based communications strategies and websites for businesses around the world. He has lived in Mexico, Japan, and France.
Alexa Norstad, project management coordinator, recently returned to California from Brooklyn, NY, where she worked in the corporate offices of Condé Nast Publications and for the account management team at Doremus, a global advertising firm. She took the long way back to the Bay Area, by way of a farming apprenticeship in Vermont and six months of domestic and international travel. She is passionate about cooking and feeling connected to one’s food systems.
Carolie Sly, Ph.D., education program director, is responsible for organizing and directing the Center's professional development work for educators. She founded a high school for at-risk youth and taught at San Francisco State University and public schools in Davis and Napa, California. Carolie earned a doctoral degree in science education from the University of California, Berkeley and has coauthored the award-winning California State Environmental Education Guide and the Center for Ecoliteracy's Big Ideas: Linking Food, Culture, Health, and the Environment and discussion guides for the films Food, Inc. and The Last Mountain.
Chris Smith, development director, has 25 years of experience with nonprofits in the Bay Area and New York. He provided fundraising, strategic planning, and program development for the Marin School of Environmental Leadership and Strategic Energy Innovations, served as interim executive artistic director at the Napa Valley Opera House, and led several arts organizations, including the Magic Theatre (SF) and Youngblood (NYC). Chris is on the board of the Playwrights Foundation and served on selection panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and Marin Arts Council. He is a graduate of Brown University.
Michael K. Stone, senior editor, is the primary author of the Center for Ecoliteracy's book, Smart by Nature: Schooling for Sustainability (Watershed Media/University of California Press, 2009). He coedited Ecological Literacy: Educating Our Children for a Sustainable World (Sierra Club Books, 2005). Prior to coming to the Center, Michael was managing editor of Whole Earth magazine and the Millennium Whole Earth Catalog; he has also written for the Toronto Star and The New York Times, among other publications. He was a founding faculty member and academic vice president of World College West in northern California.
Alice Lee Tebo, communications coordinator, was a senior reporter at Entertainment Weekly magazine for eight years, where she covered film, television, and celebrity style. Previously, she was assistant beauty and fashion editor at Woman's Day; she has also worked in book publishing, media market research, and TV production. Alice earned a B.A. in psychology from Princeton University and studied abroad at the University of London.