Environmental Justice Advisors

Selena Feliciano is a community-member and founder of SF Consulting Co., a local outreach firm with a commitment to amplify efforts that facilitate a just transition of local economies by engaging BIPOC communities around food security, sustainable energy, transportation and social justice. She is the Worker Director of People Power Solar Cooperative, Board Director of Berkeley Student Cooperative Alumni Association, and a contributing artist of bicycle environmental troupe Agile Rascale Theater. Selena is an avid bee steward, cyclist, and surfer, and is passionate about BIPOC connections to ancestry and the land.

Julio Garcia is the founding Director at Rise South City in South San Francisco. In his previous capacity as program manager with Nuestra Casa, Julio was deeply involved with other BCDC efforts, such as the EJ review team that helped develop the agency’s Bay Plan Environmental Justice policies. He continues this involvement through his role on Bay Adapt’s Leadership Advisory Group. At Rise South City, Julio is developing a San Mateo County Climate Equity Hub, where he supports community members with Environmental Justice advocacy and technical trainings. His work in San Mateo County goes back 25 years when he was part of Comité de Base at St. Francis.

Anthony G. Khalil is an independent consultant at the Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates, serving as the organization’s community engagement and ecological restoration specialist. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Environmental Studies with a concentration in social justice from San Francisco State University. Over the past two decades, Anthony has worked with Literacy for Environmental Justice and other organizations’ environmental education and restoration programs for youth of color. Early on in the Covid pandemic, Khalil launched a free food distribution program “Bayview Bounty Boxes” with the Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates, which is the first phase in establishing a Community Co-op Grocery Store. Anthony is also a spouse, father, brother, uncle, Mentor, Ecologist, Outdoorsman, Waterman, and Culture Bearer.

Violet Saena is a community advocate in San Mateo County with a deep understanding of sea level rise and climate change. She spent four years as the Principal Climate Change Officer for the government of her home island nation of Samoa, supporting climate change policy improvements and liaising between Pacific Islands and Caribbean nations to ensure regional coordination and support for small island states in international climate policies. Violet is the founding Director of Climate Resilient Communities, a project of Acterra. Before joining Acterra, Violet served as a lead researcher for Sustainable Silicon Valley and Project Manager for the East Palo Alto Net Positive Project.

Niria Alicia (she/they/we) is a Xicana Indigena human rights advocate, climate justice organizer, popular educator, storyteller and #LandBack strategist dedicated to protecting the sacredness of Mother Earth and the dignity of historically oppressed peoples. In 2019 her climate justice and environmental education work earned her the national ‘Emerging Leader Award’ from GreenLatinos’ and the internationally recognized ‘EE 30 under 30’ award from the North American Association for Environmental Education. In 2020 the United Nations named her the Young Champion of the Earth for North America for her work with Run4Salmon giving her the highest honor the UN gives to young people under the age of 30. In 2021 after the Almeda Fire destroyed nearly 2,800 structures in her community she co-founded Coalicion Fortaleza, a culturally-empowered women-led organization that is leading the just recovery efforts for the Latinx, Indigenous and working-class community of Southern Oregon. Niria Alicia believes that true justice can only exist by rematriating and indigenizing land, normalizing indigenous values and honoring the sacredness of women, elders, children, 2 spirit, disabled and Mother Earth.

Naama Raz-Yaseef, Ph.D. serves as the Senior Manager of the Climate Ready Communities Program at the Watershed Project, where she fosters collaborations between communities, governmental agencies, and designers/engineers through participatory design to create nature-based solutions that address climate change impacts. Holding a Ph.D. in Environmental Science, Naama previously worked as an ecohydrologist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and taught courses on the Water Cycle and Water Management at the University of California, Berkeley. As a Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist for Global Development Projects, she led evaluation and development projects with smallholder farmers, indigenous communities, and grassroots organizations in Central America and Africa. Naama is a Richmond resident and has co-led various local Environmental Justice programs.