Panelists:

Ben Duncan (he/him) - Chief Officer of Diversity and Equity, Multnomah County

Ben Duncan is the Chief Diversity and Equity Officer for Multnomah County. He began his career in environmental health with the county in 2004 as a community health worker and has since worked as a health educator, policy analyst, and manager of the Health Equity Initiative. In each of these roles, his work has always focused on the relationships between our social, economic, and environmental conditions and racial and ethnic disparities. In August he will be joining Kearns and West as a Senior Director focused on collaborative problem-solving. Ben was a founding board member of OPAL Environmental Justice Oregon and also serves on the Oregon Commission for Black Affairs, the Oregon Environmental Justice Task Force, and is Chair of Oregon Public Health Institute's Board.

Monica Atkins (she/her) - Organizing Director, Climate Justice Alliance

Monica “Surreal the Messenger” Atkins is a cultural worker and organizer who is passionate about organizing with communities organizing for self-determination and self-governance. Monica’s experience organizing is built upon her leadership within the labor movement, building worker power with unions including the United Auto Workers, American Federation of Teachers, and Communication Workers of America through direct action, cultural events, and more. It is through these experiences that she began to organize solidarity economies as a member of Cooperation Jackson to build worker power and ownership while organizing with the Climate Justice Alliance to expand the Just Transition Framework in the Southeast.

Peggy Shepard (she/her) - Co-founder and Executive Director, WE ACT for Environmental Justice

Peggy Shepard has a long history of organizing and engaging Northern Manhattan residents in community-based planning and campaigns to address environmental protection and environmental health policy locally and nationally. She has successfully combined grassroots organizing, environmental advocacy, and environmental health community-based participatory research to become a national leader in advancing environmental policy and the perspective of environmental justice in urban communities—to ensure that the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment extends to all. She has been named co-chair of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, and was the first female chair of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She also serves on the Executive Committee of the National Black Environmental Justice Network and the Board of Advisors of the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health.

T Gedi (she/her) - YEJA intern, OPAL Environmental Justice Oregon

T Gedi is a senior at David Douglas High School and has been a Youth Environmental Justice Alliance (YEJA) intern since 2021. T is passionate about women's rights and environmental justice. She loves the color pink and her favorite food is sushi. Her plans after high school are to pursue a degree in fashion media/journalism in New York City.

Moderator:

Kevin Lionga Aipopo (all pronouns) - YEJA Community Organizer, OPAL Environmental Justice Oregon

Kevin Lionga Aipopo is a storyteller, student leader, and current YEJA Community Organizer based in traditional Kalupuya, Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde, and Atfalati lands (Beaverton, Oregon). Their work centers around the intersections between their ethnic identity as a Black American and Samoan person and their gender fluidity. Kevin uses their platforms to interrogate systems of power, challenge normalcy, and uplift voices within their communities. Through interpersonal connection, community organizing, poetry, and education, they have found space as an emerging voice for Black, Indigenous, queer, trans, and climate liberation.

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