Dean Abby, M.Ed.
Dean is an educational administrator. His work has included the development of training programs, events, conferences and courses for private companies, non-profit organizations, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the unions representing state employees, as well as several colleges and universities. He has been the Director of Continuing Professional Education at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology for the past 19 years. In addition, he has been the Executive Director of the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis for the past 6 years. He has a longstanding interest in and concern for the creation of communities committed to the concepts of sustainability and their practical implementation around issues of human health and wholeness and the intrinsic relatedness of human beings to the natural world and the environments where we live. Dean received his masters degree from Boston University in Existential Humanistic Counseling Psychology. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Rosalie Anders, M.S.W.
Rosalie is an environmental planner for the City of Cambridge. She works on transportation and energy issues and is the author of the City’s pedestrian plan and coauthor of its climate action plan. Before that, she was Associate Director of Council for a Livable World and co-founded and led the Sustainable Cambridge Coalition, a grassroots environmental organization. She worked as a family therapist and community organizer in Western Massachusetts, New York City, and London and has been active in many local peace and environmental efforts. She is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College, with an MSW from Hunter College School of Social Work. Believing that the enormity of the climate crisis is so hard to deal with emotionally that denial and despair are getting in the way of large-scale action, she volunteers with Interhelp, which holds gatherings based on the work of Joanna Macy.

Sarah A. Conn, Ph.D.
Sarah has been exploring health care theory and practice in the larger context for 25 years. In the 1980's, she taught courses with this focus for psychotherapists and other health care professionals at Harvard Medical School. In the 1990's she became involved in the emerging field of ecopsychology and became a founder of The Ecopsychology Institute, focused on health care within the earth as a living system and the development of ecolological consciousness. She has written a number of articles and chapters on these subjects. She has since 2002 been teaching "Sustainable Design as a Way of Thinking" in the Boston Architectural College's Sustainable Design Certificate Program. Sarah has also been a clinical psychologist in private practice for over 30 years and still practices in Arlington, MA. Her contact information: 781-646-8446; This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Mishy Lesser, Ed.D.
Mishy is an educator and organizational consultant helping urban non-profits and faith-based organizations build their capacity for learning, change, and effective youth programming. She is especially interested in violence prevention, social healing, and transformational leadership development with youth (www.mishylesser.com). Her radio documentaries have been featured on WBUR (Boston) and PRI/BBC’s “The World.” Mishy co-chairs the Tikkun Olam Group of Temple Beth Zion in Brookline, Massachusetts and is an active member of the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO). After earning a doctorate in Education from the Center for International Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and receiving training at the Couples and Family Center at Harvard Medical School, she spent a decade in the field of workforce development research and policy. She has done extensive human rights work and served on several non-profit boards and public-sector task forces. Mishy is also a former Fulbright Scholar to Ecuador, and she worked with urban and rural communities in Latin America for more than twelve years. Mishy loves making art with objects from the natural world, tends an organic garden with her husband and is passionate about environmental stewardship.

Eleanor Mathews, LICSW
Eleanor is an earth lover, mother and hospice social worker. She is in private practice specializing in facing life’s changes, including aging, illness and caregiving, grief and loss, and in helping people cope with feelings related to the threats to life on earth. She has been actively involved in Interhelp, www.Interhelpnetwork.org, and the work of Joanna Macy for over two decades. She facilitates workshops for activists and for people who want to become less numb and overwhelmed, more connected with others and more empowered, in the areas of environmental and social change work. Eleanor is a licensed clinical social worker. She can be reached in the Concord/Acton area, west of Boston, MA, at 978-201-1528 or by email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Jeffrey Perrin
Jeffrey is an advanced doctoral student in the University of New Hampshire Department of Psychology, and counts Introduction to Psychology, Social Psychology, Statistics in Psychology and Ecopsychology, among the university level courses he has taught. He has also taught environmental education at several outdoor centers, and has facilitated leadership and team-building workshops for Outward Bound. In his spare time, Jeff enjoys mis-identifying local birds, playing music with friends, riding old bicycles, eating fresh sushi, abstract photography, and a competitive game of ping-pong.

Robert F. Ryan, M.A.
Robert is a teacher, coach, facilitator, consultant and lover of the earth. Early in his career he taught biology and environmental science and was the Dean of Students at the Roxbury Latin School. For the last thirty years he has worked in the field of leadership and organizational effectiveness. Executive coaching, team-building and organizational alignment are the cornerstones of his work. He was CEO of McBer and Company; is affiliated with the Interaction Institute for Social Change; and conducts his practice as a founder and principal of RyanRossini. He is also a charter member of the Ecopsychology Institute. His contact information: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ; 617-448-1431. Robert received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Boston College.

Judith Thompson, Ph.D.
Judith is a peacebuilding scholar-practitioner with a background in intercultural dialogue, psychosocial healing, peace education, and reconciliation. Her recent research has focused on how compassion arises in the process of social healing. She is currently a research associate at The Karuna Center for Peacebuilding and is engaged in projects in the Middle East, Northern Ireland and the U.S. She is past recipient of the Peace Fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard and the co-founder of the award-winning organization, Children of War, Inc. She spends time each year in the wilderness as a way to restore her soul and receive teachings from the Great Mother.