Hello Fellow Climate Activists,
350 Chicago is proud to announce 5 new additions to our Board of Directors. We have recently elected Maddie Young, Whitney Paige Richardson, Anna Shenai, Joshua Horwitz and Jeff Green to our board. Below are brief bios for each.
Maddie Young
Maddie (she/her) is a student organizer and researcher from Evanston, Illinois and is deeply passionate about environmental accountability and justice. She is currently a student at American University where she is majoring in Environmental Studies and is a leader in Sunrise American University’s campaign for a Green New Deal on campus.
She has previously been involved in the successful campaign to pass the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA) through the Illinois State Legislature and has been involved in organizations including the Illinois Chapter of the Sierra Club and Clean Power Lake County.
Aana Shenai
Aana Shenai is a freshman at Loyola University Chicago from Cincinnati, Ohio studying Environmental Science and Environmental Policy. Her interest in solving climate change originated from many summers spent working and volunteering at a local farm’s summer camp. Passionate about sustainable agriculture, she enjoyed teaching kids about where food comes from and where it goes when we throw it away.
In high school, she began working with several environmental activist organizations, often leading initiatives centered around climate education and encouraging others to take action in their communities. She served on Cincinnati’s first Youth Environmental Council and is currently the DEI Campaign Chair for Loyola University Chicago’s Student Environmental Alliance.
She is also a Researcher for the Sweaty Penguin, a climate comedy podcast. Aana believes in creating long-term change to build a more sustainable future for all young people. In her perfect world, climate education becomes a subject like math or English in schools. When not in school or working, Aana enjoys reading, cooking, thrifting, and especially traveling.
Whitney Paige Richardson
Whitney Richardson is an environmental law and policy professional with a background in just transition, international relations, and human rights. Her research has been published in textbooks, journals, and trade magazines and centers on intersectional, just climate action. She is a founding board member of
Climate Creativity, an international climate justice arts and storytelling program. She also serves as a donor advisor and youth mentor, supports organizing efforts for various frontline and grassroots justice movements (including her local ej group, Clean Power Lake County), and contributes to innovative democracy-building campaigns. Prior to focusing on climate and environmental policy, she brings over a decade of experience in the food systems transformation field where she helped mobilize market transformations through youth engagement, education and purchasing initiatives in support of local, sustainable food producers.
She has a BA in International Studies with a concentration in Human Rights from the University of Iowa and an MSc in International Environmental Studies from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences.
Joshua Horwitz
Josh (he/him) is a lawyer with a JD and certificate in Environmental and Energy law from Chicago-Kent College of Law, and has been involved in a variety of environmental and political action groups for over twenty years. By day Josh is the Director of Business Operations for a law firm in Chicago, helping them to run more organized and efficiently. By night (and also often by day) he works with 350 Chicago, where he helps lead the communications team, works to create better structure within the organization, and is the editor-in-chief of the 350 Chicago newsletter.
Josh is a native of Cincinnati, Ohio and has lived in Chicago for over 10 years. In his spare time he enjoys reading and writing fiction, traveling, playing board games with friends, and most of all spending time with his wife Eliana, and his cat Apollo.
Jeff Green
Jeff is a resident of Glenview and has lived in the Chicago area for all but the four years he spent at Trinity College in Hartford, CT. He has an MBA from the Kellogg School at Northwestern, and worked in IT for Kraft, Unilever, and AT&T for over twenty years. His goals are to work to address the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis, the loss of biodiversity, and income inequality. Jeff is a researcher, analyst, and communicator, and has used these skills in his role as Co-leader of the Evanston chapter of Citizens' Climate Lobby, as the lead of the Divest, Defund, Desponsor team of the Chicago chapter of Climate Reality Project, and as a member of the 350 Chicago Divestment team. He’s given presentations on climate change and carbon pricing to school groups, faith groups, and civic organizations, and is currently working on efforts to persuade Chicago and the state to sue fossil fuel companies.
Please welcome the new members to our board of directors. We are confident each will help make 350 Chicago an even more impactful organization in the ongoing fight against the climate crisis.
In Solidarity,
Team 350 Chicago
