About Me

Lisa
 
A writer, activist and traveler, my experience ranges from working in the White House to serving as Peace Corps Volunteer in a small Nigerien village and collaborating with women entrepreneurs in India. Currently I do marketing/communications for a small solar company in Berkeley, CA. Read my full story below:
 
After graduating from college, I joined the Peace Corps as a Municipal and Community Development Volunteer in Niger. Although Niger is best known for being one of the poorest countries in the world, I loved my experience there and cannot put into words the pain that I felt when the Peace Corps program was evacuated due to a terrorist attack in the capital city. I then flew to New Delhi, India for a family friend’s wedding and obtained a three month internship at Start Up! a venture capital firm focused on social entrepreneurship.  I then worked at a youth leadership program called Summer of Solutions in Oakland and now work for an innovative solar finance company called Solar Mosaic. 

Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, I spent four years in Walla Walla, Washington attending Whitman College. While there I served as the Campus Sustainability Coordinator and was an active member of the climate change club. I’m interested in community organizing and spent a lot of time working in lower-income neighborhoods in Walla Walla to decrease crime and increase civic engagement, particularly among the Latino population. I helped found Whitman eJustice which combined my interest in environmental issues and poverty alleviation by distributing energy efficient light-bulbs in few of the neighborhoods where I had previously worked. I’m also interested in international development and especially in increasing off-the-grid, renewable sources of energy in developing countries as a means to increase economic productivity and solve our climate crisis. In 2008, I helped start a biodigester project in Kakamega, Kenya that uses cow dung as an alternative source of fuel to wood harvested from the tropical rainforest. I have done quite a bit of youth organizing, as the North American Youth Representative for the United Nations Environment Programme and a youth delegate to conferences everywhere from Copenhagen to South Korea. I also had the privilege to serve as an intern in the White House Office of Political Affairs, an experience that has greatly increased my interest in public policy.