NC Members

There are 19 National Council Members from South Carolina to Michigan to California who are the youth leadership of our organization. We don't have any adult executive director or any figure in the shadows giving orders to SEAC - we are an authentically youth led and run organization. I am excited about this new year and the opportunity we have with the amazing people listed below giving direction and setting vision for SEAC!

Dave Shukla is our new National Council Coordinator and his bio is below.

Read all about our new National Council Members:

Aaron Petcoff
I'm a student at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan where I live with six roommates and study history and Spanish.

I work with Students for a Democratic Society, and became involved with social justice shortly after graduating from high school. My experiences have carried me through labor organizing, prisoner rights, anti-war, student rights and environmental justice.

My claim to fame is that I was once misquoted in the New York Times and spoke on Weekend America, which I've heard is Fiona Apple's favorite radio show. I'm also told that my great grandfather was almost kicked out of the United States.

Abiola Fashun
Abiola is a Nigerian-American interested in social justice issues. A student at Carnegie Mellon University, Abiola is receiving double degrees in Professional Writing and Ethics, History & Public Policy. Abiola is currently working on creating programming for juvenile offenders and restructuring Carnegie Mellon's Women's Center. Abiola is from New Jersey and is excited about helping to create a greater presence for SEAC in northern New Jersey. With a strong background in working for children's rights and gender issues, Abiola will focus on urban environmental issues.

Alex Grosskurth
Alex (24, Philadelphia, PA) is a white dude who is organizing for social change and revolution. Alex was raised in Ambler, one of the most polluted towns in Pennsylvania (asbestos), and has been environmentally aware since a very young age. He attended Lehigh University, where he organized the first environmental campus group, which won a 2-year campaign for the school to use Wind Energy as part of its electricity supply.

After attaining a Master's in Political Science, Alex lived in Venezuela for 7 months, learning Spanish and experiencing a very different political culture. Since returning to 'el norte', Alex has been organizing with Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), both in Philly and on the national level. He is also writing a book about Peak Oil called "The End of Capitalism". To pay the bills, he is a part-time teacher of English as a Second Language (ESL) to Latino immigrant-workers.

He is excited about student organizing in general and SEAC in particular, as a powerful agent for grassroots movement-building towards a society that is just, democratic and free.

Brian Kelly
My name's Brian. I'm a youth and student organizer currently in New York. For the last two year's I've been working to build Students for a Democratic Society as a viable, national student organization. I'm very interested in peace, justice, and climate issues and building powerful, united, popular movements that are both visionary and strategic. I enjoy hiking and camping and I'm excited to start contributing to SEAC!

Chris Klarer
I'm a senior at Southern Illinois University Carbondale studying Art and Design. I am the coordinator of SIUC's Student Environmental Center, a student organization that has been active on our campus for almost 20 years. We are a member of the Campus Climate Challenge and our main campaign this semester is the creation of a sustainability fee that could generate around $400,000 a year to go towards energy effeciency projects.

Besides my experience organizing with SEC, I have worked on a wide range of issues locally (including labor, student power and anti-war) and was the editor of a local Indymedia paper.

In my spare time I play in a band and drink tea... LOTS of tea.

Chris Venegas
Chris Venegas is a 21 year old double majoring in philosophy and environmental science at Central Michigan University. Chris has been working locally on the Campaign for Fair Food with the SFA since 2006, the Campus Climate Challenge, Transportation Challenge and many other tasks through the CMU
Student Environmental Alliance over the past couple years, and has been active in the cooperative business movement for two years as amember and produce buyer at GreenTree Cooperative
Grocery. A Chilean-American born in Montana with both parents working for the USDA, Chris was brought up enjoying Natural beauty and continues to do so hiking, canoeing, snowboarding,
cross-country skiing, and camping. He lives for drumming, expression, environmental and social justice, and the promotion of sustainable communities.

Christine Irvine
Christine became an avid organizer within the youth climate movement after spending the summer of 2006 in the Greenpeace Organizing Term. From there, she went back to her campus at Elon University and ran a successful Campus Climate Challenge campaign for carbon neutrality. In the summer of 2007, she worked as the New Media Fellow of the Energy Action Coalition. By the fall, she'd decided to take a break from school and work full time organizing throughout the movement. Last fall, she worked with students throughout North Carolina to organizing the North Carolina Student Climate Coalition and spent time in DC organizing with Energy Action for Power Shift 2007. Christine now works from Nashville, TN as the Youth Organizer for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and the Southern Energy Network. She is interested in bridging issues of climate and energy justice with real solutions to global climate change. When she's not organizing, she likes to read and to cook.

Dana Kuhnline
Dana studied linguistics and poetry through to her MA at Truman State in Northeast Missouri. She worked with the V-Day campaign as well as a myriad of environmental issues and general agitation for social justice. After moving to West Virginia to work with cultural preservation and arts advocacy she became involved in Mountain Top Removal and other coal issues, which led her to SEAC, where she is today, sitting at a desk typing this.

Danny Chiotos
He is the Fundraising Coordinator for the Student Environmental Action Coalition and is based in Charleston, West Virginia. He has been involved at a youth leader in efforts towards social justice in WV for the past 5 years through local work in Shepherdstown and in recent years has become heavily involved in efforts to stop mountaintop removal. He has experience as a primary fundraiser for the 2007 Mountain Justice Spring Break and is currently a fundraising advisor to the 2008 Mountain Justice Spring Break. His goal is to see a WV where communities rather than corporations control their own future.

Dave Shukla
He is a researcher and organizer living in los angeles. he has been active in the anti-war, labor, immigrants' rights, and student movements. over the past three years he has also written and spoken extensely on climate change and mitigation strategies.

Faye Bibeau
Faye is a SEAC National Council member and previously worked as a SEAC staff member, sitting on the Energy Action Coalition council and steering committee. She lives in Philadelphia, and has been working closely with Students for a Democratic Society nationally and locally to link youth anti-war organizing to the youth climate movement. Before SEAC, Faye worked on student-labor, racial justice, and anti-war organizing at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY.

Holly Garrett
I retired from graduate school at Clemson University to work more diligently on community organizing here in Clemson, SC. We are part of the state-wide network, SCASCC (South Carolina Alliance for Sustainable Campuses and Communities) and are currently fighting a proposed coal plant in Florence County by Santee Cooper. Here at Clemson U, I am coordinating the Teach-In for Focus the Nation, and regionally, I am a member of the Mountain Justice Spring Break Planning Collective. I am looking forward to building youth & student power in the Southeast and beyond, working with SEAC to create a just future for all!

Joshua Kahn Russell
Joshua Kahn Russell is a 23 year old trainer and national organizer with Rainforest Action Network (RAN) and has been working to launch the "new" Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) since it's rebirth in early 2006. He's trying to take organizing more seriously, and take himself less seriously. Josh has worked in movements for racial, environmental, gender, and economic justice. He was a co-founder of the Activist Resource Center and other student groups at Brandeis University, where he graduated in 2006 with degrees in Women's Studies and Sociology. He is a member of Bay Rising Affinity Group (BRAG!). His writing has appeared in books on issues including Young Feminism, Youth Activism, and International Solidarity in Jamaica, Cambodia, and Mexico. Joshua's articles have appeared in Yes! Magazine, Left Turn, and Z, among others. His artwork has appeared on the cover of books authored by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, and Noam Chomsky, and in the Celebrate People's History poster series. Joshua currently lives in Oakland, CA and likes eating brownies.

Maia Dedrick
I'm a student in anthropology, classical archaeology, and cello performance. I've wanted to be an archaeologist since ninth grade and I love digging in the dirt! Although my hometown is St. Paul, MN, my second homes include northwest Belize, where I do archaeological fieldwork, and Ann Arbor, MI, where I attend the University of Michigan. Although I have had a longtime interest in social justice issues, I was inspired to get into environmental activism through my participation in Power Shift, where I really began to understand the relevance of environmental issues to all of my previous social causes. Those causes included work on the Women Composers' Concerts in the School of Music and work on disabilities and rehabilitation through Dance Marathon. I like to study ancient languages, improvise music on my cello, sing gospel music, and bake cardamom cookies.

Madeline Gardner
Madeline is the Northeast Organizer with Student Environmental Action Coalition where she works hand in hand with other youth to support student activism and create a new generation of organizers. Madeline got her feet wet in high school by taking part in a year-long urban land occupation to protect a Dakota sacred site and a park. From there she went to the University of Minnesota to get busy organizing anti-war walkouts and defending equal access to higher education. Madeline has also guided wilderness expeditions for teenage girls in northern MN and Canada where she saw too much global warming first hand. Before coming to SEAC Madeline worked with SEIU on a successful contract campaign. Madeline recently joined SEAC because it is all youth run and fighting global warming tooth and nail!!

Marcela Rodriguez
(16, New York City, NY), a junior at Stuyvesant High School, founded a chapter of the Sierra Student Coalition at her school in fall 2007. Through this club, also known as "Green Stuy," she and her members are actively working to address the hottest environmental issues in their community, including global warming, pollution, and the need for recycling. Their agenda includes Focus the Nation events, an environmental movie fest, and "green" fundraising for eco-friendly causes. Marcela hopes to help SEAC make more students, legislators, and business owners make America "go green." She is excited to work with the motivated individuals that make up the National Council. When not looking for sustainable living strategies or visiting the farmer's market she can be found running for her track team, pursuing a Tae Kwon Do black belt, working on her Girl Scout Gold Award, or playing DDR."

Rachel Clement
Rachel Clement grew up near Annapolis, Maryland and is currently in her last year of college at St. Mary's College of Maryland. She has been the co-president of her college SEAC group, is the student co-chair of the St. Mary's Sustainability Committee, and is currently working hard on pushing forward the Campus Climate Challenge agenda to create deep ecological lifestyle changes in her community. Her group recently won a victory by mobilizing the student body to vote for 100% of the College's electricity use to be offset through a $25 student fee increase. Their next goal? Carbon neutrality, minimizing waste and creating a deep culture of environmental sustainability! Rachel bikes to work at a small organic farm near her campus, and has strong interests in creating a chemical and petroleum-free food system, coalition building between groups with disparate (at first glance) agendas, and empowering the oppressed through all forms of environmental and climate justice. She is incredibly honored and excited to be on the National Council of this beautiful activist network.

Sarah Kidder
Sarah Kidder, 25, from Fayetteville WV. I live in Glenville, WV where I am finishing up school at Glenville State College. I helped to start a SEAC chapter at GSC that has worked on many local and national projects over the past couple years. We have been the most active around stopping mountaintop removal, fighting for women's rights, and working to end the Iraq War. I am very close with my family of humans and nonhumans and I love to sing songs, garden, and make things. SEAC has been an inspiration for me by challenging what I thought was possible through student/youth activism. As SEACers, we have an exciting opportunity to unite those who are organizing around progressive causes and build this necessary movement for environmental and social justice.

Whit Forrester
Whit Forrester is a queer scotch-irish american based in and recent graduate of Oberlin College up in the hinterlands of Ohio. He did work on the Maine and US Social Forums, co-created a Recycled Products Co-op in Oberlin, and worked with Kentuckians for the Commonwealth as an Electoral Organizer and accidental fundraiser. His current ambitions are to work on local transportation initiatives, a queer and trans community space, facilitating the furtherance of Louisville's urban agriculture programs, the generation of a local non-corporate media center and the continuing struggles for justice in Appalachia from his home base in Louisville.