Our Team
Michael Lerner, President
Michael Lerner, Ph.D., is President and co-founder of the Jenifer Altman Foundation and of Commonweal. Commonweal, founded in 1976, is a nonprofit center in Bolinas, California. Commonweal offers programs in health and healing, education and the arts, and environment and justice. Michael's work at Commonweal focuses on the Commonweal Cancer Help Program, Healing Circles, CancerChoices, The New School at Commonweal, and the Resilience Project, each of which he co-founded. He is the author of Choices in Healing from MIT Press. He taught at Yale in the early 1970s before moving to Bolinas in 1972. He received a MacArthur Prize Fellowship for contributions to public health in 1984. Michael is a co-founder and chair emeritus of the Health and Environmental Funders Network and co-founder and President Emeritus of Smith Center for Healing and the Arts in Washington, DC, and co-founder of Omega.
Stephen Curwood, Treasurer
Mr. Steve Curwood is Executive Producer and Host of Living on Earth. He created the first pilot of Living on Earth in 1990, and the show has run continuously since April 1991. Living on Earth is currently aired on more than 250 National Public Radio/Public Radio International affiliates and XM/Sirius Satellite Radio.
Mr. Curwood’s relationship with NPR dates to 1979 when he began as a reporter and host of Weekend All Things Considered. Mr. Curwood shared the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service as part of the Boston Globe‘s education team. He is also the recipient of the 2003 Global Green Award for Media Design, the 2003 David A. Brower Award from the Sierra Club for excellence in environmental reporting, and the 1992 New England Environmental Leadership Award from Tufts University for his work on promoting environmental awareness.
He is president of the World Media Foundation, Inc., and a director of BGC Partners, Inc. an inter-dealer brokerage firm based in New York and London. Mr. Curwood has also been a member of the Board of Managers of Haverford College since 2001, serving on the Investment Committee since 2003 and as chair of the Committee on Social Investment Responsibility since 2008. From 1996 to 2003, he was a lecturer in Environmental Science and Public Policy at Harvard University. Mr. Curwood also teaches podcasting at UMass Boston as an adjunct professor at the UMB's School for the Environment.
Elise Miller, Board Secretary
Promoting a healthy, just and equitable world for all has been a driving passion since my youth. For over 25 years I directed, founded and transformed nonprofits with national and international reach. I have now established Cedar Wise Coaching to partner with philanthropic and other nonprofit leaders in their efforts to accelerate social change for the common good. I also provide consulting services for nonprofits in transition.
Just prior to establishing Cedar Wise Coaching, I was the Interim Executive Director of Hedgebrook, an international center supporting visionary women-identified writers whose stories and ideas shape our culture now and for generations to come. Given that two-thirds of the writers who come to Hedgebrook are women of color, one of my top priorities in this role was to work closely with staff on racial justice and equity issues to create an environmental in which women of color could thrive in leadership positions. By the end of my tenure in Spring of 2021, two outstanding women of color were hired as the Executive Director and Program Director — the first time any woman of color had served in a leadership position over the 30+ year history of the organization. Most important is that they continue to feel supported and report being very grateful to serve an organization they love.
From 1993-2017, I directed and founded nonprofits focused on environmental and justice health issues. During that period, I fostered strategic partnerships and collaborations among researchers, health professionals, government officials and advocacy organizations to translate the emerging science on pollution into stronger public health policy. These efforts resulted in state, national and international legislation and statutes that protect vulnerable populations from exposures that lead to chronic disease.
On a personal note, I have served on a variety of nonprofit boards and undertaken a wide range of other volunteer activities from earthquake relief work in Nepal to coaching my son’s soccer team. In addition, I've traveled, worked and studied abroad for a total of almost three years of my adult life. I’m also a triathlete, a dedicated meditator (I have practiced insight meditation for over 30 years), a dabbler in various art forms, and a diehard advocate for the Common Good. I currently live in the Seattle area with my husband and teenage son in a house with climbing ropes in the living room and running trails out the back door.
Pete Myers, Board Member
Pete is the founder and Chief Scientist of Environmental Health Sciences, a not-for-profit organization that promotes public understanding of advances in scientific research on links between the environment, including climate, and human health. For a dozen years beginning in 1990, Dr. Myers served as Director of the W. Alton Jones Foundation in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is actively involved in primary research on the impacts of “endocrine disruption” on human health.
As one of the world’s foremost scientific thinkers on challenges related to endocrine disruption chemicals, Pete coined the term “endocrine disruption” in 1991 and was one of three authors of the seminal, best seller book Our Stolen Future (1996) that alerted the world to the hormone disrupting effects of toxic chemicals.
Pete serves on a number of boards including those for the Science Communication Network, the Jenifer Altman Foundation and the Food Packaging Forum (Zurich). He has also served as board chair of the National Environmental Trust and the H. John Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment. He is an Adjunct Professor of Chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University.
Over the last few years he has received 3 major national and international awards: the first “Champion of Environmental Health Research” award from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (of the 11 awardees in addition to Myers, 3 others were the current and former directors of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences); the Laureate Award for Outstanding Public Service from The Endocrine Society (the world’s largest association of medical and research professionals specializing in endocrinology); and the Distinguished Service Award from the Sierra Club. He has also received the Frank Hatch “Sparkplug” award from the John Merck Fund and the Jean and Leslie Douglas Pearl award from the Cornell Douglas Foundation.
Nsedu Obot Witherspoon, Board Member
Ms. Nsedu Obot Witherspoon, MPH, serves as the Executive Director for the Children’s Environmental Health Network (CEHN), where her responsibilities include successfully organizing, leading, and managing child-protective policy, education/training, and science-related programs.
For the past 23 years, she has served as a key spokesperson for children’s vulnerabilities and the need for their protection, conducting presentations and lectures across the country.
She is a leader in the field of children’s environmental health, serving on the External Science Board for the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) NIH Research work. She is a Co-Leader the Health/Science initiative of the Cancer Free Economy Network and Co-Chair of the National Environmental Health Partnership Council. Ms. Witherspoon is also the Board Chair for the Pesticide Action Network of North America, Board Member for the Environmental Integrity Project Healthy Building Network, and Jenifer Altman Foundation, and serves on the Maryland Children’s Environmental Health Advisory Council.
Ms. Witherspoon has held past appointments on the Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee for the Environmental Protection Agency, the NIH Council of Councils, the Science Advisory Board for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Board for the American Public Health Association. She is a past member of the National Association of Environmental Health Sciences Council and the Institute of Medicine’s Environmental Health Sciences Roundtable.
Ms. Witherspoon has a variety of publications and has the distinct honor of having one of CEHN’s leadership awards, the Nsedu Obot Witherspoon (NOW) Youth Leadership Award, named in her honor. She is also the recent recipient of the William R. Reilly Award in Environmental Leadership from the Center for Environmental Policy at American University and the Snowy Egret Award from the Eastern Queens Alliance.
Ms. Witherspoon has a B.S. in Biology Pre Med from Siena College and a M.P.H. in Maternal and Child Health from The George Washington University, School of Public Health and Health Services. She is a proud mom to 4 children!
Ann Blake, Executive Director
Dr. Ann Blake combines thirty years of experience finding safer chemicals and materials in over a dozen different global sectors of consumer product manufacturing with her passion for economic and environmental justice and systems approaches to the task of building resilient local and regional economies. Dr. Blake was Founder and Principal of Environmental & Public Health consulting for twenty years, focusing on disproportionate exposures among workers in manufacturing and service sectors. From 2015 to 2020 she was part of the leadership team for the Cancer-Free Economy Network.
Dr. Blake holds a B.A. from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, and a Ph.D. in molecular genetics and neural development from the University of Oregon.
Dr. Blake is a member of the Green Ribbon Science Panel created by the California legislature to advise California EPA on the implementation of California’s Safer Consumer Product regulations. She has created curriculum on green chemistry and alternatives assessment for the University of California Berkeley Extension Program and the University of Washington Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences. With Eric Toensmeier, she co-authored Perennial Industrial Crops: Green Chemistry and Carbon Sequestration, in the 2019 Springer Handbook of Ecomaterials.
In addition to managing the Foundation's grantmaking and staff, Dr. Blake leads our consultancy work with client foundations. Areas of focus for these portfolios include chemical policy, global grassroots movement building, environmental health and justice advocacy and international trade.
In her spare time, Ann is an avid hiker, gardener, textile artist, vocalist and upright jazz bass player.
Ann can be reached at ablake (at) jaf (dot) org.
Richard Horan, Grants Manager
Richard has worked many years in the non-profit field, currently as Grants Manager with the Jenifer Altman Foundation. A former software programmer/analyst who moved to San Francisco from Philadelphia, he has spent most of his life in New York City, earning a music business degree at NYU and studying computer programming at Columbia. Richard was Board Secretary for the Brooklyn Symphony and currently is Director of Grants Management for the Eucalyptus Foundation and Executive Director of the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony.
Richard can be reached at rhoran (at) jaf (dot) org.
Judi Hoffman, Administrative Assistant
Judi is a copyeditor and Spanish translator for field guides and other books relating to natural history, ecology, wildlife, and botany. She is also a fluency and writing coach for English learners around the world. In 2014, she co-founded Citizens for Oil-Free Backyards, a 501(c)(3) focused on creating stronger protections for the environment and people living near oil and gas rigs in Michigan.
Judi received a B.A. in Biology from Hampshire College and an M.S. in Environmental Studies from the University of Wisconsin. She researched the impact of copper smelters on human health and aquatic ecosystems in Chile and was a member of a National Geographic Society project studying wildlife in Patagonia. She also provided research for Amnesty International's Chile Campaign.
As a lifelong dirt farmer, Judi served as Associate Editor for The Small Farmer's Journal while chasing after cows, rescuing goats from trees, harvesting rocks, and trying to keep honeybees happy from New Hampshire to California.
Judi can be reached at jhoffman (at) jaf (dot) org.
Mark Valentine
Mark is the founder and principal of ReFrame It Consulting, which for the past twenty-five years has provided strategic program design and organizational development services to foundations, individual funders, and nonprofits. The suite of issues upon which he's engaged range from transportation and land use to climate change and renewable energy to marine conservation in the Arctic. Mark was previously a Program Director with the Packard Foundation where he helped establish what was at the time the nation's largest conservation grantmaking program with initiatives in the US, Mexico, China, and Western Pacific. In addition to his consulting work, Mark currently serves as the Chief Strategy Officer for the Omega Resilience Awards (ORA).
JAF Advisors
Andrea Frey
Since 2016 Andrea leads AJF-Advisory, which provides support to funders and NGOs on strategy development, fundraising, and communication. Her clients have included: Wildlife Justice Commission, Elephant Protection initiative, NEMO (Sustainable Expansion of Maritime Observation), and Global Fishing Watch. Previously Andrea was the Head of the Special Interest Program at Oak Foundation, managing a diverse portfolio of over 100 projects with an annual budget of USD 50 million. Before that she worked as the campaign coordinator for Amnesty International in Israel, led political campaigns in Switzerland, and worked on a number of assignments for the Swiss Development Agency and the UN.