People

Staff

Abby, a young white woman with dark brown bangs and shoulder-length brown hair that fades dramatically to blonde, smiles at the camera. She is wearing glasses with striped brown frames, a collared shirt with a pattern featuring a multitude of cats, and is in front of an exterior wall with white siding.

Abby Jamiel /Emerald Network Director

Abby is the Director of the Emerald Network. She builds relationships with community members and partners to actualize miles of greenways within Boston. As an Urban Planner, her interest lies in bringing joy and justice to cities. She is particularly interested in the intersection of public space, arts and culture, and climate migration.

Abby has a B.A in Art History from Ithaca College where she rowed on the Varsity Crew Team. She also has a Master's Degree in Urban Planning with a concentration in Urban Design from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. She loves to go to live shows, explore new cities on bike and foot, works as a fitness instructor, and dabbles in creating art.

 

Contact: [email protected]

Amrita, a young Indian-American woman with curly dark brown hair past her shoulders and wearing a puffy down jacket, looks over her right shoulder as she smiles at the viewer with her teeth showing. She is in what appears to be an outdoor market area.Amrita Sawhney / Greenways + Policy Analyst

As the Greenways + Policy Analyst, Amrita works across LivableStreets programs to aggregate data and advocate for policies. In her work, Amrita strives to recognize the interconnectivity of all systems. As a result, she works to build cohesive solutions for issues regarding transit, housing, and the environment. Amrita also strives to embrace the gray areas between these systems.

Amrita has a B.A. in Environmental Studies and Economics from Reed College. Her thesis research helped incentivize the implementation of Green Stormwater Infrastructure in Gresham, Oregon. In her free time, Amrita creates art, lifts weights, and eats lots of ice cream. Send her your Boston creamery recommendations anytime!

 

Contact: [email protected]

Michaela, a light-skinned white woman with chin-length, straight light brown hair and light blue eyes, smiles at the camera, showing her teeth. She is wearing a black blazer over a textured white shirt and a silver and gold necklace, and she is leaning to the viewer's left.

Michaela Grenier / Emerald Network Project Manager

Michaela Grenier is the Emerald Network Project Manager for LivableStreets. She works with community members and coalition partners to support the development of miles of greenways in the Boston area. Michaela brings a background in conflict transformation and community organizing to her work. Prior to joining the LivableStreets team, Michaela worked at an international conflict resolution nonprofit where she partnered with diverse communities to design inclusive and participatory processes for improving conflicts and addressing inequities. She is a big believer in the power of greenways to connect communities, improve humans’ health and wellbeing, and increase climate resiliency.

Michaela has a B.A. in International Studies and Women’s Studies from Denison University. In her free time, you can find Michaela gardening, walking, or curled up with a cat (or two) and a good book.

Contact: [email protected]


Past Fellows

Olivia, a white woman with long blonde hair cascading over her right shoulder, stands at a slight angle to the camera and smiles with her mouth closed, looking at the viewer. The lighting is dramatic, with a dark background.

Olivia Poston / Community Engagement and Emerald Necklace GIS Fellow

Olivia Poston was the 2022 Community Engagement and Emerald Network GIS Fellow for Livable Streets. Olivia Poston is an architect, cartographer, and researcher studying topics on environmental histories and infrastructural networks. Both her academic and professional projects reflect her drive towards mitigating emergent environmental issues and expanding accessibility through architecture, urban design, and advocacy. Olivia has successfully completed her first year in the Master of Design Studies program at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD) within the Ecologies domain and is a recipient of the Dean’s Merit Scholarship. In addition to her experience in the architectural profession, Olivia has taught multiple design studios at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and led workshops at the GSD through the Fabrication Lab. Through design collaborations, workshops, and building curriculum, she explores the relationship between the city and resource accessibility within a framework of data visualization and geography.

Marina, a young white Latinx woman with wavy, shoulder-length brown hair, smiles at the camera while standing in front of trees covered in green leaves.

Marina Recio Rodriguez / Emerald Network Mapping Fellow

Marina was the Emerald Network Mapping Fellow at LivableStreets in the summer of 2020; her work involved researching and visualizing the greenway projects in the Boston area that make up the Emerald Network vision. Marina is currently pursuing a Master in Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She is interested in the influence of everyday public spaces on public life and the wellbeing of communities, and the ways in which that design can promote better relationships between cities and the natural systems they belong to.

Marina holds a B.A. in political science from Fordham University. She previously worked at the Measure of America program of the Social Science Research Council. Originally from Caracas, Venezuela, and raised in New York, Marina loves exploring cities on foot and bike.


Executive Committee

Stacy Thompson | Executive Director
LivableStreets Alliance

Stacy is the Executive Director of LivableStreets, overseeing all programs including Vision Zero, Better Buses, and the Emerald Network, and ensuring overall programmatic and operational excellence for the organization. A relentless optimist, Stacy is undaunted by the many challenges facing Metro Boston today, including access to jobs and affordable housing, improving safety and public health outcomes, and building climate resiliency. She believes the City can address these challenges head on by improving one of our most important systems- transportation. Stacy believes that improving our streets isn’t simply a transportation issue, but one of justice, equity, and opportunity. Previously, Stacy served as the Director of Events & Sponsorship at Ceres, where she developed the strategic focus, content, and communications for Ceres' major events. She also worked for the Office for Peace and Justice at the Archdiocese of Chicago where she collaborated with community partners to organize educational forums and supported a broad array of social justice initiatives. She has a Master of Arts in Social Justice from Loyola University, Chicago and a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Education from Saint Vincent College.

Contact: [email protected]

Matt Kiefer | Co-Founder of Emerald Network Initiative
Land Use Attorney, Goulston and Storrs

Matthew Kiefer is a land use attorney at Goulston & Storrs, focusing on obtaining site control and development approvals from public agencies for complex urban projects. These include market-oriented and affordable housing, commercial and mixed-use developments, and facilities and master plans for educational, cultural and health-care institutions. He co-chairs the firm’s Climate Change Resilience Task Force. He is the Chair of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, which supports best practices in municipal governance, and co-chairs the Council of Advisors of Historic Boston, a non-profit redeveloper of historic buildings. He serves on the Advisory Board and Management Committee of ULI Boston. He is a Fellow of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers and was a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He has taught in the urban planning programs at MIT and Harvard and has written on land use law and policy for numerous publications.

Contact: [email protected]

Steve Miller | Co-Founder of Emerald Network Initiative
Director of the Healthy Weight Initiative, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Steve was the co-founder of Boston's Hub On Wheels Bike festival and was subsequently a Gubernatorial appointee on the state’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Board. He was Board Chair of TechBoston Academy, a public pilot high school whose achievements were honored by a visit from President Barak Obama in 2010, and led Mass Networks’ NetDay Campaigns that mobilized over 20,000 volunteers across the state to help network schools for technology-facilitated education reform – leading to an invitation to present at President Clinton's 1999 National Education Summit. Previously, working with state union leaders, he helped found the Massachusetts’ Coalition for Occupational Health & Safety, which just celebrated its 45th year. He has also worked in high tech, helping with the start-up of Lotus Development Corporation then, after a fellowship at the Kennedy School of Government, becoming Director of Strategic Planning for the Commonwealth’s Office of Management Information Systems. Steve has served on the national boards of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR), the Consortium for School Networks (CoSN), and as chair of Grassroots International (GRI). Miller has published four books on public policy, hosted a radio discussion show, and was the on-screen Science & Technology Commentator for a national cable network. He currently publishes a weekly blog titled, “The Public Way: Transportation, Health, and Livable Communities.”

Contact: [email protected]

Advisors
Julia Africa
Greg Bialecki
Alice Brown
Marc Draisen
Alex Krieger
Lee Moreau
Gretchen Rabinkin
Kishore Varanasi