Our Team

Economic Equity Director

Adam Briones

Energy Equity Director

Carmelita Miller

Carmelita Miller was born in the Philippines and grew up in South San Francisco, California.  She graduated from Sacramento State University where she became a Ronald E. McNair Scholar and earned a B.A. in History with a minor in Greek studies.  After a graduating from UC Hastings College of the Law, she became a Greenlining Legal Fellow in 2013-14, focusing on telecommunications policy.

While at UC Hastings, she served as the President of the Pilipino American Law Society and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Hastings Race and Poverty Law Journal.  Inspired by her personal experiences living in low-income, immigrant, and working class communities, she dedicated her free time in law school to providing legal assistance to the low-income population by interning and volunteering at various pro bono organizations such as Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County, UC Hastings Civil Justice Clinic, Legal Aid of San Francisco’s Workers Rights Clinic, the Veterans Equity Center, and the Filipino Community Center.

Casa Joaquin House Manager

Chagan Sanathu

Chagan Sanathu has a long history of engagement with the youth leadership programs — first as a 2010 Young People For (YP4) Fellow and later as a Center for Progressive Leadership Fellow. For 3 years, Chagan worked at the Young People For offices in Washington, DC, where she worked with the 12-person alumni board to help support the YP4 program. Chagan graduated in 2012 from Goshen College with a degree in business and public relations. During her time as an undergraduate, Chagan interned at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities where she researched the effects of child tax credit and earned income tax credit of low-income communities, with an emphasis on women who survived domestic violence.

Chagan is a former board member for the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum-DC Chapter, focusing on fundraising to support the chapter’s work on immigration reform, reproductive justice, and other issues impacting the API community.

Economic Equity Fellow

De’Zhon Grace

De’Zhon Grace, 2019 Economic Equity Fellow, comes from Oakland, California. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley as a first-generation college student, with a major in Sociology & minor in African American Studies.

Growing up in a single-parent household, he witnessed the persistent challenges Black mothers face when raising a family in today’s America.This experience developed in him a passion for love in all forms (mentally, physically, spiritually), problem-solving, and a desire to strengthen the Black household. He believes that Black and Brown communities have a shared struggle that encompasses both economics and spirituality. Furthermore, he perceives this struggle to have persistently been the greatest obstacle in mastering self-sufficiency, prosperity, and love of self. De’Zhon has dedicated his life to searching for a solution to this struggle, which would allow for a collective shift of focus away from basic survival towards a household that thrives.

Environmental Equity Senior Policy Manager

Emi Wang

Emi is dedicated to supporting communities of color to access the resources they need to lead their own transformations. Our neighborhoods have been shaped by racist and exclusionary public policies, and Emi is committed to leveraging policy to bring about transformative change, grounded in social and racial justice, for our communities. At Greenlining, Emi leads the Environmental Equity team’s capacity-building and locally-based work, helping to build the capacity of communities of color to access state-level resources to fight the impacts of pollution and climate change. She also co-leads our advocacy in Sacramento around policies to reduce poverty and pollution. Prior to joining Greenlining, Emi supported grassroots community improvement initiatives in communities of color and low-income neighborhoods across New York City.

Environmental Equity Program Manager

Hana Creger

As Environmental Equity Program Manager, Hana contributes to the development and implementation of policies leading to clean transportation and mobility investments in California that result in positive health, environmental, and economic outcomes. Her work is focused on the intersection of transportation, climate change, and economic opportunities for low-income communities of color. Prior to Greenlining, Hana implemented innovative campaigns for Alameda County’s Clean Commute Program, to promote long-term sustainable behavior changes. Hana has also worked as a community organizer, advocating for climate change action and public transit policies in San Diego.

Operations Coordinator

Irma Hurtado

As the Operations Coordinator at The Greenlining Institute, Irma is responsible for overseeing the organization’s accounts payable and accounts receivable as well as offering support to the Development team on grant and data processing. Previously, Irma worked at Briones International, LLC as a bookkeeper, where she provided bookkeeping services to various nonprofit organizations in the Bay Area.

While volunteering at Mujeres Unidas y Activas, Irma became passionate for human rights and social justice as well as the work of the nonprofit sector. This is what drew Irma to The Greenlining Institute.

Irma holds a B.A in Political Science from Cal State East Bay. She grew up in the Bay Area, where she currently lives with her husband. During her free time Irma enjoys dancing, hiking and spending time with her family.

Leadership Academy Manager

Jamina Ovbude

Jamina Ovbude is an educator whose strengths sit at the intersection of curriculum-building, multimedia and materials design, logistics management and customer service. She honed her teaching and curriculum-building skills during the four years she spent working as an English instructor with the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme. There, she built curriculum that focused on teaching English as a second language through a cultural competency and personal empowerment lens, and also began to develop her passion for bridging knowledge gaps by uplifting learners to engage with their fullest selves.

Development Director

Jane Duong

Jane Duong is the Development Director at The Greenlining Institute, where she leads a team responsible for engaging foundations, corporations, individuals and other supporters to raise resources for the organization and its mission. Jane brings 15 years of experience working with communities of color to advance economic opportunity. Previously, she worked at the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development (CAPACD), a social justice organization improving the lives of low-income Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders across the country through a coalition of grassroots organizations. She played many roles, including Director of Programs and Advocacy, where she developed the first national network of AAPI-serving housing counseling agencies in the country. She also supported the growth of asset-building and financial capability programs in the AAPI community and contributed to groundbreaking research on how AAPI communities access financial services and products. Most recently, she served as the Director of Development and Strategic Partnerships, leading efforts to centralize fundraising efforts and grow the organization’s influence.

Healthy Equity Program Manager

Kelsey Lyles

As Health Equity Program Manager, Kelsey Lyles leads the Health Equity team’s workforce equity and inclusion advocacy efforts. Growing up in Chicago, she felt a strong commitment to social justice at a young age.

Kelsey has extensive experience in public policy development, cross-sector collaboration, public health program design, and stakeholder engagement strategies. Prior to Greenlining, Kelsey was an Equity Specialist at the California Strategic Growth Council and managed a racial justice capacity building program for California state employees, with participation from 19 departments and agencies. Kelsey also served as a member of the California Health in All Policies staff team for five years, where she led multi-sector state government work groups, developed equity-focused work plans, provided health equity trainings, and promoted a culture shift towards equity and inclusion in state government.  Kelsey received her bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Community Development from Howard University.

Environmental Equity Program Manager

Leslie Aguayo

Leslie Aguayo is an urban planner and advocate with experience in poverty alleviation, asset building, affordable housing, equitable transportation and community outreach strategies using both quantitative, qualitative and ethnographic methodology in an effort to increase upward mobility in urban, suburban and rural spaces. As Environmental Equity Program Manager Leslie works to further equitable electric vehicle policy and investments. She leads Greenlining’s transportation equity work, advocating to increase racial equity in transportation planning and investments, implementing the Charge Ahead California Initiative–a law that works to make electric vehicles accessible to low- and moderate-income Californians — and advocating for equitable EV charging infrastructure investments at the California Public Utilities Commission, the California Energy Commission, and within the Volkswagen Diesel Settlement.

Prior to joining Greenlining, Leslie attended graduate school where she studied affordable housing development, researched environmental racism impacts in Bayview Hunters Point, conducted a transit oriented development assessment of the Fruitvale BART station, and reimagined the Oakland Coliseum Neighborhood using urban design solutions for sea level rise. She has also worked for the Center for Responsible Lending, advocating for predatory lending protections in communities of color, and at TransForm assisting on the LyftUp East Oakland project to improve equitable access to new mobility transportation in East Oakland.

Senior Events Manager

Mariah Gonzalez

Mariah coordinates Greenlining’s Annual Economic Summit, Academy Graduation and various events throughout the year. Prior to joining the Greenlining team, she helped to start-up Insight Garden Program, a nonprofit that builds gardens and offers job training in prisons across California. After receiving a degree in Food Systems, Ethnic Studies and Political Economy from UC Berkeley, her love of traditional foods and non-profit life led her to La Cocina, a food business incubator in San Francisco. It was there that she fell in love with the adrenaline rollercoaster that is event management — helping pull off the San Francisco Street Food Festival, an event that attracts 60,000 attendees to highlight La Cocina’s women-of-color-owned businesses. Mariah is committed to work that helps provide good jobs, meaningful work and economic opportunity to low-income communities.

Economic Equity Strategist

Mercedes Gibson

Mercedes Gibson is an Economic Equity Strategist at the Greenlining Institute, where she partners with the Business Team inside City of Oakland’s Economic & Workforce Development Department to better support small businesses of color, as outlined in Oakland’s 2018 -2020 Economic Development Strategy.

As an East Oakland native, Mercedes is familiar with barriers to wealth for black and brown families living in parts of Oakland that have been historically underdeveloped, ignored and redlined. Since 14, she has advocated for the needs of communities often not invited to sit at the table: poor folks, people of color, queer people and women. She has also worked at various nonprofits that serve these communities: Hack the Hood, LYRIC and Young Women United For Oakland. As a San Francisco State University alum and a certified life coach in positive psychology her passions are communication, strategy and performing on stage. In her downtime she tries to be in a lake or river as much as possible, stargaze around a fire, and read graphic novels.

Enviromental Equity Legal Counsel

Román Partida-López

As Legal Counsel with the Environmental Equity team, Román works to ensure that lower-income communities of color have a seat at the table in order to drive climate investments to help improve air quality and economic opportunities within their communities. He believes that communities and their members must be prioritized, engaged and heard. Román grew up near San Diego in National City, two blocks away from the freeway and across the street from a car body shop that regularly violated city codes by sanding, chroming and painting vehicles out in the open. His exposure to these toxic chemicals and pollution inspired him to work on addressing environmental concerns in his community.

Community Development Program Manager

Sonrisa Cooper

Sonrisa Cooper is a city planner and affordable housing advocate who leads Greenlining’s community development strategy and housing policy. She is passionate about equitable policies and strategies that protect low-income communities of color from displacement. Sonrisa got her start in housing as an intern at the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation in Boston, where she worked on affordable real estate development and organized tenants around energy issues. She also has experience as a program evaluation consultant for utility energy efficiency programs. Sonrisa is a recent graduate of Greenlining’s Leadership Academy, and holds a master’s in City Planning from UC Berkeley and a B.A. in Environmental Studies from Wellesley College.

Sonrisa is a Jeopardy! champion and trivia enthusiast with a tendency to sprinkle useless facts into every conversation. In her free time, she enjoys experimenting with sourdough bread, spending time outdoors, and rooting for the Portland Trail Blazers.

Technology Equity Legal Counsel

Vinhcent Le

Vinhcent Le is a Technology Equity attorney at the Greenlining Institute, where he develops Greenlining’s strategy to protect consumer privacy, prevent algorithmic bias in economic opportunity and to close the digital divide. As an attorney practicing before the California Public Utilities Commission, Vinhcent helped secure multi-million dollar commitments to increase broadband access in California, modernization of the Lifeline program and the development of a program providing laptops to low-income students across the state.