For over a decade, Monique López has been a social justice planner and policy advocate working on a variety of issues such as mobility justice, economic justice, environmental justice, and public space access throughout Southern California. They are the founder of a participatory planning and design firm, Pueblo, which is rooted in a simple principle: The voices of residents should be respected as experts, and they should dictate the design of their community. Monique is a certified planner with the American Planning Association and has earned a Master’s degree in Community and Regional Planning from the University of Oregon and a Master’s in Political Science from California State University, Long Beach. She has also earned her Bachelor’s degree in History and Political Science with a Minor in Religion from Vanguard University. When she is not working with community members, she loves spending time with her family, riding her bike, and telling stories.
Donald Strauss, PhD, MFA is the founding chair of the Urban Sustainability Master of Arts program at Antioch University Los Angeles. The program launched in October 2010 with the intention of training practitioners and activists committed to working at the urban intersections of global environmental change and social, economic, and environmental justice.
In March 2015, Donald completed his work in the Environmental Studies program at Antioch University New England (AUNE), where he earned a PhD. While in the Environmental Studies Program, he focused on narratives of individuals and groups in urban communities and their relationships to the natural, social and political ecosystems with which they interact. His dissertation, titled Ridazz, Wrenches, & Wonks: A Revolution on Two Wheels Rolls Into Los Angeles, is an examination of the spontaneous emergence of a bike culture that has played an unlikely role in the transformation of regional transportation policy and the cultural life of Los Angeles, California.
Since January of 2007, Donald has served as a Climate Change Presenter with The Climate Reality Project, founded by The Honorable Albert Gore. He has given over 50 presentations titled Climate Change: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions, based on the material included in the Academy Award winning documentary film An Inconvenient Truth. With the ongoing assistance of the staff at The Climate Project, Donald has continuously updated the presentation so that in its current form it reflects the most current state of scientific knowledge and social discourse pertaining to global environmental change.
Prior to assuming his role of Chair of the Urban Sustainability Program, Donald was a member of the Core Faculty in the Antioch University Los Angeles Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies Program where he directed the Creative Writing Major Area of Concentration. He has been teaching at Antioch University Los Angeles since 1998.
Louis Sahagun is a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times. He covers issues ranging from religion, culture and the environment to crime, politics, and water. He was on the team of L.A. Times writers that earned the Pulitzer Prize in Public Service for a series on Latinos in Southern California. He is a CCNMA: Latino Journalists of California board member, and author of the book, “Master of the Mysteries: the Life of Manly Palmer Hall.”
In 2014, Sahagun’s articles examined the political and economic motivations behind President Obama’s designation of the San Gabriel Mountains as a national monument, LA Mayor Garcetti’s effort to restore a portion of the Los Angeles River, a plan to make the Santa Ana River cleaner and more accessible, the cutting of California’s shale oil recovery estimate by 96%, and an article that revealed the mystery of Death Valley’s moving rocks. Also in 2014, he helped cover major breaking news events: four young girls killed a by motorist in Orange County on Halloween night, a troubled vet at the White House door, and devastating floods in the San Bernardino.
Jane Paul teaches at Antioch University Los Angeles (AULA), as Teaching Faculty and Head of the undergraduate concentration Urban Studies as well as Teaching (and founding) Faculty in the Masters in Urban Sustainability program. Jane is an active participant in the curriculum and program development teams. She is excitedly teaching, researching, writing and developing curriculum on the solidarity economy.
From 2007 until 2013, Jane was an environmental policy consultant, focused on the green economy and sustainability. In 2008 and 2009, Jane led the green economy initiatives at the Green LA Coalition, a collaboration of organizations focusing on environmental policy and advocacy for the City of Los Angeles and regional institutions and agencies.
Jane is a commissioner on the City of Los Angeles Rent Adjustment Commission in the City of LA’s Housing and Community Development Department, and was formerly the chair of the City of Los Angeles Green Retrofit and Workforce Development Advisory Council, a member of the Apollo Alliance Steering Committee, and served on the Good Food Economy and Academic Partnerships workgroups of the Los Angeles Food Policy Council. She was previously chair of the university’s Sustainability Committee, co-author with the committee members of AULA’s Climate Action Plan, and was chair of the Bridge Program’s Council.
You can see her latest writing in Dollars & Sense; Real World Economics with articles on Financing an Equitable Economy in Los Angeles and on The Global Youth Climate Strike.
Jane received an MA in Urban Planning from the UCLA School of Public Affairs, with an emphasis on community economic development, following twenty years in motion picture industry production – utilizing and developing organizational management skills in communication, human resources, scheduling, large-scale project coordination and logistics. She received her BA in Liberal Studies from Antioch University Los Angeles.
Jane lives in Mar Vista, Los Angeles with her family.
Cultural anthropologist Adonia E. Lugo, PhD, joined the Urban Sustainability team at AULA in the spring of 2015. Dr. Lugo began investigating sustainable infrastructure during her graduate studies at UC Irvine, when she co-created the bicycle event CicLAvia in Los Angeles. After receiving her doctorate in 2013, she worked at the League of American Bicyclists in Washington, D.C. as a national leader in building better “human infrastructure” (diverse social networks and cultural norms) to promote bicycling. Today, Dr. Lugo looks for ways to bring her racial justice expertise from the field of bicycle advocacy into equitable and sustainable mobility at large. She is currently collaborating with partners around the country to define “mobility justice,” a concept that highlights the complex difficulties that people of color and other marginalized groups face both when traveling through public spaces and in urban planning and development processes.
In addition to her role as an educator at AULA, Dr. Lugo is involved in a number of projects designed to expand support for mobility justice. She is an advisory board co-chair with People for Mobility Justice, a core organizer of The Untokening, and the manager of the Bike Equity Network email list. Her book, Bicycle/Race: Transportation, Culture, & Resistance, was published in 2018.