Board of Directors

Giovanni Ciarlo, M.A.
Board President
Born in Italy in 1951 and raised in Venezuela Gio received a BA in Foreign Languages and Education at the University of Connecticut and did graduate course work in Linguistics and Education in the late '80s. Gio has been involved in group facilitation since 1978 and co-founded Huehuecoyotl Ecovillage in Tepoztlan, Morelos, Mexico in 1982. In 1991 he studied formal consensus and conflict resolution with C. T. Buttler and later translated C.T.s book into Spanish. In the mid and late 90s Gio studied Consensus and Facilitation with Bea Briggs and later with Caroline Estes. He has applied his knowledge and expertise in facilitation and conflict resolution in educational and community settings including the Ecovillage Network of the Americas of which he is a Board member and at Huehuecoyotl where he spends extended time every year. Gio is also the program director for Living Routes' J-term course in Mexico: Leadership for Social Change.
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Daniel Greenberg, Ph.D.
Executive Director and Board Member, has studied and directed community-based educational programs for over 20 years. Daniel wrote his doctoral thesis on "Education within Contemporary Intentional Communities", and has visited and corresponded with over 200 communities in the U.S. He spent a year developing educational programs at the Findhorn Foundation and then four years working with the Geocommons College Programs in India and France. In addition to directing college-level semester programs, he has developed curricula on sustainable community development, deep ecology, ecological auditing, and systems thinking. Daniel has held the vision for Living Routes for decades and has steadily built the experience and networks of support necessary to assure its success. He brings immense commitment, contagious enthusiasm, and a unique blend of broad vision and grounded action to his role as Executive Director.
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John M. Gerber, Ph.D.
Professor of Plant Sciences and Sustainability Studies at the University of Massachusetts, John Gerber teaches courses in Sustainable Agriculture, Sustainable Living, Agricultural Systems Thinking, and other related plant science courses. John is chair of the Amherst Conservation Commission and was a founding member of the Consortium for Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education, and the Loka Institute for Democratizing Technology. He was Director of the University of Massachusetts Extension System from 1992 to 2000, and has also served as Associate Dean in the College of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. In addition, he was the Assistant Director in the Illinois Agricultural Experiment Station and Program Leader for Sustainable Agriculture in the Illinois Cooperative Extension Service (1989-1992). John was responsible for the establishment of the University of Illinois Agro-Ecology Program.
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Skye Stephenson, Ph.D.
Skye has been involved in study abroad and international education for nearly two decades. She has been an overseas program director in Chile, as well as regional representative for Latin America and the Caribbean for two different study abroad providers. Currently, she is Dean of First Year Programs and Study Abroad at Landmark College, the only College solely dedicated to students with learning disabilities in the United States. Skye is very interested in the transformative potential of cross-cultural education, and the role that international education can play is promoting a more sustainable future for all the inhabitants of the planet. Skye is the author of The Spanish-speaking South Americans: Bridging Hemispheres and several articles on globally responsible study abroad and cross cultural adjustment.
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Danielle Connor
Danielle graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 2006 as a Frances Perkins Scholar. Her major was self-designed, "Literature and Writing: the Environment". She explores various aspects of sustainability with concentration on agriculture, ecological design and social justice. With the help of supportive Mount Holyoke faculty, Living Routes courses (Mexico and Brazil '05), and Five College resources, she evaluated her international work in sustainable villages through various lenses. The product of this investigation was a collection of writing and photographs, predominantly non-fiction, including poetry and fiction. Danielle works as a community organizer for Clean Water Action, a national non-profit advocacy organization dedicated to changing environmental policy through civic engagement. She is working with youth, faith leaders, and other community groups, finding creative ways to educate, lobby, and build power. She would like to help shed light on environmental justice issues, change the face of the legislature, and shift current industrial trends jeopardizing the future of the planet. She is working on sustainability in her personal life through living in a cooperative in Cambridge, MA.
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