Bringing the Edges of Earth to Corporate Decision-makers Andi Cross
Andi Cross of Edges of Earth works with individuals and communities to advance nature-based solutions. She brings these perspectives to corporate decision-makers offering actionable strategies that offer tangible changes for organizations on the front line of the climate crisis.
Christian Agregado of Project Lawud
Project Lawud is concerned with the survival of the Philippines dugong. Project Lawud was awarded the 2025 Seed Prize by the Iris Project. Christian Agregado talks about dugongs, why they are important, and what Project Lawud is doing to build awareness of this endangered marine mammal.
Rebecca Aguilar
Rebecca works for the Oceanic Preservation Society, a documentary movie production company. She is currently involved with post-production work on Speaking with Giants, a film about whale communication.
Krista Shoe
Krista Shoe is founder of Mother of Corals, an organization based in Panama involved in coral restoration and education organization. Mother of Corals others to learn and participate in coral restoration and conducts its own coral restoration to combat rising ocean temperatures.
Bonnie Monteleone
Bonnie Montelone is a researcher, environmental science-educator, film maker, artist, and co-founder of the Plastic Ocean Project, a non-profit seeking science-based solutions to the global plastic pollution crisis. Bonnie has collected marine plastic on a global scale. She is affiliated with the Environmental Studies Department at the University of North Carolina Wilmington where she works as an Adjunct Instructor of Plastic Marine Debris Field Studies. She also serves as an advisor for students conducting research on marine plastic. Additionally, Bonnie is an artist who uses the plastic she’s collects to create visual stories about her research.
Tracy Metz
Tracy Metz is a journalist, author and podcast maker. She also is the director of the John Adams Institute, an independent foundation in the Netherlands, that brings the best and the brightest of American thinking to the Netherlands. Tracy is passionate about the interplay between urban issues, architecture, and the natural environment, particularly water. Her book Sweet&Salt: Water and the Dutch, investigates the change in the country’s approach to water management in times of climate change. Her podcast Water Talks addresses global issues with water – too much, too little, too dirty and too unequal. Water Talks grew out of the United Nations conference on water held in NYC in March 2023.
Holly Rankin aka Jack River
Holly Rankin is the latest guest on the Women Mind the Water Artivist podcast series on WomenMind theWater.com. Holly is an Australian singer/songwriter/festival promoter, and an activist in the areas of environmental and social justice. Also known as Jack River, her music often deals with difficult topics, like personal tragedy, climate change, and social justice. Holly believes transforming such messages into music has the power to inspire action.
Kara Dodge
Kara Dodge is a research scientist at the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Research, the research arm of the New England Aquarium in Boston. Her specialty is the ecology of marine animals, more specifically sea turtles. Kara uses cutting-edge technology like satellite tagging and drones to enrich our knowledge of sea turtles and the impacts of humans on them.
Hannah St. Luce-Martinez
Hannah St. Luce-Martinez, well-versed in Belize’s natural and cultural resources, is the latest guest on Women Mind the Water Artivist Series. She describes Belize, its natural resources, conservation and biodiversity, and the importance of promoting inclusivity and empowering youth and women.
Hoku Cody
Hoku Cody, a Native Hawaiian, seabird biologist, and life-long ocean lover, protector, and advocate advocates for community stewardship in actions, that revitalize traditional rights within Hawaiʻi’s natural and cultural resource management industries. Hoku works with the National Ocean Protection Coalition to create and support marine protected areas and have the Pacific Remote Islands designated a National Marine Sanctuary.
Rebecca Rutstein
Rebecca Rutstein, an accomplished artist who has received many awards and been involved in numerous public exhibitions, is the latest guest on Women Mind the Water Artivist Series Podcast (womenmindthewater.com/featured-guests). Rebecca’s career has taken her to remarkable places including the high seas and the ocean floor. In all, her artwork strives to build connections with nature, inspire wonder, and foster environmental stewardship.
Lisa Scali
Lisa Scali considers herself a foodie and a lover of the ocean. She is more than a co-owner of Ocean’s Balance and a chef, she is a proponent of eating more sustainably by consuming seaweed. Lisa who has lived in Paris and New York, two of the world’s best-known cities for foodies, now lives in Portland, Maine where she leads a culinary trend to encourage Americans to eat more seaweed, a plant that is farmed and harvested from the ocean.
Tosha Grantham
Tosha Grantham is the latest guest on Women Mind the Water Artivist series on WomenMindtheWater.com. Tosha holds an advanced degree from Howard University in art history, with a focus on contemporary art and specializations in American and African diaspora arts. She lives in Florida, where she learned about the work of Diving with a Purpose, an international nonprofit that for trains Black scuba divers to assist in the documentation of underwater culturally and environmentally important sites. The podcast highlights her experiences with Diving with a Purpose and the important work they are doing. DWP focuses on both archaeological work on shipwrecks and ecological study of the health of coral beds. The archaeological "work creates a richer and more voluminous understanding of African and African American people in very many layers. We are working on reconciling deep and painful experiences through locating and doing the actual research to know what the experiences of those people lost at sea were and to include that in stories we have of survival and being.”Tosha with coral for DWP is another way for her to contribute. She knows that the ocean is important in many ways and that it is important to keep it healthy for now and future generations. The work also helps her as an artist to see more of the world and expand her perspective. She says we must find ways not to use so much energy and find alternatives that make us better stewards. Tosha sees this connection as making the task of maintaining and restoring the ocean a little less daunting.
Abigail Carroll
Latest guest on Women Mind the Water Artivist Series (womenmindthewater.com) is Abigail Carroll, once an oyster farmer, she now advises/invests in high-growth start-ups focused on solving sustainability issues. We talk about women’s involvement in oyster farming in Maine, what it takes to be a successful innovator and what we can individuals do to foster a sustainable planet.
Kimberly Kenna
Kimberly Kenna grew up along the shore of Long Island Sound. She writes children’s books focused on strong girls and their powerful drive to protect the natural world. Kimberly says that only 26% of protagonists in middle grade books are female. Before becoming an author worked with youngsters as a counselor and a teacher of ecology and language arts. Her stories aim to get readers involved, have them think about themselves, their relationships with others and with nature. Her commitment to wetlands is further evidenced by the fact that part of the proceeds of her first book will go to Save the Sound, a New Haven, Connecticut-based nonprofit that promotes ecological restoration in the Long Island Sound area.
Nicole Baker
Nicole Baker with her Net Your Problem company has created a system that offers a solution to the disposal of used fishing gear. Net Your Problem collects used ropes and nets from fishers in Alaska, Maine, Massachusetts, and California and passes it on to recyclers and artists. Since it began in 2017, Net Your Problem has recycled more than 1.2 Million pounds of fishing gear.
Dimitra Skandali
Dimitra Skandali grew up on Paros, a Greek island in the Aegean Sea. She says the island has shaped the way she sees the world. Dimitra combines traditional fiber arts like crochet, embroidery, and weaving with sea grasses and beach trash as a way to focus attention on the ocean and the environmental issues that impact its health and sustainability. While her work is rooted in her relationship with the Aegean Sea, Dimitra also has ties to the Pacific Ocean, having spent almost a decade in California. By using beach trash and natural materials she explores sustainability and other environmental issues like ocean pollution. Her installations, which have been curated in more than 90 solo and group exhibitions worldwide, allude to increasing environmental risks alongside human migrations and struggles with identity.
Lisa Kozel Mangione
Lisa Kozel Mangione is a mixed media artist who is the definition of artivist. Lisa raises money for nonprofits by either donating her paintings directly to organizations or selling her work and then donating the proceeds. Lisa is currently using her art in service of a rural community in Harford County, Maryland. The land known as Mitchell Farm is under consideration for development as a freight distribution district. The possibility of the land being transformed from rural to industrial has spurred Lisa to action. She is concerned about the harm the development will cause on an area that used to be wetland. She is concerned that further industrialization of the area adds to the impacts on local waterways and ultimately Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the United States. She wants people to know that even an average person can make a difference.
Blue de Gersigny
Blue de Gersigny is a plastic artist and designer. Blue lives in South Africa, a country quite literally at the southern tip of the African Continent. It is a country with nearly 3000 km or 1800 miles of coastline, bordering the Indian, South Atlantic and Antarctic oceans. From the beaches near her home, Blue collects colorful plastic and transforms it into eye-catching wearable art. Her intention is to make people aware of plastic debris and pick it up rather than walking by it.
Blue worked for many years as a textile designer until she realized she wanted to be an artist working with found objects. Originally Blue collected natural objects like bone, driftwood, and stone. Eventually, she was attracted to the colorful plastic that litters the beaches. Today her work is created almost entirely of plastic. The relentless of plastic waste rolling in on the tides inspires Blue to start her Plastics Are Forever website. Blue creates eye grabbing wearable art which she artfully displays on Instagram. After seeing one of her posts on Instagram, I knew I had to have her on this podcast.
Margaret Wertheim
Margaret Wertheim is an Australian-born science writer and artist who with her twin sister founded the Institute for Figuring. The Los-Angeles-based nonprofit explores the interrelationship of art, science, mathematics, and women’s handiwork. The Crochet Coral Reef is one of their projects and what we will focus our discussion on today. Margaret Wertheim holds degrees in mathematics and physics. Based on the mathematical discoveries of another mathematically-minded woman, Margaret and her twin sister Christine originated the Crochet Coral Reef project as a response to climate change. The Wertheims’ crocheted representations of coral has become a global collaboration with tens of thousands of people contributing their own pieces to citizen-generated art-installations.