Meet Our Ambassadors Championing an Inclusive and Sustainable Future
Five women have joined our team to further our mission to highlight opportunities for collaboration, connection, resource-sharing, and mentorship for women of color in the sustainability industry.
At the beginning of the year, we solicited responses for our application to have women leaders in the climate movement join our team through our inaugural Ambassador program. Building on our vision to amplify and celebrate the talents of women of color, create community, and provide the tools diverse leaders need to succeed, the women joining our team share these values and a commitment to bring new ideas to further these goals.
Women of Color Collective in Sustainability’s Ambassador program identifies BIPOC women leaders in the climate movement and sustainability industry.
Please join us in welcoming the women trailblazing an inclusive and sustainable future for everyone!
Dianna Rose
Social entrepreneur, sustainability expert, lecturer and community catalyst — Dianna Rose is the CEO of Jars of Delight, the zero-waste catering company that creates beautifully hand-crafted Caribbean-fusion cuisine in mason jars. Based in Queens, Jars Of Delight has provided its innovative catering to over 4,000 guests across the Metropolitan New York area.
At the company’s core, is its mission of environmental and social impact, which is accomplished through their low-food waste and low packaging waste commitments. With the recent global crisis due to COVID-19, Dianna was inspired to pivot the business by adding Boxes Of Delight — a sustainable way to rise to call by our City and State officials to provide grab-and-go hot meals for seniors and essential workers. Dianna’s most recent passion project — Her Sustainable Life is a resourceful educational and informational platform tasked with building awareness on the topic of sustainability within communities of color facing socioeconomic disparities.
When she’s not delivering delight to customers, Dianna is enjoying time with her two sons, family, and church family. Dianna holds a Bachelor of Science in Community Health from Hofstra University and is pursuing a Master’s Degree in Urban Sustainability.
Monisha Royan
Monisha Royan is an entrepreneur, climate responsible architect, and an emerging professional in Building Energy Performance. She has researched, taught, and practiced sustainable building design.
She has applied sustainable solutions in new construction and building retrofits in India. She has worked with an internationally diverse team in Germany and Cyprus and promoted sustainable design through parametric architecture and recycled material.
She founded WindSSim, which educates students, trains faculty, and professionals using the Water Table apparatus to make actionable design decisions to improve natural ventilation in buildings. She has presented her research on mixed-mode ventilation to reduce cooling and carbon emissions while improving indoor air quality in buildings at Inspire 2017 (Jaipur) and PLEA 2018 (Hong Kong) conferences.
Anya Patterson
Bachelor of Arts in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Fordham University, 2019
Anya is passionate about bringing equity and access to healthcare. As an undergrad, she was awarded a research grant to explore the lingering effects of racism on the quality of Black women’s healthcare — combining her interest in women’s studies and health science. Anya brings to the WOC/CS team, her interest in the intentional creation of architecture within New York City as a means of addressing the homelessness crisis, and her desire to do so through a sustainable lens. Anya is a recent graduate Coro Fellow in Public Affairs and has aspirations of working in health law in the future.
Cori Johnson
Cori’s background in sustainability came stems from her interest in social justice and sociology. When she first learned how social justice and environmental justice were linked, she decided to dedicate herself to both equally.
She obtained a Bachelor’s in Environmental and Urban Studies and
developed a strong knowledge of environmental justice, social justice, and urban spaces through her academic concentration in Environment and Society and thesis on environmental racism, gentrification, and food justice activism in Hudson, New York. She worked closely with local
Hudson organizations to execute social justice community work and also orchestrated an environmental racism community panel series. Her most recent work experience has been in NYC ZeroWaste outreach and LMI energy efficiency and resiliency programs.
Gabrielle Shields
Gabrielle is formerly the head of Training for a start-up retailer and left that position to pursue her passion for sustainability. Her goal is to create safe, equitable high-performance communities of color though built environments and collective economics. She brings to the team years of experience in multi-tiered execution of learning & development programs.
Our collective is made up of over 1,000+ permaculture-composting gurus, fashion-forward environmentalists, urbantech founders, energy policy wonks, coding geeks, social impact doers, boss female engineers, multifaceted architects, jack of all trades consultants, public advocates, multi-talented activists, ecofeminists of color and allies.
Have questions, ideas, or offers for this program and the larger goals of Women of Color Collective in Sustainability? Please feel free to email us at womenofcolor.cs@gmail.com.
