Canadian/Feminism Correspondent

Having been born and raised in a small town that’s rarely on the map and hadn’t heard of cable until last year, Katie Kish was practically forced to spend most of her childhood cavorting outside, exploring fields, rivers and the surrounding pseudo-forests. Her teen-years veered her towards the Greater Toronto Area in Ontario where she would become strongly grounded in her environmentalist views, although at the same time fall in love with city life. This was also the time in her life when she started her wicked rock collection.

Katie’s interest in environmental policy and philosophy has now led her into her fourth year of her undergraduate study in geography and philosophy at the University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario. In her spare time she does some documentary work at a couple local radio stations and is the vice president of The Freethought Association of Canada.

Courtney Tenz
European Correspondent

Raised in rural Wisconsin, Courtney Tenz learned to appreciate the earth from her naturalist father and her city-bred, sun-loving husband. Though she swore as a child that she would never ever sleep outside during thunderstorms or get her hands in the mud as an adult, her husband’s work as a solar energy specialist had them camped out at Penn State University’s Center for Sustainability for a brief time. While she finished her Master of Fine Arts degree, she also learned the ins and outs of organic farming, composting toilets, green roofs, green machines, and, of course, solar energy.

Now based in Cologne, Germany, Courtney’s trying hard to lower her carbon footprint from 1-1/2 earths to just one and living the vegan life while her husband’s trying to save the world with energy from solar trough collectors. She spends most of her time traveling the continent in search of all things green. And she’s found it everywhere from the organic fincas of Spain to the windmill-dotted seascape of the Baltic Sea. Her writing about these adventures has appeared in German Life, Veg News, and E/The Environmental Magazine as well as other magazines. She sometimes updates her blog, Futile Diatribes, filled with futile diatribes about literature, politics, and German living.

Eco Chick Contributors

Summer Rayne Oakes
Fashion and Trends Correspondent

Summer Rayne (yes that’s her God-given name) lives in what her Brazilian housemate calls a “Ponte Aerea,” which means an “Aerial Bridge” in Portugese. Simply stated, she’s a focused nomad, traveling the world mixing business with pleasure.

The business? Driving change by building more socially-responsible ventures through fashion and media. Oakes runs her own company (SRO,llc) and usually plays by her own rules. As a square peg, she passes up round holes when seeking out “work” (a.k.a. her passion).

Oakes models, with a principal concentration on doing so for socially-conscious labels and initiatives. She writes her own fashion editorial entitled “Behind the Label” for global fashion magazine Lucire; wrote a conscious curriculum with style entitled ECOFASHION 101; consults and spokesmodels via SRO llc and ICI; and is working on a number of TV programs for which she will help produce and host. Oakes graduated from Cornell University with a B.S. in Natural Resources, Entomology, and a severe fetish for Arthropods (things with over six legs)…a hobby that started when she was 12 and has definitely amplified over the past decade.

Jennifer Veilleux
Science and Technology Correspondent

Jennifer’s earliest memories include climbing rocks and eating autumn leaves. She spent her childhood climbing trees and exploring patches of woods where she grew up in Connecticut. Camping trips in New England changed to backpacking trips through Australia, Central America, Europe, and clear across the North American continent. She explored ancient ruins, waded through swamps, hiked through snow covered mountains, shimmied into caves, swam in oceans, lakes, and seas, and climbed more trees.

Eventually Natural Sciences won out at school and Jen has since been involved in environmental resource issues specific to water and land-use. She designed and implemented two independent research projects: Land-Use Changes in San Salvador, Bahamas in 2003 and International Watershed Management and Policy in the Lake Ohrid Watershed area of the Balkans in 2003 and 2004; both of which introduced her to amazing places and incredible people.

Because of school, Jen has lived in Australia, Hungary, and Macedonia. This international experience has shaped her approach to, and influenced her understanding of, present global environmental questions and problems.

Jennifer acted as an assistant editor for the political science journal International Politics, has contributed to E/The Environmental Magazine as an editorial intern, and has written stories for Naugatuck Valley Community College’s Paper The Tamarak.

Jennifer holds an A.A. in Liberal Arts, B.S. in Environmental Science, M.S. in Environmental Science, was a National Security Education Program Boren Fellow in 2003 and 2004, and a Visiting Scholar at Central European University and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, in Budapest, Hungary in 2003 and 2004.

Jen currently lives and works in Washingon, D.C.

Danelle Brown
Architecture and Interior Design Correspondent

Founder of Verte an eco-friendly multifaceted design and lifestyle studio, Danelle Brown is a designer, producer, women’s rights and environmental activist who shows no signs of stopping any time soon. Residing in NYC, it is her mission and passion to bring a hip green and ethical edge to anything she is involved with. Whether it is interior architecture, special events planning, you name it; she’ll find a way to make it green (and the talk of the town).

Danelle holds a BFA in Interior Design from the acclaimed Fashion Institute of Technology and has worked for renowned architects MA Architects. She has interned at major media corporations such as Rolling Stone Magazine and MTV Networks; was Production Coordinator for 3 years for several events at the Tribeca Film Festival; and her accolades and involvements continue to grow.

Jennifer Cross
European Correspondent and Marketing Specialist

Jenn specializes in travel writing and is a marketing extraordinaire. She produced a widely-read blog about her experiences as an American living in Spain, called Permanent Tourist. She also publishes Detouring.net, a travel writing website with original content by up-and-coming authors.

Though she is an avowed city girl, Jenn loves to get out and enjoy natural spaces, especially the beach. Living and traveling in both environmentally progressive Western Europe and developing Eastern Europe has given Jenn a unique perspective on how different cultures treat waste, consumerism and their natural spaces.

In addition to Jenn’s web publishing, her writing has appeared in Barcelona Metropolitan Magazine, Barcelona Connect, and The Broadsheet.

In a previous life, Jenn was an advertising sales executive in Manhattan for American Lawyer Media and Jungle Media Group. She currently lives and works in London for Vice Magazine as head of European Business Development.

Greg Grigoriou
Graphic Artist/Blog Illustrator

Greg Grigoriou is a Canadian artist and graphic designer. His destiny brought him to reside in San Diego, California with his beautiful wife and their baby polar bear anoki, who is really a Springer Spaniel in disguise.

Having always felt a strong connection to the natural world, Greg is admittedly a “born again” environmentalist. Greg credits Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and Robert F. Kennedy’s Crimes Against Nature for awakening him to the realization that he must contribute his talents to the greener causes.

Greg’s artwork is represented by Scott Hull Associates, and his studio, iseedots has created over 100 brandmarks for business around the globe. Twelve of Greg’s logos are featured in Logolounge 3. He has created artwork for Microsoft, Wells Fargo Bank, The Harvard Business Review, HP, and Hayhouse publishing.

Greg is a member of the San Diego chapter of the Sierra club, and encourages people to contribute to this influential arm of conservation.

Craig Platt
West Coast/Culture Correspondent

Craig Platt graduated from Tulane University with a degree in communication in 1999 and his first job was working as the assistant press secretary (We think that was his title) and unofficial oral historian for the Hudson River Park Trust. He has a masters in English Literature and Creative Writing from
Southampton College and has published fiction in Carve Magazine, the now defunct Friction Magazine, Proteus Literary Journal and has published articles on the subjects of gardening, organic farming, music
reviews and criticism, book reviews and literary criticism.

Craig was introduced to organics when he began working for Marders Nursery, an organic nursery in Bridgehampton, New York . In his tenure at the nursery he took over the nurseries’ continuing education program in organics, consulted on buying of organic materials and reworked the items for sale in the gardenshop (including books on environmentalism and politics). He currently lives in Los Angeles where he works in marketing for independent films. He has worked on campaigns for The 11th Hour and the upcoming documentary Darfur Now.