Maryland Pesticide Education Network Board
Alexis Andiman is a senior attorney with the Sustainable Food and Farming Program at Earthjustice, where she works to advance a just, safe, and climate-friendly food system on behalf of community groups, scientists, and environmental advocacy organizations. Prior to joining Earthjustice, Alexis completed fellowships with the Center for Biological Diversity and the Conservation Law Clinic at Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law. She holds a J.D. with honors from Lewis & Clark Law School and a B.A. from St. Johns College in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Annapolis, Maryland.
Cleo Braver, Esq. is an attorney-turned-farmer and the owner of Cottingham Farm, an organic farm on the Eastern Shore and Chair of MPEN’s Board of Directors. She currently serves as an MPEN representative on the Maryland Department of Agriculture -led Healthy Soils Consortium. Ms Braver worked as General Counsel for a Baltimore corporation and also worked as an attorney in the non-profit world. She helped form the Environmental Committee of Talbot County Democratic Forum and serving as first Chair. That activism led her to give up being a “gentleman farmer” and becoming a certified organic farmer.
Caitlyn Ceryes, Ph.D., R.N., M.P.H. is a registered nurse and an assistant professor in Towson University’s undergraduate Public Health Program. Caitlin’s research contributes to a growing evidence base for work and environmental factors as social determinants of health and identifies opportunities for building safer, healthier workplaces. Her most recent work explores COVID-19-related occupational challenges facing U.S. food supply chain workers. Caitlin is active with her community, including founding and directing the Overlea Farmers Market. She is “rewilding” her Baltimore City yard to be a better habitat for animals and insects, including her two honeybee colonies. Caitlin was a CLF-Lerner Fellow at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future from 2018-2022. She earned her Master of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2016, and her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Villanova University in 2009.
Gwen DuBois, M.D., M.P.H. is an internist practicing in Baltimore and a frequent speaker on issues related to clean energy and toxic air pollution. She is an instructor in Medicine at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, a member of the Public Health Committee of the Maryland State Medical Society (MedChi) and president of Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility. She is interested in addressing the health implications of toxic air pollution and works for policy change to reduce risk of nuclear war.
Jason Davidson is a Senior Food and Agriculture Campaigner at Friends of the Earth. He leads our policy work to phase out the use of toxic pesticides, break up Big Ag and fight for equitable climate solutions across our food system. He holds a B.A. in Geography with a minor in Geographic Information Systems and American Studies from George Washington University. His work has been featured in Bloomberg, NPR: All Things Considered, and Politico. In his free time, Jason likes to read, cycle, ski and play the drums.
Kristen Harbeson, M.A. is the MD LCV Political Director since 2015. Before that she served for five years as senior staff for Chairman Maggie McIntosh. During her tenure with the legislature, she worked for the Environmental Matters Committee through the passage of landmark stormwater and septics legislation, as well as with issues including fracking, pesticides and other land-use concerns. After graduating with a MA in history and museum studies in 2000, Kristen moved to Baltimore to work at the USS Constellation Museum. Her passion for policy, however, led her to shift to advocacy work, first at Preservation Maryland and then the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers. In these roles she built coalitions and advocated for sustainable building practices and conservation, as well as for full funding for the Historic Preservation Fund and the Land and Water Conservation Act.
Michael Ichniowski, M.D., currently serves as Chair of the Environmental Health and Climate Change Committee for the Maryland Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. He retired from practice in August 2019, after over 40 years in Primary Care Pediatrics but continues his advocacy work on children’s environmental health issues. In addition to his medical degree, he has also earned a certificate in environmental science.
Steve Kraszewski, along with wife Kate and Steve’s father-in-law Bill Mason, farm 850 acres known as Mason’s Heritage and Mason Farms Produce which represents five generations of farmers. Their farms are mostly dedicated to growing organic corn, soybeans and barley. The farm transitioned to organic beginning in 2006, with the last acres becoming fully in 2018. In addition to the home farm, the family leases three other local farms as well, all of which are tilled organically. Steve also presents on soil health at various events/webinars for fellow farmers in the region.
Sean Lynch joined MOM’s Organic Market as the Environmental Research and Partnership Manager. MOM’s purpose, to protect and restore the environment, appealed strongly to him. He has engaged with environmental organizations and Citizen Science for many years and, over the last year, became a Maryland Master Naturalist with the Audubon Naturalist Society. He has additionally been an Education volunteer at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, educating K-12 students about the Chesapeake and the bay environment and watershed. Sean is a former Product Manager from the telecommunications industry and graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from the University of Maryland.
Ana Rule, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Environmental Health and Engineering at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health with more than 15 years of research experience. Her areas of expertise include exposure assessment of environmental and occupational hazards, including agricultural, urban and nosocomial environments. Dr. Rule’s main research goal is the development and evaluation of novel sampling and analysis strategies for the assessment of exposure to air pollutants. She is currently director of the Environmental Exposure Assessment Labs, where she develops and applies methods for the assessment of exposures to adult and pediatric populations. She has led projects to evaluate exposures to biological aerosols, electronic cigarettes, and second hand smoke.
Virginia Ruiz is an immigration attorney at Just Neighbors, an organization that provides immigration legal services to vulnerable immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, DC. For more than 20 years, Mr. Ruiz worked on state and federal policy and legal issues related to farmworkers in the U.S. As the Director of Occupational and Environmental Health at Farmworker Justice, she focused on administrative and legislative advocacy and community education for farmworkers and other low-income Latino communities on issues related to environmental justice, occupational health and safety, and access to healthcare. Prior to working at Farmworker Justice, she was Staff Attorney for California Rural Legal Assistance’s Indigenous Project, where she represented indigenous migrants from southern Mexico and Guatemala. Ms. Ruiz is a graduate of the College of William and Mary and Stanford Law School.
Roger Williams. M.Eng is a former president of the Central Maryland Beekeepers. He is currently the Program Coordinator for the Culver Center’s innovative New Farmer Training Program. Previously, he was with Cisco Systems Advanced Services supporting national telecom systems in South and Central America and the Caribbean.
