Meet the Team

Linda Cabot

Founder and President

Linda is a visual artist who credits a lifetime of sailing for her love affair with the ocean. She founded Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Programs to inspire and support the next generation of ocean caretakers. She believes in the power of the arts to raise awareness about ocean conservation and enjoys seeing all the tremendous works of creativity and ingenuity that are submitted to the program. She serves on the Board of Women Working for Oceans (W2O) and is a trustee of the New England Aquarium.

Linda is also devoted to educational reform and values quality education for all children. She serves on the boards of the Neighborhood House Charter School and Horizons, a summer enrichment program for underserved youth. She is co-chair of the education cornerstone committee and a trustee at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Susan Tang

Contest Program Manager

Growing up in Boston, Susan’s passion for environmentalism is grounded in the idea that urban and natural landscapes are deeply interconnected. Susan spent their high school years organizing and finding community in Boston’s environmental advocacy scene. In college, Susan double majored in Environmental Science and Urban Studies, graduating magna cum laude from Brown University. Between their studies, Susan was also a research assistant in Brown’s Climate Development Lab, exploring the potential for and obstruction of climate solutions in the policy realm. Susan also developed a passion for youth work, mentoring high school students with the Emerald Necklace Conservancy’s Green Team, an environmental education program in Boston.

Before joining Bow Seat, Susan served as a Curatorial and Communications Fellow at the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy, a public park in Downtown Boston. As a member of the Public Art team, their work involved bringing thought-provoking art pieces to the public space, highlighting the connection between art and the surrounding environment. In their free time, Susan can usually be found roller skating, crocheting, or playing the French horn in their local community band.

Jeremy Pivor

Partnership & Youth Engagement Director

As a teen, Jeremy grew up volunteering with both Jane Goodall’s Roots & Shoots youth program and the New England Aquarium, building a passion for youth leadership and ocean conservation. Since University, Jeremy has worked for over a decade in environmental conservation, international climate change diplomacy, and public health. His efforts have brought him around the world from the United States, Madagascar, the Sargasso Sea, the Coral Triangle region in Southeast Asia, to Indonesia Borneo. He cherishes working with and bridging partnerships with organizations from the local to international scale. Before joining Bow Seat, Jeremy served as Senior Program Coordinator at the Planetary Health Alliance, where he strived to build a global Planetary Health community by organizing the world’s first Planetary Health Declaration, and developing regional hubs.

Jeremy received an MS from the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health’s Joint Medical Program, where he focused on the social determinants of health, and a BA in Environmental Biology from Washington University in St. Louis, where he graduated summa cum laude as an Ethan A.H. Shepley Scholar, the University’s highest honor. He loves to sail, play board games, and spoil his nieces and nephews.

Anne Chan Leslie

Operations Manager

The desire to make a difference and to be inspired has guided Anne’s career path in the social sector. As Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Programs’ Operations Manager, Anne oversees essential internal functions and supports the organization’s programmatic and outreach activities through public relations, grantwriting, and strategic development. Prior to Bow Seat, Anne served as Special Projects Assistant to the President at YouthBuild USA. In this unique role, Anne had the opportunity to work across multiple organizational departments such as communications, grant management, advocacy, human resources, and development. Anne has also served as Account Supervisor and Research Manager at Cone Communications, where she helped create corporate Cause Branding programs through nonprofit partnerships and consumer and employee engagement initiatives; and established Cone’s leadership position in the field. Anne earned a B.S. in Mass Communications from Boston University.

Ajay Sawant

Social Media Manager

Ajay is a student, artist, writer, ocean activist, and aspiring marine conservationist dedicated to protecting the world’s ocean. He has worked as a literary publicist for a little over two years and is fond of creating awareness through the power of social media.

Brought up by the Worli Sea Face in his early life, Ajay grew a deep connection with the ocean and an urge to protect it. For this purpose, he is involved with several organisations in marine conservation, including World Ocean Day, The Ocean Project, The Ocean Foundation (TOF), National Geographic Society (NGS), and The Nature Conservancy. He has been a part of the Youth Ocean Action Toolkit team for NGS and TOF, focusing on Marine Protected Areas, and a panelist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s March 2023 webinar with the OCTO group. Besides this, he is a Make An Impact fellow and a runner-up for the 2020 Christopher Hewitt Poetry Prize.

At Bow Seat, he hopes to engage youth with ocean awareness programs and drive them to make sustainable choices for our ocean.

Future Blue Youth Council

Bow Seat’s Future Blue Youth Council is a global group of program alumni working together to advance Bow Seat’s mission and to empower fellow peers to advocate for their future and for our environment. Click here to view past Councils.

2024 COUNCIL MEMBERS
Sabine Cuesta
16 | Ontario, Canada

Sabine is an avid hiker and budding wildlife photographer who is passionate about preserving biodiversity. Since she was young, Sabine has had an interest in humanity’s connection with nature – she planted a pollinator garden in her yard and convinced her family to eat more plant-based meals. When she is not writing articles about environmental issues in her school newspaper, she can be found playing the guitar or reading the latest fantasy novel. Sabine’s journey with Bow Seat began with her submission of her Gold-winning “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough Parody,” and she is thrilled to continue her journey with the Future Blue Youth Council.

María Pax Dakota Ormeño Vasquez
18 | Lima, Peru

Maria is a high school senior deeply committed to sustainability advocacy. She is particularly interested in the intersection of science and technology, seeking to build solutions for global issues. This dedication is evident through her leadership in EcoShield, an initiative promoting sustainability in daily life by using AquaBead, a product made with PETase, a cutting-edge enzyme that has recently been discovered and holds great promise in removing plastic pollution. Additionally, she is the founder of the youth organization Incluye Pe, dedicated to empowering indigenous entrepreneurs by teaching them entrepreneurial skills and about digital literacy, and amplifying their rich culture in urban settings. Their shared value for environmental stewardship leads them to collaborate with similar youth organizations, collectively raising awareness about the pressing need to preserve our planet. Having been part of the World Ocean Day Youth Advisory Council, Maria aspires to continue her impactful journey through the Future Blue Youth Council. Her goal is to inspire and motivate even more young individuals to address current challenges in their communities, fostering a continuous chain of positive change.

Maabena Edem Nti
16 | Greater Accra, Ghana

Maabena is a young poet and writer and budding environmentalist. She enjoys writing poetry in commune with nature. Aside from writing, she is the vice president of her school’s environmental club and an active member within the local youth climate council of Ghana. She is also a debater. She is eager to serve her term on the Future Blue Youth Council.

Enya Fang
16 | British Columbia, Canada

Enya is a 16-year-old writer and activist. She co-founded Evergreen Collective, an international youth nonprofit with six chapters and over 100 volunteers from around the globe. She has since fundraised $6,800+ for disaster relief, published 50+ climate articles, and interviewed UNICEF ambassadors and MPs for webinars. Enya also leads her school’s Model UN, Science, Literary Arts, and Speech/Debate programs, and is one of five student leaders on the Environmental Stewardship Committee. Aside from direct advocacy, Enya is passionate about communicating environmental reform through creative journalism and has achieved national accolades from CBC and A&E. Enya enjoys writing poetry for literary magazines, being in the mountains, and indulging her obsession with tea.

Keren-happuch Garba
19 | Kaduna, Nigeria

Keren-happuch is a creative writer and a third-year Medical Radiography college student. She loves to talk and write about the environment and climate change. Among her achievements, she is a Bow Seat Fellowship Program grantee, a Bow Seat Distinguished Honorable Mention awardee, and a Write the World’s Climate Writing winner. She has published several poems in Write the World Review, the Cathartic Literary Magazine, and Ice Lolly Review, among other esteemed magazines. On the Future Blue Youth Council, she looks forward to contributing to environmental conservation and encouraging youth around the world to do the same!

Tafadzwa Ashely Gore
17 | Western Australia

Ashely is a 17-year-old author and environmentalist. From being recognized as one of the 50 Science Innovators in the UK by the AFS Global Scholars 2023 program to her collaboration with UNICEF to improve menstrual health in rural Zimbabwe, Ashely’s work is making a real difference. Her Eco-Sanitary Menstrual Hygiene Products project showcases her innovative thinking and compassion for addressing menstrual poverty in an eco-friendly way. She an accomplished author of the book Unsaid and co-author of two other books, and she also has used global platforms to advocate for sustainability and environmental issues.

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Jing Graber
18 | Texas, USA

Jing, an aspiring marine biologist, is an enthusiastic underwater photographer, artist, and author/illustrator. Her art, showcased at jinggraber.com, aims to capture the splendor of the natural world, urging others to appreciate our planet’s ecosystems. She dreams of one day conducting research on elasmobranchs or cetaceans, making discoveries which can be used to protect these species. With her debut children’s picture book, “Can You Sea Me?: A Children’s Guide to Camouflage in the Ocean,” Jing aims to bring a taste of the sea to her land-locked community in Austin, as well as those beyond.

Sophie Kim
16 | California, USA

Living by the ocean for much of her life, Sophie Kim has seen firsthand the devastating impacts of oil spills and plastic pollution on wildlife and ecosystems. From a young age, she became interested in taking action for the environment in any way possible, which is what led her to found The Clean & Green Initiative (TCAGI), an online, youth-led environmental activism coalition of 600+ members. Inspired by Bow Seat’s 2023 Climate Heroes in Action prompt, she is currently working on expanding TCAGI to a YouTube channel, where she plans to feature interviews with climate heroes such as Saoirse Exton, Mitzi Jonelle Tan, and Iris Zhan. She is beyond grateful and excited to continue her environmental work as part of the Future Blue Youth Council!

Ahrin Lee
16 | Singapore

Ahrin strives to explore innovative strategies to advocate and promote sustainable actions in her community. She co-founded the Marine Wildlife Conservation Club with WWF, organising many events to engage students in environmental protection. As the team leader of Zero Waste, a student-led initiative, she and her team runs food drives and are implementing a home composting scheme on her school campus to reduce food waste entering Singapore’s landfills. Ahrin, a biology writer for Phase Learning, Artist Collective member, and a Gold Award recipient of Bow Seat’s Ocean Awareness Contest, is also passionate about utilising art to raise awareness. Through the Future Blue Youth Council, she aims to inspire others for a brighter future!

Charmaine Mupara
18 | Mathebeleland North, Zimbabwe

Charmaine is an 18-year-old environmental advocate who volunteers for Environmental Buddies Zimbabwe. She was a 2022 Bow Seat Fellowship Program grantee, where she successfully helped lead a project to dig harvesting pits and plant trees to address the interrelated issues of water insecurity and food scarcity in her community. She advocates for reforestation, clean water and climate justice for all, and food security for rural villages, as they are most affected by climate change.

Ali Nasir
16 | Punjab, Pakistan

Ali is the Founder & Editor-in-Chief of Handwritten & Co., a print literary arts journal publishing the finest in contemporary literature – it is among the only such magazine operating in Pakistan today. He has interviewed many writers, including winners of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award. A keen reader of poetry and fiction, his work has been published or is forthcoming in numerous magazines, including Pleiades, Litro, Harvard Review, and more. His interest in climate advocacy is tied both to his background in debating – where he learned to wield language to get his point across effectively – and to his belief that the written word can be a vehicle for great change.

Sofia Tasoluk
18 | Pennsylvania, USA

Sofia is an enthusiastic environmental advocate who is eager to contribute her skills to further Bow Seat’s missions in 2024! Sofia spent a summer abroad at The Island School in the Bahamas, where she studied sustainability and marine ecology and furthered her understanding of ocean issues. As co-president of her school’s environmental club, she is passionate about starting initiatives to get more people involved and excited about sustainability. Outside school, she enjoys traveling, swimming in the ocean, and watching her favorite franchise, Star Wars. A fun fact about her is that she is SCUBA-certified and a citizen of three countries!

Tana Tahira Valmond
19 | Roseau, Dominica

19-year-old Tana is honored to represent Dominica, the “Nature Isle of the Caribbean,” the land of 365 rivers, and the home of the Indigenous People, the Kalinago. She is currently triple-majoring in Biology, Chemistry, and Physics at Dominica State College and aspires to be a medical doctor. She is a Student Ambassador, president of the Student Government, and president of the Environmental Club, which has led many projects, including beach clean-ups, tree-plantings, and community outreach programs. Tana is an artist with a passion for utilizing her creative skills to spread awareness about protecting our environment.

Ocean Awareness Contest Judges

ART
Carolina Aragón

Carolina is an Assistant Professor in the Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. As a public artist, Carolina engages in transdisciplinary collaborations—where art, science, technology, and community, coalesce—to create innovative art installations designed to increase public engagement with local issues of climate change. Carolina recently has been named as one of 2020 Codaworx Creative Revolutionaries; her artwork has been displayed at the World Bank’s Art of Resilience exhibit, as well as showcased in multiple venues, including the National Park Service’s “100 Years of Arts in the Parks.”

Erin Chuba

Based in Boston, MA, Erin has a strong background in Marine Science and Data Analytics. She holds a B.A. in Marine Science from Boston University and currently works as a Data Analyst at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Previously serving as a Policy & Advocacy Intern at Women Working for Oceans, Erin played an integral role in growing the organization’s social media presence. She curated impactful call-to-action social media posts, drawing from her thorough research of marine science literature. Erin’s dedication to diversity, equity, and inclusion was evident as she led initiatives aimed at fostering an inclusive environment.

Ely German

Ely is a multidisciplinary artist, Bow Seat alumna/judge/friend! She graduated from The University of Texas at Austin in 2021 with a BFA in Studio Art and is a full-time Art Director in Chicago. Her art lives across mediums and disciplines because conceptual consideration is at the core of her practice. Ely believes in the power of art to create conversation through collaboration.

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Amy Spencer Harff

Amy is an environmental artist, writer, and researcher from Providence, Rhode Island. Her current Thomas J. Watson Fellowship explores the intersection of art and the environment around the world. Since starting in August 2021, she has met with over 120 scientists, artists, community leaders, activists, and academics to understand how art can be a tool for change.

When she is not speaking with artists, she is making art. Some recent projects include: facilitating community murals, creating costumes from trash, and drawing large illustrations about projected climate impacts in her community. She is also creating an illustrated book featuring 25 female-identifying SDG changemakers, including Christiana Figueres, Dr. Kim Cobb, Xiye Bastida, and Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner, to name a few.

@amyspencerart
www.amyspencerharff.com

Ari Hauben

Ari is a contemporary artist based in Boston’s Fort Point neighborhood. His work consists of multimedia works, which cover a broad spectrum of topics, styles, and materials. His art resides in collections spanning the globe and has been shown throughout Boston and beyond, including being featured at the Museum of Fine Arts.

In addition to creating compelling art, Ari also operates under the alias Mr. Hauben, or Mr. H to his students. Ari has taught for over a decade in a 100% special education Boston Public High School, designed for students who struggle with emotional and behavioral challenges. Ari was named 2018 Boston Public School Educator of the Year.

@arihaubenart
www.arihauben.com

Dara Herman-Zierlein

Dara is a political illustrator, art educator, and art activist who continuously uses her artwork to advocate awareness in the world.

Nigella Hillgarth

Following a career as a biologist—first as an academic and then an administrator—Nigella has combined her passion for the environment and science with photography. She is particularly interested in expressing the environmental issues that face us today through images that capture the beauty of our planet but remind us of the problems we face, especially climate change and the ocean. Nigella is presently a visiting scientist at the Center for Ecosystem Sentinels at the University of Washington, and a founding member of the consulting group Ocean Collectiv.

Sofia Jain-Schlaepfer

Sofia sits among many worlds: art, science, writing, conservation, nature education. She has a BSc in Environmental Science (Carleton University) and MSc in Marine Biology (James Cook University) and has spent 5 years conducting marine and aquatic research. She is also a self-taught artist who works and brings conservation science to life through infographics (wiseart.net). Recently she moved to a small island off the west coast of Canada to reconnect with her original inspiration for it all: nature. Here she has been learning about nature connection practices as taught by the 8 Shields Institute. She assists in running programs that connect people to nature through animal tracking, bird language, ancestral skills, ethnobotany, etc. She hopes to bring awareness and connection to nature through her current paintings and writing.

Nadine Lloyd

Nadine is a mixed-media artist and Art Teacher in Maui, Hawaii. Previously, she taught Environmental Art at The Island School and intermittently lived aboard a sailboat in The Bahamas. This experience heightened her passion for ocean conservation and art advocacy. She holds a BFA in Fine Arts and a MA in Art Integration.

Free Marseille

Free’s current work pulls inspiration from his childhood experience of moving to America as a refugee and experiencing this country as an outsider. He loves that he belongs to multiple cultures because it helps him weave together distant narratives and create a final product that feels both foreign and familiar. His goal is for people to experience his work as dissonant dreamscapes that connect subconscious and conscious realities.

Mackenzie Martin

Mackenzie is a student at the College of the Atlantic, pursuing an education in marine biology and ceramics. She uses art as her voice when advocating for issues most important to her, such as climate change and coral bleaching. Ceramics is a way she can reach a broad audience and contribute to supporting Earth’s ocean ecosystems.

Holly Morin

Holly is the Manager of Education and Outreach at the University of Rhode Island’s Inner Space Center (ISC) located at the Graduate School of Oceanography in Narragansett. Her work at the ISC involves the development, coordination, and promotion of interactive ocean science websites and public outreach and science communication initiatives, including ocean science exploration camps, interpretive programs, professional development programming, and live, interactive ocean science broadcasts—in 2019 she hosted ship-based interactions from the Arctic AND the Antarctic!

Prior to her position at URI, Holly worked on large whale conservation and management issues with NOAA Fisheries. Holly graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a Bachelor of Science (marine biology focus) and a minor in Art. She then went on to receive her Master’s Degree in Wildlife and Fisheries Science from Texas A&M University, studying the diving behavior and movement patterns of young Steller sea lions in Prince William Sound, Alaska.

Lisa Reindorf

Lisa is an architect, artist, and environmental activist. She grew up in Mexico among a community of socially and politically active artists. A graduate of Columbia University and University of Pennsylvania, she has practiced as an architect and taught at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).

In her career as an artist, Lisa focuses on climate change. Much of her art addresses the conflict of the natural world with constructed systems, and on sea rise due to global warming. Colorful paintings of coastal ecosystems depict sinking cities and rising seas. Lisa has authored many articles on art and the environment. She frequently lectures at universities and environmental conferences on how artists interpret climate change. Recently she was invited by the Courtauld Institute of Art in London to speak at their conference on Art and Climate Change.

Griffin Smith

Griffin is a digital artist and AI researcher at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). His work explores how technology is changing artmaking, as well as what separates humans, animals, and machines. His classes at RISD include Machine Learning, Digital Culture, and Text Transformed: Writing with AI. He earned an MFA in Digital Art and a Bachelor’s in Creative Writing from Brown University.

Peter C. Stone

As an author, artist, and educator, Peter’s work explores the evolutionary wisdom and interconnectedness of endangered creatures, cultures, and ecosystems. Since 1983 he has presented more than 60 solo shows and over 100 group exhibitions at galleries and museums in the United States, Canada, and England. His Art & Science (STEM/STEAM) Journaling workshops bring his contagious enthusiasm for observing and understanding the natural world to students of all ages. His recent book, Waltzes with Giants: The Twilight Journey of the North Atlantic Right Whale (Skyhorse, 2012), is a moving portrait of one of earth’s largest endangered mammals, winner of the USA Best Book Awards for Children’s Hardcover Non-Fiction, and a selection of the Children’s Book-of-the-Month Club.

Jason Talbot

As Artists For Humanity’s (AFH’s) Co-Founder and Managing Director of Programs, Jason creates opportunities to engage and mentor teen artists and their artistic mentors, advancing AFH’s programmatic goals while building long-term creative connections. Jason champions AFH’s Youth Arts Enterprise model, serving as a thought leader and spokesperson to expand AFH’s reach. He participated in the 2009 Cohort of the Emerging Leaders Program, University of Massachusetts Boston; received the 2013 Mentor of the Year Award from Youth Design; was named a member of 2014’s Top 40 Under 40 by the Boston Business Journal; and attended the Arts & Cultural Organization Management Program at Harvard Business School in 2021. Jason is an active member of WGBH’s Community Advisory Board.

Gwenan Walker

Gwenan is a rising junior at USC double majoring in animation and human biology with a minor in marine science. She was the recipient of the Gold Award in the Senior division of the 2019 Ocean Awareness Contest, and is so excited to be coming back as a judge!

Ocean Awareness Contest Judges

FILM
David Abel

An award-winning reporter and documentary filmmaker, David has covered war in the Balkans, unrest in Latin America, national security issues in Washington D.C., terrorism in New York and Boston, and climate change and poverty throughout New England. David and his colleagues at the The Boston Globe won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News for their coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings. David now covers environmental issues at the Globe, focusing mainly on climate change.

David has directed many award-winning films, including: “Sacred Cod,” about the historic collapse of the iconic cod fishery in New England; “Gladesmen: The Last of the Sawgrass Cowboys,” about the government’s $16 billion effort to restore the Everglades, one of the planet’s most damaged ecosystems;  “Lobster War: The Fight Over the World’s Richest Fishing Grounds,”about a climate-fueled conflict between the U.S. and Canada over waters that both countries have claimed since the end of the Revolutionary War; and “Entangled,” about how climate change has accelerated a collision between one of the world’s most endangered species, North America’s most valuable fishery, and a federal agency mandated to protect both.

Sydney Cole

Sydney is a Computer Science and Film, Television, and Media major in her junior year at the University of Michigan. She first learned about Bow Seat when entering the Ocean Awareness Contest three years ago. Since then, she has only grown more interested in learning about and educating others on climate change and other pressing issues threatening the environment. While she unfortunately doesn’t get to see much of the ocean living in Michigan, being surrounded by the Great Lakes has let her see firsthand the beauty and importance of water. She enjoys creating and editing videos, and has spent the past year as a Bow Seat TikTok intern. She is looking forward to being inspired by all of this year’s incredible entries.

Nicolle Fagan

Nicolle is Group Account Director at GYK Antler, a full-service, creative ad agency with offices in Boston and Manchester, New Hampshire. She brings over 10 years of experience in global marketing, with a particular emphasis on effectively using storytelling to drive action. As former Marketing Director for the New England Aquarium, Nicolle focused on repositioning the Aquarium as a conservation organization, while also driving ticket sales. She also led the organization’s communication strategy through the Aquarium’s reopening process during COVID-19.

Nicolle is also the co-founder of the Palau Pledge, a groundbreaking environmental initiative that won the inaugural Cannes Lion dedicated to the Sustainable Development Goals, along with a D&AD black pencil, multiple Clio, and other leading advertising industry awards. The initiative has since been adopted by a number of destinations across the globe, including New Zealand.

Molly Hirsch

Molly is a recent college graduate of San Francisco State University with a B.A. in Cinema and a B.A. in French. This will be the 6th year that she has been a judge in the Film category for the Ocean Awareness Contest. She is very excited to see the films that students have worked so hard on this year!

Megan McInerney

Megan is a writer and educator currently living in Missoula, Montana, where she is pursuing an M.S. in Environmental Writing & Education. She holds an M.A. from the Bread Loaf School of English. She has five years of experience teaching at the high school level, including two years at The Island School in the Bahamas where she taught “Literature of the Sea” and worked with student groups to survey beach plastic and raise awareness of plastic pollution. Her work has appeared in Camas: The Nature of the West, Flyway Journal of Writing & Environment, and Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies.

Puckerbrush Animation

Hanji Chang is a Taiwanese-Korean painter, illustrator, graphic designer, and animator. She also teaches animation at Maine College of Art. Andy O’Brien is a Rockland, Maine-based writer, voice actor, and co-founder of O’Chang Comics and Puckerbrush animation. He is also the communications director for the Maine AFL-CIO. Hanji and Andy co-founded Puckerbrush Animation, which produces the popular “Temp Tales” cartoon series as well as educational and commercial animations.

Georgia Stockwell

Georgia is a Miami-based film director, environmental communicator, and visual anthropologist. With years of experience working in the film worlds of New York, Los Angeles, and Miami, Georgia is particularly interested in documenting shifting relationships between marine ecosystems and coastal cultures, and engaging multispecies and sensory ethnographic practices in her work. Georgia holds an MA in Environment, Culture + Media from the University of Miami’s Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy, a joint BA in Art History and English Literature from the University of Edinburgh, and a professional certificate in Sustainability from UCLA.

Ocean Awareness Contest Judges

INTERACTIVE & MULTIMEDIA
Sam Fleming

Sam lives in Chilmark, MA, on Martha’s Vineyard and in Cambridge, MA. He worked for more than three decades in public radio at WBUR in Boston overseeing the news and content. He’s married to Emily Bramhall, who lives on the Vineyard full-time. He has a 33-year-old son, Wilder, who is also a journalist. Sam grew up in central Pennsylvania outside of Harrisburg.

Aileen Han

Aileen is a junior at MIT who is majoring in computer science. She started programming in fifth grade, where she was immediately drawn to the endless possibilities of using coding to help people. In her freshman year, she took a web development course where in a team of three, she built a website to take people on virtual vacations during the COVID era.

Designing and programming are some of her main passions, and she is eager to share her knowledge while also helping the environment. Aileen served as Bow Seat’s Digital Design and Web Development Intern in 2022.

Alvin Lu

Alvin is an undergraduate at Yale University, interested in studying applications of computer science from his bioinformatics research to develop games that raise awareness of climate change. In his free time, he enjoys going on runs on local nature trails.

Trevor Roberts

Trevor lives and works in Central Pennsylvania, where he is an avid advocate for the outdoors, a favorite destination for his wife, Jeanette, and three kids. Favorite activities include hiking, kayaking, and camping. His passion for the outdoors started in his youth when he got his Scuba Diving certification, which was a catalyst to explore. Trevor is the co-founder and managing partner of Cross & Crown, a digital agency committed to helping their clients educate, advocate, and thrive in a digital world.

Maris Wicks

Maris is a writer and illustrator of mostly science-y comics, whose work has taken her to the middle of the ocean, to the top of a volcano, and to the ice of Antarctica. Maris’s books include art for the New York Times best-selling graphic novel Primates: The Fearless Science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Birute Galdikas, and Astronauts: Women on the Final Frontier, both written by Jim Ottaviani, as well as her solo books, Human Body Theater and Coral Reefs: Cities of the Ocean. She has also written, drawn, and colored comics for SpongeBob Comics, Marvel, and DC, and the picture books Dragon Bones and You and the Bowerbird for Roaring Book Press. Maris is currently working on a graphic novel about what it’s like to live and work in one of the most remote places on Earth: Antarctica! (spoiler alert: there are lots of penguins).

Ocean Awareness Contest Judges

PERFORMING ARTS
Kai Shinnosuke Kubota-Enright

Kai is a composer and pianist from Vancouver, British Columbia, graduating with a Bachelors in Composition from the Schulich School of Music at McGill University, where they studied composition with Melissa Hui and piano with Sara Laimon. They are currently working on a commission for the London Sinfonietta exploring experiments techniques inspired by the work of Pauline Oliveros—asking performers to audiate pitches from ambient noise, as well as attempt to communicate these pitches to each other through telepathy.

Their musical output encompasses a variety of works for both concert and film, as well as contributions to various interdisciplinary projects. Their music often incorporates improvisational, electronic, and site-specific elements, and may be found as part of larger multimedia collaborations involving dance, installation art, and projection art. Their concert music primarily focuses on the relationship between sound and spatial environments, both natural and human-made, as well as how these various elements interact with personal memories and subjectivities; drawing from a variety of western and Japanese influences.

In 2018 they received an award from Bow Seat for their piece “Aquas,” which utilizes a motif derived from climate data of the seas and terrain, and have also returned annually as a judge for musical works which respond to the climate crisis. As well, in 2019 they received a SOCAN Foundation Young Composer Award for Isaac, an electroacoustic piece which explored the fragmentation of memory and psyche. From 2021-2022 at McGill, they completed a brass quintet “Dream Transmission of Phoenix” as the Composer-in-Residence, and are currently working on scores for short and feature-length independent films. Most recently they have received the ROSL composition award and commission for the London Sinfonietta to write “Night, the automaton dreams,” a piece for six players which will be premiered at the Southbank Centre.

Saoirse Lewis

Saoirse is a singer-songwriter from San Francisco. After graduating from Wesleyan University with a degree in Anthropology and Writing, she moved to Ireland for six months working as a server and a travel specialist, and spending time with extended family. She is now based in San Francisco and works as a studio manager at Whipsaw, a highly acclaimed industrial and digital design firm.

In 2019, she received the Gold Award for her original song “Our Changing World.” This is her 5th year serving as a guest judge, where she is consistently inspired by the creative artists and activists advocating for the planet and ocean. She continues to write music, and you can follow more of her work @saoirse.1.1 on instagram.

Ademola Oyewole-Davis

Brooklyn born and raised, Ademola is a singer, poet, writer, educator, and activist. He has been singing and performing his written work since he was 8 years old. His love for music and creativity has taken him coast to coast, performing in Southern California and New York, and working on a second album with his father, Abiodun Oyewole of The Last Poets, as well as his debut album, Lib(er)ation. Having taught for over 7 years with organizations like Urban Word NYC and various independent/charter schools, Ademola utilizes his skills to create a conscious, critical, and creative experience for students, keeping in mind his mission to give voice to truth and power to justice. Currently, Ademola is working on his debut album while being a DEI and education consultant.

Destiny Polk

Warrior and healer. Tender and unbreakable. Destiny “Divine” Polk, whose name means “That which has been firmly established, God has answered, Dance,” is an Afro-Indigenous choreographer and producer, multi-disciplinary artist, community organizer/space holder, art educator and founder of art-activist platform Radical Black Girl. Known for doing interactive art shows likes RESISTDANCE and Black Woman is God, Destiny’s work is concerned with speaking truth to a country that attempts to rewrite its own history while having actively tried to suppress African and Native American history and culture. Destiny took her Being the Change workshop to SXSW 2019 and premiered her short film “When the Sea Rises” at the ILLUMINUS Festival 2019. She was the keynote speaker for the Youth Arts for Social Change Summit in 2020 and the recipient of the National Center of Afro-American Artist’s Ralph F. Browne, Jr. Award for Civic Engagement.

Kellen Vu

Kellen is an artist and musician from Phoenix, Arizona. He is currently studying Human Biology and Computer Science at Stanford University. One of his passions is using music to educate others and bridge the divide between disciplines. In 2018, he received a Silver Award from Bow Seat for his original song “Shore to Shore,” which tackled the effects of climate change on the oceans. In 2019, he wrote, directed, and edited a music video about calculus that won first place in Mu Alpha Theta’s national Mathematical Minutes contest. He now writes for The Sequels, an indie band that creates music based on books and literature. This year, he’s looking forward to seeing the inspiring work generated by students across the globe!

Ocean Awareness Contest Judges

POETRY & SPOKEN WORD
Dzidzor Azaglo

Dzidzor (pronounced Jee-Joh) is a Ga-Ewe folklore, performing artist, writer, and curator. Dzidzor’s style of call and response, sound collage combines poetry, storytelling and sound as a way to usher the audience in an experience of being present in their bodies. Her performance art demystifies the role of an artist being watched and invites the audience to “perform” and be a part of the performance. Dzidzor’s work is full of curiosity and questions surrounding the ideas of God, community and church, home, blackness, and identity. While acknowledging those ignorantly consumed by the impact of a system that hasn’t benefited black and brown folx. She is often exploring how oppressed bodies can release internalized oppression in the mind and body through rest, an active practice of stillness and lifelong journey to living. Dzidzor is currently working on a project called, “Wilderness,” a performance piece that is exploring what it means be black, living and woman.

Akhila Bandlora

Akhila is an octopus lover, poet, and friend from Phoenix, Arizona. The recipient of Bow Seat’s Gold Award for Poetry, her poetry has been featured by Greenpeace USA, The Ocean Project, Joppa Flats Education Center, among others. She is studying psychology, anthropology, neuroscience, and ecology at Princeton. Akhila feels most at peace around big bodies of water, reading, or laying in the sun. She’s so excited to be a judge again this year!

Shauna Barbosa

Shauna is the author of the poetry collection Cape Verdean Blues (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, Boston Review, AGNI, Iowa Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Poetry Society of America, PBS Newshour, and others. She was nominated for PEN America’s 2019 Open Book Award and was a 2018 Disquiet International Luso-American fellow. Shauna received her MFA from Bennington College in Vermont and is currently working on a compilation of stories.

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Alondra Bobadilla

Alondra was named Boston’s first-ever Youth Poet Laureate in January 2020. Through her own work, she demonstrates how creative expression can be a powerful tool for youth to examine feelings around issues, find their voice, and speak up about the changes they want to see for their future. Alondra is the author of a collection of poems entitled “With Clipped Wings.”

Elizabeth Bradfield

Elizabeth is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently Toward Antarctica, which uses haibun and photographs to query her work as a naturalist in Antarctica, and Theorem, a collaboration with artist Antonia Contro. She is also co-editor of Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, Poetry, and Broadsided Press: Fifteen Years of Poetic/Artistic Collaboration, 2005-2020. Liz’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, The Sun, and her honors include the Audre Lorde Prize and a Stegner Fellowship. Based on Cape Cod, Liz works as a naturalist, teaches at Brandeis University, and runs Broadsided Press. www.ebradfield.com

Mary Buchinger Bodwell

Mary is the author of six collections of poetry, including Navigating the Reach (Salmon Poetry, 2023), Virology and /klaʊdz/(Lily Poetry Review Books, 2022 and 2021), einfühlung/in feeling (Main Street Rag, 2018), Aerialist (Gold Wake, 2015; finalist for the May Swenson Poetry Award, semifinalist for The Journal/Wheeler and Perugia Press Prizes), and There is only the sacred and the desecrated (Lily Poetry Review Books, forthcoming, Paul Nemser Book Prize, Honorable Mention). Her poetry appears in AGNI, Laurel Review, Nimrod, On the Seawall, phoebe, Plume, Salamander, Salt Hill, Seneca Review, and elsewhere. Buchinger volunteered for the Peace Corps in Ecuador and earned a doctorate in linguistics from Boston University. She teaches at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences and serves on the board of the New England Poetry Club. www.MaryBuchinger.com

Erin Chuba

Based in Boston, MA, Erin has a strong background in Marine Science and Data Analytics. She holds a B.A. in Marine Science from Boston University and currently works as a Data Analyst at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Previously serving as a Policy & Advocacy Intern at Women Working for Oceans, Erin played an integral role in growing the organization’s social media presence. She curated impactful call-to-action social media posts, drawing from her thorough research of marine science literature. Erin’s dedication to diversity, equity, and inclusion was evident as she led initiatives aimed at fostering an inclusive environment.

Michelle Garcia Fresco

Michelle Garcia Fresco is a Dominican poet, performer, and Programming Director based in Boston. She currently graduated from the University of Massachusetts Lowell, with a dual degree in Creative Writing and Sociology.

Believing in the power of poetry as a medium for social justice. Garcia`s writing is often inspired by the women in her family, social and racial injustices in America, coping with loss and mental health, as well as her Dominican roots.

Her work has appeared in Wbur/The Artery, Tinderbox Poetry, the Rising Phoenix ,She is also the winner of Stirling Spoons “2020: Identity in America” contest.” Chosen by Richard Blanco, former US Inaugural Poet and author.

Kelly Hui

Kelly is a student journalist, fiction writer, and abolitionist community organizer. She is a Mellon Mays fellow at the University of Chicago and works as a barista in the basement coffee shop of the divinity school.

Jennifer Jean

Jennifer’s poetry collections include VOZ, OBJECT LESSON, and THE FOOL. Her teaching resource book is OBJECT LESSON: a GUIDE TO WRITING POETRY. She’s received honors, residencies, and fellowships from the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, DISQUIET/Dzanc Books, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Her Story Is collective, the Academy of American Poets, the Kolkata International Poetry Festival, and the Women’s Federation for World Peace. Jennifer’s poetry and co-translations have appeared in POETRY, Rattle, The Common, Waxwing, On the Seawall, DMQ, Salamander, Terrain, and elsewhere. Jennifer is the senior program manager of 24PearlStreet, the Fine Arts Work Center’s online writing program.

Tayllor Johnson

Tayllor is a poet, writer, educator, performer, activist, and founder of Sisterhood (verb), Inc. A published poet, she has been writing and performing her poetry and written works for over 15 years. She has been featured in museum exhibits in New York and California and published in several anthologies. She liberates, investigates, and celebrates herself through her written and spoken word and invites others to do the same. Having taught for over ten years, her undergraduate (Mount Holyoke College) and graduate (New York University) research centered around establishing art as a community norm in disenfranchised schools through arts-integrated curriculum development and community outreach.

Tayllor’s journey fighting for justice and healing as a Black woman in America led her to create Sisterhood (verb), Inc., a creative consulting business dedicated to uplifting Black women and youth through art and community and consulting with other organizations in arts education, social justice, and community building with creativity at the center. Currently, Tayllor is in Santa Barbara, CA, finishing up her first poetry book, Sweet Epiphanies: To be Determined, and working to accomplish her mission to find new ways poetry can empower and soothe the wounded and disturb the status quo, setting us all on a path to freedom.

Ellen Girardeau Kempler

Ellen is an award-winning nonfiction writer and poet whose work has been extensively published both in print and online. A solo writing trip to Ireland inspired her to launch Gold Boat Journeys (Creative Cultural Travel). She is certified as an Amherst Writers and Artists workshop leader and is a member of the American Association of Writers and Writers Programs. She has 25 years of experience directing marketing communications programs for museums, aquariums, and environmental organizations. She lives near a Marine Protected Zone in Laguna Beach, California.

Christopher Kondrich

Christopher is the author of Valuing (University of Georgia Press, 2019), selected by Jericho Brown as a winner of the National Poetry Series, by Library Journal as a Best Poetry Book of 2019, and as a finalist for The Believer Book Award in Poetry, as well as the book-length poem Contrapuntal (Free Verse Editions, 2013). He has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the I-Park Foundation, the University of Denver, and Columbia University. Recent poetry appears or is forthcoming in New England Review, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, The New York Review of Books, West Branch, Washington Square, and The Yale Review. An associate editor for 32 Poems, he teaches for Eastern Oregon University’s low-residency MFA program.

Sharon Lax

Sharon acknowledges that her home is on the unceded territory of the Kanyen’kehà:ka and the territory of other Nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, a place called Deux-Montagnes, or Two Mountains, in Québec.

A teacher and editor, Sharon has been writing for several years. Her work includes ocean landscapes, lakes, rivers and streams and explores the worlds and perspectives of our non-human animal neighbors. Her short story collection Shattered Fossils was published by Guernica Editions in 2020, and she’s working on a poetry collection and novel. Sharon’s love is nature, and she spends her summers in boreal forests and near lakes, oceans and streams. Through her teaching, writing and activism, she’s interested in closing that ever-widening breach between our natural habitat and the urban, where many of us find ourselves.

Cynthia Lu

Cynthia is an undergraduate at Harvard College whose writing has been recognized by Bow Seat (2019 Gold), Bennington College, the National Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and YoungArts. She enjoys painting watercolors in her free time, and has a soft spot for cold, rocky New England beaches.

Duy Quang Mai

Duy Quang Mai is from Hanoi, Vietnam. His poems have been published in American Poetry Review, AAWW, diaCRITICS, among others. He is the author of the chapbook Journals to (Story Factory, 2019). More of his work can be found at duyquangmai.com.

Ademola Oyewole-Davis

Brooklyn born and raised, Ademola is a singer, poet, writer, educator, and activist. He has been singing and performing his written work since he was 8 years old. His love for music and creativity has taken him coast to coast, performing in Southern California and New York, and working on a second album with his father, Abiodun Oyewole of The Last Poets, as well as his debut album, Lib(er)ation. Having taught for over 7 years with organizations like Urban Word NYC and various independent/charter schools, Ademola utilizes his skills to create a conscious, critical, and creative experience for students, keeping in mind his mission to give voice to truth and power to justice. Currently, Ademola is working on his debut album while being a DEI and education consultant.

Laura Parker Roerden

Laura has a passion for the ocean and what it can teach us. She is a poet/writer, public speaker and supporter of youth to boldly know and save the wilds. She is the founder and executive director of Ocean Matters, a nonprofit that supports youth in being stewards for the marine environment through service. Laura has over 25 years of experience nurturing and supporting social responsibility in young people including educational outreach projects she developed for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Ben & Jerry’s, the NBA, Frontline, and others. Laura’s love for literature as a tool for empowering young people stretches back to early in her career when she was briefly a high school English teacher. She serves on the boards of Women Working for Oceans (W20) and Earth, Ltd., and has a masters degree in education from Harvard University and a bachelors of arts in English Literature from Boston College.

Wesley Rothman

Wesley is the author of SUBWOOFER (New Issues, 2017). A California native, he has lived in Boston, Aix-en-Provence, Port Townsend, DC, and Chicago, never far from a major body of water. He has taught writing, rhetoric, and literature for many universities, and in other venues for young people and adult learners, including the National Gallery of Art, Grub Street Writer’s Workshop, and Upward Bound programs. His writing has been featured in Callaloo, Gulf Coast, Harvard Review, The Kenyon Review, Mississippi Review, The Missouri Review, Prairie Schooner, Publishers Weekly, the Golden Shovel Anthology, and elsewhere. Recipient of fellowships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and the Vermont Studio Center, he teaches writing at Howard University.

Elisa Rowe

Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, Elisa is a writer, educator, and poet. Their work has appeared in WBUR, Massachusetts Review, Boston Art Review, and elsewhere. You can find more of their work at www.elisarowe.com.

Griffin Smith

Griffin is a digital artist and AI researcher at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). His work explores how technology is changing artmaking, as well as what separates humans, animals, and machines. His classes at RISD include Machine Learning, Digital Culture, and Text Transformed: Writing with AI. He earned an MFA in Digital Art and a Bachelor’s in Creative Writing from Brown University.

Peter Stone

As an author, artist, and educator, Peter’s work explores the evolutionary wisdom and interconnectedness of endangered creatures, cultures, and ecosystems. Since 1983 he has presented more than 60 solo shows and over 100 group exhibitions at galleries and museums in the United States, Canada, and England. His Art & Science (STEM/STEAM) Journaling workshops bring his contagious enthusiasm for observing and understanding the natural world to students of all ages. His recent book, Waltzes with Giants: The Twilight Journey of the North Atlantic Right Whale (Skyhorse, 2012), is a moving portrait of one of earth’s largest endangered mammals, winner of the USA Best Book Awards for Children’s Hardcover Non-Fiction, and a selection of the Children’s Book-of-the-Month Club.

Ocean Awareness Contest Judges

CREATIVE WRITING
Karen Alexander

Karen comes to ocean awareness through history and science. She investigates the oceans’ living past using historical documents and objects, then collaborates with scientists in order to tell a more complete, more human story about the changing ocean. She has practiced historical ecology at the University of New Hampshire and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and currently researches, writes and edits in western Massachusetts. Her articles include “Tambora and the Mackerel Year” (Science Advances, 2017), she has contributed to many documentaries, including Cod Comeback? (PBS 2013), and her edited volumes include Shifting Baselines, the Past and Future of Ocean Fisheries (Island Press 2011).

Laniesha Brown

Laniesha (she/her/hers) is GrubStreet’s Program Coordinator. She holds an M.F.A in Poetry and an M.A. in English Literature from McNeese State University. Her work has appeared in The Caribbean Writer, The Hunger, the minnesota review, and more. She has also been recently featured as a 2021 Boston Poet of the Day by the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture. When she’s not writing, she enjoys playing fetch with her cats and eating fried plantains.

Liz Cunningham

Liz is the author of of the award-winning Ocean Country: One Woman’s Voyage from Peril to Hope in her Quest to Save the Seas, with a foreword by Carl Safina, and Talking Politics: Choosing the President in the Television Age. Her writing has appeared in publications such as Alternet.org, Earth Island Journal, GreenBiz, the Marin Poetry Center Anthology, The Outward Bound International Journal, Seven Seas Magazine, Times of the Islands, and The San Francisco Chronicle. She has collaborated with institutions such as the Academy for Educational Development, the Constitutional Rights Foundation, the Tides Foundation, and the Smithsonian Institution. An accomplished public speaker, she speaks to audiences in a wide range of settings, from inner-city high schools to universities and large public venues such as the Commonwealth Club, The New York Times Building, and the New England Aquarium. She is the co-founder of KurtHahn.org, the online archive for the founder of Outward Bound, Kurt Hahn. Learn about her work at www.lizcunningham.net.

Kayla Degala-Paraíso

Kayla (she/they) is a creative writing instructor at GrubStreet and a community organizer. She has a B.A. in Creative Writing and a B.A. in Comparative Politics from Pitzer College. She is currently pursuing a dual Master in Public Policy and Master in Social Welfare (Social Work) from University of California Los Angeles, Luskin School of Public Affairs. Kayla’s political work focuses on labor, immigration, transformative justice/abolition, and human rights. Her creative writing has been published in [PANK] Magazine, Okay Donkey, ANMLY, and elsewhere; and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. As a returning judge, Kayla is excited to once again witness youth power at the intersection of activism and artistry.

Rick Edie

Rick is a sixth and seventh grade English teacher at the Dedham Country Day School in Dedham, MA. Though more of a hiker and fresh-water person, he has frequent contact with the ocean when he visits family on Cape Cod and Jamestown, RI, where he enjoys kayaking, paddleboarding, and boating. Two of his daughters attended The Island School, and their experience has helped him appreciate the importance of protecting our oceans and the marine life in them.

Sarah Finnie

Sarah is the Founding Director of The 51 Percent Project, a climate communication initiative at Boston University’s Institute for Sustainable Energy. She holds faculty appointments at Boston University’s College of Communication and at the Graduate Program in Urban Biogeoscience & Environmental Health.

Sarah is the founding partner of WeSpire, whose behavior-change platform is used at S&P 100 corporations to engage employees on sustainability and other purpose-driven initiatives. Her ongoing research investigates barriers and accelerators to corporate climate action, including stakeholder engagement, in collaboration with Princeton University’s Behavioral Science for Policy Lab.

Sarah serves on the Advisory Council of Boston Harbor Now and its Climate Roundtable. She is on the boards of ecoAmerica and the Planetary Health Alliance. She began her career at The New Yorker and continued at The Atlantic and at iVillage, where she was the launch content director. Publications include The Atlantic, HuffPost, and mindbodygreen. Sarah holds a B.A. in English from Princeton University, and an M.A. from the Middlebury College Bread Loaf School.

Cara Fritz

Cara is a junior at Middlebury College, pursuing a B.A in Environmental Policy with a minor in Creative Writing. The ocean has always inspired her creative work, and she received the Gold Award for Prose from Bow Seat’s Ocean Awareness Contest in 2017. She also helped launch Bow Seat on TikTok last fall as an intern. Cara loves swimming, gardening, making jewelry, and writing. She looks forward to supporting Bow Seat’s mission on the Contest judging panel.

Anna Guzman

Anna is a student at the University of Chicago studying Political Science and Public Policy. She is passionate about the intersection of political advocacy, environmental issues, and creative writing. Anna won the Ocean Awareness Contest’s Silver Award in Senior Prose in 2018, and an Honorable Mention in Junior Poetry in 2016. She is very excited to return to Bow Seat this year as a judge!

Image by Rog Walker, Paper Monday
Nakia Hill

Nakia is a writer, journalist, and educator. She is the author of Water Carrier, a book of poetry, and I Still Did It, an intergenerational anthology on resilience. Nakia is the director of communications for Mayor Michelle Wu’s Community Engagement Cabinet for the City of Boston.

She was a co-writer for Here Comes the Break, a fictional audio-drama podcast for Double Elvis. Nakia’s writing has been published in the Boston Globe, Boston Art Review, Fodor’s Travel, and CRWN Magazine.

Nakia’s background is in journalism and in the arts education nonprofit sector. She is seasoned in launching and directing impactful programming and producing publications for youth. Learn more about Nakia by visiting nakiahill.com.

Sharon Lax

Sharon acknowledges that her home is on the unceded territory of the Kanyen’kehà:ka and the territory of other Nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, a place called Deux-Montagnes, or Two Mountains, in Québec.

A teacher and editor, Sharon has been writing for several years. Her work includes ocean landscapes, lakes, rivers and streams and explores the worlds and perspectives of our non-human animal neighbors. Her short story collection Shattered Fossils was published by Guernica Editions in 2020, and she’s working on a poetry collection and novel. Sharon’s love is nature, and she spends her summers in boreal forests and near lakes, oceans and streams. Through her teaching, writing and activism, she’s interested in closing that ever-widening breach between our natural habitat and the urban, where many of us find ourselves.

Cynthia Lu

Cynthia is an undergraduate at Harvard College whose writing has been recognized by Bow Seat (2019 Gold), Bennington College, the National Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and YoungArts. She enjoys painting watercolors in her free time, and has a soft spot for cold, rocky New England beaches.

Megan McInerney

Megan is a writer and educator currently living in Missoula, Montana, where she is pursuing an M.S. in Environmental Writing & Education. She holds an M.A. from the Bread Loaf School of English. She has five years of experience teaching at the high school level, including two years at The Island School in the Bahamas where she taught “Literature of the Sea” and worked with student groups to survey beach plastic and raise awareness of plastic pollution. Her work has appeared in Camas: The Nature of the West, Flyway Journal of Writing & Environment, and Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies.

Ashira Morris

Ashira is a freelance writer based between Sofia, Bulgaria, and Tallahassee, Florida. Her reporting on environmental issues and the arts has been published by PBS NewsHour, Boston Art Review, and Artforum, and she is an adjunct instructor for the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications. She helped organize Bow Seat and Conservation Law Foundation’s Healthy Whale, Healthy Ocean Challenge in 2019.

Sylvia Nica

Since she was young and exploring the tiny creek by her home, Sylvia has always been interested in the natural world and its preservation. An English and Italian double major at Wellesley College, she hopes to combine English with climate science to create stories that spur climate action and encourage ocean conservation. She is a Girls Who Invest Scholar and prose reader for Bodega Magazine, and has interned with the the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice. Sylvia has received a Gold Award and a Notable Award from the Ocean Awareness Contest.

Blu Prinston

Blu is a Haitian-born writer who tests the boundaries of literary landscapes. She uses language to probe, dissect, re-imagine, engender distinct worlds and empowering realities. Her work has appeared in L’Union Suite, GRLSQUASH, Boston Art Review, and The Caribbean Writer. Currently, she is working on her first biomythograpy memoir and hopes to teach creative writing as a healing device.

Sara Daniele Rivera

Sara is a Cuban/Peruvian artist, writer, translator, and educator from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her poetry and fiction have been published in literary journals and anthologies and use both speculative and realist lenses to explore themes of migration, ecology, and memory. Her drawings, sculptures, and community-based installations focus on text-in-space as social intervention. She was awarded a 2017 St. Botolph’s Emerging Artist Award, the 2018 Stephen Dunn Prize in Poetry, and was selected as a 2019 Story Maps Fellow with the Santa Fe Art Institute, as well as a 2022 Tin House resident in speculative fiction. Her debut book of poetry, THE BLUE MIMES, is forthcoming from Graywolf Press in 2024.

Elisa Rowe

Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, Elisa is a writer, educator, and poet. Their work has appeared in WBUR, Massachusetts Review, Boston Art Review, and elsewhere. You can find more of their work at www.elisarowe.com.

Daria Syskine

Daria recently graduated from Swarthmore College with a degree in Biology and English Literature. Their hobbies include hiking, swing dancing, and LARPing; they can often be found in the mountains collecting data for field biology research.

Program Advisors

Program Advisors are artists, educators, environmentalists, and other role models who contribute to Bow Seat’s educational programming, outreach, and judging.

Tayllor Johnson, Voice of the Sea Award

Tayllor is a poet, writer, educator, performer, activist, and founder of Sisterhood (verb), Inc. A published poet, she has been writing and performing her poetry and written works for over 15 years. She has been featured in museum exhibits in New York and California and published in several anthologies. She liberates, investigates, and celebrates herself through her written and spoken word and invites others to do the same. Having taught for over ten years, her undergraduate (Mount Holyoke College) and graduate (New York University) research centered around establishing art as a community norm in disenfranchised schools through arts-integrated curriculum development and community outreach.

Tayllor’s journey fighting for justice and healing as a Black woman in America led her to create Sisterhood (verb), Inc., a creative consulting business dedicated to uplifting Black women and youth through art and community and consulting with other organizations in arts education, social justice, and community building with creativity at the center. Currently, Tayllor is in Santa Barbara, CA, finishing up her first poetry book, Sweet Epiphanies: To be Determined, and working to accomplish her mission to find new ways poetry can empower and soothe the wounded and disturb the status quo, setting us all on a path to freedom.

Jason Talbot, We All Rise Prize

Jason is a co-founder and alumnus of Artists For Humanity (AFH), a Boston-area nonprofit that fuses art-making, entrepreneurial and business training, experiential arts and STEM learning, and audience engagement to create empowering and transformational experiences for under-resourced teens. Currently serving as Deputy Director and member of AFH’s Board of Directors, Jason has dedicated the last 29 years of his life ensuring that Boston’s young people are guided towards a successful life by encouraging their self-expression through art.

Jason was selected as one of Bank of America’s 2012 Neighborhood Builders, and he has received the Mentor of the Year Award from Youth Design. Jason is a member of WGBH’s Board of Advisors, and in 2014 he was awarded a spot on the Boston Business Journal’s “40 Under 40.” Jason is also still producing his own brand of visionary street art.

Nakia Hill, We All Rise Prize

Nakia is a writer, journalist, and educator. She is the author of Water Carrier, a book of poetry, and I Still Did It, an intergenerational anthology on resilience. Nakia is the director of communications for Mayor Michelle Wu’s Community Engagement Cabinet for the City of Boston.

She was a co-writer for Here Comes the Break, a fictional audio-drama podcast for Double Elvis. Nakia’s writing has been published in the Boston Globe, Boston Art Review, Fodor’s Travel, and CRWN Magazine.

Nakia’s background is in journalism and in the arts education nonprofit sector. She is seasoned in launching and directing impactful programming and producing publications for youth. Learn more about Nakia by visiting nakiahill.com.

Free Marseille, We All Rise Prize

Free’s current work pulls inspiration from his childhood experience of moving to America as a refugee and experiencing this country as an outsider. He loves that he belongs to multiple cultures because it helps him weave together distant narratives and create a final product that feels both foreign and familiar. His goal is for people to experience his work as dissonant dreamscapes that connect subconscious and conscious realities.

Yanka Petri, We All Rise Prize

Yanka is a multimedia artist and educator from Curitiba, Brazil, via Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her work is inspired by her journey as an immigrant and explores gender, sexuality, intimacy, relationships, and comfortability. Shortly after graduating high school, Yanka joined Cambridge Community Television (CCTV) as a teaching artist. She also taught and mentored youth at Artists for Humanity. Yanka now serves as CCTV’s Youth Media Coordinator.

Destiny Janai Polk, We All Rise Prize

Warrior and healer. Tender and unbreakable. Destiny “Divine” Polk, whose name means “That which has been firmly established, God has answered, Dance,” is an Afro-Indigenous choreographer and producer, multi-disciplinary artist, community organizer/space holder, art educator and founder of art-activist platform Radical Black Girl. Known for doing interactive art shows likes RESISTDANCE and Black Woman is God, Destiny’s work is concerned with speaking truth to a country that attempts to rewrite its own history while having actively tried to suppress African and Native American history and culture. Destiny took her Being the Change workshop to SXSW 2019 and premiered her short film “When the Sea Rises” at the ILLUMINUS Festival 2019. She was the keynote speaker for the Youth Arts for Social Change Summit in 2020 and the recipient of the National Center of Afro-American Artist’s Ralph F. Browne, Jr. Award for Civic Engagement.

Wyze Roundtree, We All Rise Prize

Mom. Student. Advocate. Poet. Wyze found her life’s passion as a social justice activist and youth advocate, which she is redirecting toward her education. As a proud Black and Native mom of two, she devotes herself toward her degree in the human services field. Through spoken word, she aims to provoke free thinking, radical self love, and healing. Wyze’s love for spoken word developed during a time when hip hop spoke through the silence. When silence is loud, not only words are spoken, but they are heard.

Marquis Victor, We All Rise Prize

Marquis leads Elevated Thought’s vision, goals, and mission, and manages its contracts, commissions, and partnerships. In addition to being a poet and artist, Marquis has a master’s degree in Education from Lesley University and compiled over seven years of public-school experience before focusing on ET full-time; building and facilitating the art and social justice curriculum that serves as the foundation for all of ET’s creative youth development work. Marquis is currently pursuing his Doctor of Education at Northeastern University.