Jessica Culpepper is Director of Public Justice’s Food Project. Before joining Public Justice, Jessica was a Barker Fellow and Staff Attorney at the Humane Society of the United States in the Farm Animal Welfare Division. There she worked primarily on fighting pollution from Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations and advocating for federal and state policy reform to advance sustainable food systems and the humane treatment of animals. Jessica also defended constitutional challenges to state laws protecting the treatment of dogs in puppy mills and preventing the practice of cockfighting. Jessica is a 2007 graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, where she won the Outstanding Clinic Achievement Award in the Domestic Violence Clinic and helped establish the Georgetown Journal of Law & Modern Critical Race Perspective. She received her B.A. in history and political science from Warren Wilson College in 2004, where she won the Alton P. Pfaff Award for Most Outstanding Member of the Graduating Class.

Bakeyah has been the Executive Director of Air Alliance Houston since 2017. Previously, she led a consulting firm focused on advancing health equity and worked in Harris County Public Health’s Office of Policy and Planning where she was responsible for leading community health initiatives to reduce environmental inequities. Bakeyah was recently honored as one of the Texas Organizing Project’s 2018 Community Champions. She is a Senior Fellow of Class XLVI of the American Leadership Forum and was selected as one of the Aspen Institute’s Health Scholars for the 2019 Aspen Ideas Festival. She is also a contributing faculty member with Baylor University’s Department of Public Health. In 2012, Bakeyah was selected for the University of California, San Francisco’s Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment Reach the Decision Makers Fellowship, which trains scientists, community members, clinicians, and public health professionals to effectively promote science and health-based policies. Later in 2012, she was a recipient of the National Association of County & City Health Officials (NACCHO) Model Practice Award for demonstrating exemplary leadership to advance environmental justice and public health. Bakeyah’s Doctorate in Public Policy, Master’s in Applied Sociology and Bachelor’s in Psychology all come from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Keri N. Powell leads the Air Program at the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), the largest nonprofit, nonpartisan environmental legal advocacy organization rooted in and focused on the U.S. South. Keri is widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading Clean Air Act experts. She previously served as Senior Clean Air Act Counseling Attorney for the U.S. EPA in Atlanta and as an advisor to U.S. EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance in Washington, D.C. Her legal career also includes litigation of impactful Clean Air Act cases during her tenure with Earthjustice in Washington, D.C. and New York; as leader of the New York Public Interest Research Group’s air quality litigation project; and on behalf of Sierra Club, Environmental Integrity Project, Environmental Defense Fund, and others while in private practice. Keri earned a B.A. in Earth Science from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, and a J.D. from New York University School of Law. She is licensed to practice law in Georgia, New York, and Washington, D.C.

Cyndhia Ramatchandirane joined Earthjustice in 2020 and is a staff scientist based in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her role involves providing technical science support for the Fossil Fuel program. Prior to Earthjustice, Cyndhia worked for over six years as a research scientist in Applied Geosciences at The Water Institute of the Gulf, an independent research nonprofit with a mission to help coastal and deltaic communities face environmental change.

Ruth Santiago is a resident of the municipality of Salinas in southeastern Puerto Rico where she has worked with community and environmental groups, fisher’s associations and other organizations for over thirty years on projects ranging from a community newspaper, children’s services, a community school, ecotourism projects to a rooftop solar energy pilot project. In addition to litigation in courts and administrative agencies, Ruth has organized and promoted environmental education projects, advised community groups and the Jobos Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve on watershed protection and land use issues. Most recently, Ruth has worked on cases related to energy projects and integrated resource plans. Ms. Santiago earned degrees from Lehigh University and Columbia Law School and has published articles on energy issues in Puerto Rico.