People
V&W is a community of climate activists, funders, and domain-experts devoted to challenging you, encouraging you, and fiscally supporting you as you build and validate your ideas.
Led by Tom Chase, we invite thinkers, leaders and philanthropists across seemingly divergent domains to come together in the spirit of developing out-of-the-box and mutually beneficial solutions.
Our network includes people with expertise in housing, food security, wildlife, community organizing, investment, economics, permaculture, urban planning, and more.
Gathering people with a diverse set of skills and perspectives allows us to create and support solutions that serve entire communities.
We don’t just want to adapt to climate change. We want to do it in a way that is ethical, responsible, and leaves no one behind.
Board of Directors
Tom Chase
Founder/Director
Born and raised on Martha’s Vineyard into a family with multigenerational roots, Tom Chase began working in the conservation field as a volunteer as soon as he got his driver’s license in 1970.
With a masters of science from the Quaternary Institute at the University of Maine, Tom has worked in virtually every branch of the conservation field – from educational interpretation, to strategic planning and leadership development to developing partnerships with leading institutions. His professional and popular publications reflect his eclectic interests in nature, including archaeology, avian genetics, botany, history, paleoecology, shorebirds, spiders and wildlife management.
Tom has held positions with the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation, The Trustees of Reservations and The Nature Conservancy and served on the board of the Vineyard Conservation Society, BiodiversityWorks, Revive and Restore, the selection committee of the Martha’s Vineyard Vision Fellowship, and numerous community-based task forces.
While with the Conservancy, Tom raised millions of dollars for hundreds of acres and amicably resolved some of the Island’s most divisive land use conflicts. He led projects that built a field station, established a professional fire crew, restored land, conducted ecological research and created partnerships.
Known for building non-traditional alliances on and beyond the Vineyard, Tom’s greatest passion is helping conservation entrepreneurs come together to develop better and more replicable strategies.
Tripti Thomas-Travers, MPP
Communications Manager
Born and raised on Martha’s Vineyard into a family with multigenerational roots, Tom Chase began working in the conservation field as a volunteer as soon as he got his driver’s license in 1970.
With a masters of science from the Quaternary Institute at the University of Maine, Tom has worked in virtually every branch of the conservation field – from educational interpretation, to strategic planning and leadership development to developing partnerships with leading institutions. His professional and popular publications reflect his eclectic interests in nature, including archaeology, avian genetics, botany, history, paleoecology, shorebirds, spiders and wildlife management.
Board of Directors
Kimberly Angell, JD
Treasurer
Kim is the co-founder of Abrams + Angell, a boutique firm that coaches small businesses and nonprofits on everything from business strategy and financial planning to activism and advocacy. Kim is deeply committed to the Martha’s Vineyard community and has volunteered for a variety of organizations and programs in the last four decades, with a particular focus on financial literacy and affordable housing. In addition to being a board member and the treasurer of Village & Wilderness, Kim serves on the steering and executive committees of The Coalition to Create the Martha’s Vineyard Housing Bank, and on the advisory board for The Martha’s Vineyard Community College Consortium.
Prior to Abrams + Angell, Kim was a co-founder and principal of Vineyard Tax Matters, a tax and accounting firm that served individual, business and non-profit clients in all tax-related capacities for 18 years.
Matt Pelikan, MA
Clerk
Matt is the Director of the Martha’s Vineyard Atlas of Life (MVAL) Project at BiodiversityWorks. This community-driven project aims to document the unique biodiversity of Martha’s Vineyard, while inspiring and supporting nature enthusiasts of all sorts. MVAL’s goal is an active, informed, and enthusiastic community working to understand and protect the biodiversity that is being stewarded for future generations.
Prior to his current role, Matt worked in a range of capacities for over 15 years at the Trustees of Reservations and The Nature Conservancy, on conservation and restoration ecology in the unique ecological, geological, and cultural environs of the Massachusetts islands. Martha’s Vineyard, where he has lived year-round since 1997, is a specific area of passion. With an educational background in English and literature, Matt has also studied and written on every topic from birds to beetles, and was an editor at the American Birding Association for over 10 years.
The Advisory Council
Luanne Johnson, PhD
Founder & Director, BiodiversityWorks
Luanne is a wildlife biologist, and the founder and director of BiodiversityWorks. Established on Martha’s Vineyard in 2011, this innovative organization aims to promote the conservation of biodiversity through wildlife research and monitoring while providing opportunities for people to engage in hands-on nature study. “I envisioned a collaborative organization that promoted biodiversity conservation through participation. An organization that works with conservation groups, private landowners, federal and state agencies, community members, students and scientists to ask questions and find answers together. I was fortunate to find accomplished professionals in conservation, science, and education to become board members and join me in making this vision a reality,” says Luanne.
Through BiodiversityWork’s “Natural Neighbors” program, Luanne and her team partner with private property owners to create habitats for their own enjoyment and to support biodiversity by connecting fragmented habitat.
Luanne has a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies/Conservation Biology from Antioch University New England, a B.S. in Zoology from Butler University, and 30 years of experience as a conservation biologist.
Desiree L. Narango, PhD
Conservation Scientist, Vermont Center for Ecostudies
Desiree’s research focuses on biodiversity conservation and habitat restoration in the face of global change. She primarily studies plants, insects, and birds with a particular focus on multi-trophic interactions, habitat relationships of wildlife with specialized life histories, and mechanistic approaches to applied ecology. Much of Desiree’s work takes place in forests of all types, from naturally regenerating and preserved forests to novel ecosystems significantly altered by people, such as urban street trees, residential yards, and agroforestry. Her interdisciplinary work uses field, lab, and modeling-based approaches to answer questions that span across scales and taxa.
As a conservation biologist at the Vermont Center for Ecostudies, Desiree’s ultimate goal is to help land managers and communities implement effective and efficient action to support biodiversity and people in a rapidly changing world. She is also strongly committed to public outreach and communication, collaborations between scientists and artists, and improving diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in ecology and conservation.
Before joining VCE, Desiree was a David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellow at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a postdoctoral fellow at City University of New York. She has a Ph.D. in Entomology and Wildlife Ecology from the University of Delaware, an MS in Natural Resources from Ohio State University, and a BS in Environmental Biology from SUNY.
Christopher Neill, PhD
Senior Scientist, Woodwell Climate Research Center
Chris is a Senior Scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) in Falmouth, MA. His research interests broadly encompass how changes in land use, such as increased agriculture or residential development, impact ecosystem function, and the restoration of impaired ecosystems. He works primarily in the Amazon rainforest and the coastal regions of Massachusetts.
His work is highly collaborative and engages a diverse array of partners. He works with the Buzzards Bay Coalition on monitoring the impacts of nutrient pollution in coastal waters, and Native Plant Trust on backyard biodiversity. His work on the impacts of restoring cranberry bogs to natural habitat involves state and federal agencies, the Town of Falmouth, and Coonamessett River Trust. And he is part of a coastal grasslands restoration initiative involving The Nature Conservancy, The Trustees of Reservations, Cape Cod National Seashore, the Nantucket Conservation Foundation and the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program, as well as private landowners.
Prior to the WHRC, Chris spent 4 years as Director of the Ecosystems Center at the Marine Biological Laboratory, where he was a scientist from 1996-2016 and retains a position as a Fellow. Chris is dedicated to giving ecology a voice in public discourse, and, as such, is a presence in both scientific and popular media.
Peter Rabinowitz, MD MPH
Professor, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, Department of Global Health, University of Washington
Peter is a Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences and Director of the UW Center for One Health Research at the University of Washington. He is also Co-Director of the UW Alliance for Pandemic Preparedness, an interdisciplinary effort to prepare, prevent and respond to global emerging disease outbreak threats.
The Center for One Health Research explores linkages between human, animal and environmental health in a “One Health” paradigm, including: zoonotic infectious diseases at the human-animal interface, animals as “sentinels” of environmental health hazards and clinical collaboration between human health care providers and veterinarians in a species-spanning approach. A goal of the center is to serve as an incubator and organizer of research, training and clinical activities at the University of Washington related to the human-animal-ecosystem interface. The Center also manages the Occupational Health at the Human Health Interface research training program.
Peter has been a visiting scientist at the Global Influenza Program of the World Health Organization and in the Animal Health Division of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, where he researched zoonotic diseases. He is the co-editor, with Lisa Conti, DVM, MPH, of the clinical manual Human Animal Medicine: Zoonoses, Toxicants and other Shared Health Risks. (Elsevier 2010) He is co-director, with Malika Kachani, DVM, PhD, of the Stone Mountain Working Group on One Health Proof of Concept Research. He has an MD from the University of Washington, an MPH from Yale University, and a BA from Amherst College.
Peter brings a valuable and unique perspective to the backyard habitat movement, as it seeks to restore ecosystem function to the fragmented and human-dominated landscape, thereby increasing interactions between humans and other species.
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