Our Team

Board of Directors (2011 - 2012)

• Stephen Gliessman, Chair     
  Professor Emeritus
  Environmental Studies Department
  University of California, Santa Cruz

• Roberta Jaffe, Treasurer
  Co-Director Community Agroecology Network
   
• Jonathan Fox
  Professor
  
  Latino and Latin American Studies Department
  University of California, Santa Cruz

• V. Ernesto Mendez
          Assistant Professor of Agroecology & Environmental Studies
          Environmental Program and Plant & Soil Science Department
          University of Vermont in Burlington

• Christopher Musselwhite
  President and CEO Discovery Learning
   

Staff

• Roberta (Robbie) Jaffe: Co-Founder and Director of CAN, Robbie has more than 20 years experience in non-profit management. She is a lecturer in the Environmental Studies department at the University of California, Santa Cruz and is an author of several curriculum guides on using school gardens.
• Heather Putnam: Associate Director of CAN, Heather is a doctoral candidate in the Geography department at the University of Kansas where she has focused her research on coffee, alternative trade, environment and development, East Africa, and Latin America. Heather has worked with the CAN partner community in Matagalpa, Nicaragua at the UCA San Ramon coffee cooperative.
• Roseann (Rose) Cohen: Assistant Director of CAN, Rose holds a Ph.D. from the Environmental Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, with a specialization in Latin American and Latino Studies. Her research has focused on the sociocultural significance of farmers' relationship to their crops and land, as well as the impacts of insecure land tenure, forced displacement, and violence on farming communities in Colombia.
• Pete Rasmussen: Director of Action Education, Pete joins the CAN team after starting and managing a successful garlic and vegetable farm for eight seasons. Rasmussen brings with him a  passion for agroecology education, with local experience as a school garden educator in Oakland, California and international experience in farmer-to-farmer exchange programs in Cuba. Pete is a University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) alumni, educated and inspired at the campus' Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS).
• Estrellita Del Refugio Muñoz: Action Education Program Coordinator Estrellita studied Latin American Latino Studies and Sociology at University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). Her studies focused on the intersections of immigration policies and food politics social movements. Estrellita has a background in student decolonial community organizing projects, feminist of color politics, immigrant rights activism, multiethnic/intercultural event programming, and student retention services.
• Victor Castro: AgroEco® Coffee Coordinator of CAN, Victor received his B.A. in Environmental Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). As a CAN intern at UCSC, Victor helped develop and implement a campus expansion campaign for his senior project. In Fall 2012, CAN successfully launched its campus expansion at Santa Clara University (Santa Clara, California).

Friends of CAN (FoCAN) Leadership Team

The following students lead a student-action group at the University of California, Santa Cruz to promote food systems sustainability.

• Catherine Huffman, FoCAN Coordinator
• Alberto Cortes-Perez, Outreach Coordinator
• Lucero Aguiniga, Marketing Assistant
• Andrew Ngo, FoCAN Webmaster