Meet Our New Advisory Board
Climate Refugees is honored to have Kumail Hasan, Michael Holland, Tamara Toles O’Laughlin, Andreen Soley and Sarah Stillman join our Advisory Board in 2022. Advisory Board members serve as critical champions of our work and share their professional expertise, knowledge, networks, assistance and advice.
Demonstrative of the intersectional nature of climate-induced displacement and migration, our board brings a variety of skills, experiences and assets that provide substantive and strategic guidance to the organization.
Tamra Toles O’Laughlin is President & CEO of the Environmental Grantmakers Association. Her niche in environmental work is developing capacity building programs and creating multimedia campaigns to dismantle privilege and increase opportunities for vulnerable populations. She is a co-chair of the Green Leadership Trust, chairwoman of the Board of Directors of Women’s Voices for the Earth, and has just concluded as Chair of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, Air and Climate Public Advisory Committee. Previously she was the North American Director at 350.org and 350 Action in the US and Canada. Read more of her bio here.
Sarah Stillman is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where she covers migration, mass incarceration, climate justice, and more. She joined the magazine in 2012; that same year, her piece about labor abuses on United States military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, "The Invisible Army," received the National Magazine Award for public interest and the Hillman Prize for magazine journalism. In 2019, she received another National Magazine Award for public interest, for her New Yorker piece, “No Refuge” on deportation of asylum-seekers and immigrants. Sarah launched the Global Migration Project at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, which has produced more than thirty public-interest investigations. She is a MacArthur Fellow, contributor to the best-selling anthology All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis. Read her full bio here.
Kumail Hasan is an experienced project manager in the corporate and philanthropic sectors. Kumail is informed by his community experiences and education, where he holds an MA in International Relations from American University and a BA in Government from The University of Texas at Austin where the motto “What Starts Here, Changes the World” has informed his life. Kumail has founded multiple humanitarian organizations, including in the refugee sector, and employee resource groups to further diversity initiatives. His advocacy work includes community engagement with elected officials, supporting and serving on non-profit boards geared towards empowering refugee and immigrant communities. Read more of his bio here.
Michael Holland serves as an advisor to organizations that are working toward achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, including the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, the King Hussein Foundation, Mission Blue: the Sylvia Earle Alliance, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He is a trusted advisor to government, business and non-profit leaders and has extensive experience in international relations, public affairs, and strategic communications. Read more of his bio here.
Andreen Soley is director of the Public Interest Technology (PIT) University Network at New America. In 2018, Andreen joined New America after twenty years of experience working within higher education and the nonprofit sector. From 2001 to 2005, she served as the director of educational programs at the City University of New York’s JFK, Jr. Institute for Worker Education Program (IWE), overseeing its workforce development and career advancement initiatives to make higher education accessible to low-income workers. Read her full bio here.