Meet the 2023 UEP Certificate in Impact and Sustainable Investing (CISI) Students

Abdiel Lopez

Los Angeles, CA & Oaxaca City, Mexico

abdiel j. lópez is a cultural theorist, curator, and organizer from Los Angeles, currently living between their hometown and Oaxaca City. They earned a BA in sociology from and studied art history at Grinnell College, where they were a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow and Posse Scholar. Currently they are the Director of Capital Activation at Justice Funders, where they organize funders, curate narrative strategies, and design public programs to support philanthropy in shifting capital and control to BIPOC frontline communities to help build their self-determination. abdiel also self-organizes alternative art exhibitions in Los Angeles, volunteers at social justice organizations in Oaxaca, lifts weights, and spends quality time with loved ones. abdiel is a student in the Impact and Sustainable Investing certificate program at Tufts.

Allistair Mallillin

Berkeley, CA

Allistair (he/him) joined Common Counsel Foundation in 2016, and has played a variety of roles at CCF. Currently, he serves as Director of Strategy and Asset Building, where he directs strategic philanthropic services and alignment work for CCF’s clients and donors, develops participatory and community-led grantmaking funds that shift practices, and bridges relationships in the philanthropic field. Allistair has spent nearly 15 years supporting social justice as a funder, community organizer, fundraiser, capacity builder, and networker. Allistair serves as Board Chair for Asian Pacific Environmental Network and as a Board Member for Filipino Advocates for Justice. Allistair is a 21/64 Certified Advisor of Color, and earned his degree from Tufts University in Massachusetts. He resides in Berkeley, CA with his wife and little kiddo.

Andrew Jones

Boston, MA

Andrew Jones serves as the Imago Dei Fund’s Impact Partner and co-leads the IDF team. In this role, Andrew focuses on foundation strategy, operations, and impact assessment. He brings three decades of experience in the international development and human rights field with extensive programmatic, management and policy experience overseas and in Washington, DC. Andrew previously served as VP of Global EducationPrograms at Impact(Ed). He has also worked in various capacities for a range of organizations globally, including CARE, Oxfam, Save the Children, UNICEF, and International Justice Mission. Andrew also serves on the board of The Network, a non-profit fighting human trafficking. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Comparative Area Studies and Economics from Duke, a Master’s degree in Public and International Affairs from Princeton, and a Law degree from the University of Virginia.

Annie Wolf

Salem, MA

Annie has spent her career connecting people to causes they care about. Annie has held program management roles at several non-profits including the New England Aquarium, the Trustees of Reservations. In her current role at Solar United Neighbors, Annie serves as VP of Community Impact providing strategic vision for engagement as well as energy equity & inclusion programming. Her background is in conservation and marine mammal science, and social impact. When not at work, you can find Annie SCUBA diving with her husband or at home hanging out with their two cats.

Caroline Hotaling

New York

Caroline is a self-professed nonprofit nerd with over 30 years of management experience in small social justice nonprofits and philanthropy. Caroline provides timely and vital support to pivotal,visionary organizations and movements. For almost a decade Caroline was a community organizer working on environmental advocacy and justice in rural Arizona on the U.S.-Mexico border, where she became involved in philanthropy through a rural community foundation. She later became the Manager of Strategy and Planning, and the Program Officer for Capacity Building for the largest and oldest women’s fund in the U.S., the Ms. Foundation for Women. At Ms. she created the first immigration portfoliofor the Foundation, and built a tailored capacity-building program focused on financial management and individual donor fundraising for community-based grantee partners across the U.S. She later ran a rural housing trust in the mountains of NYS and served a Tibetan Medicine school in Massachusetts.   In her free time, Caroline works on community-based preparation for climate change as a Senior Consultant with the Equitable Renewal Fund and has been active on the programming and finance committees of the International Dzogchen Community center in NYC.

David Estrada

New York City

David Estrada serves as Senior Manager, Strategic Partnerships for the eBay Foundation. In this role, he focuses on advancing the foundation’s grantmaking strategy and building relationships with grantee partners addressing and removing barriers to entrepreneurship for people who identify with historically excluded groups. For five years prior, Davidserved as the Managing Director of Confluence Philanthropy, a $3.5T network of private, public, and community foundations; family offices; individual donors; and their investment advisors committed to transforming the practice of investing by aligning capital with the values of sustainability, equity, and justice. Before that, David spent more than a decade leading successful partnerships with private foundations and CSR programs at various organizations. His experiences span the areas of entrepreneurship, economic development, racial equity, social justice, climate solutions, agriculture, and health.

Kevin Keeney

Pepperell, MA

Kevin Keeney has been working at Fidelity Investments for over four years,and his current role is as a Corporate Governance Analyst. His job is to evaluate and process proxy votes in accordance with Fidelity’s proxy voting guidelines. He is also responsible for engaging with companies to discuss corporate governance practices, assisting with process improvement opportunities, and reporting. Kevin completed his undergraduate degree in Business Administration with a focus in Financeand his MBA with a focus in Accounting at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Most recently, he has joined his family foundation, the Daniel Raymond Nickerson Foundation Inc, as a director which provides small grants to benefit individuals with disabilities along with other worthy causes. When he is not working, Kevin enjoys golfing, lifting, running, and hiking.

Kuru

Detroit, MI

Kuru works as the Director of Capital Strategies at Justice Funders. In her role, she supports movement partners who are undergoing integrated capital projects and need technical support to bring their projects to life. Kuru’s role is to support partners while also identifying investors and foundations who are able to provide long term, non-extractive financing options for their partners to support aligned projects. 

Maria Nakae

Oakland, CA

Maria is the Senior Director of Just Transition Investing at Justice Funders, where she leads the Just Transition Investment Community, a peer learning and action community for staff and trustees of philanthropicinstitutions who are committed to divesting from the extractive economy and redirecting investment capital to BIPOC-led, movement-aligned Just Transition projects and loan funds that build local, regenerative solidarity economies. Maria also serves on the Investment Committee of Just Futures, a new initiative with a vision of a financial system that creates value for people, communities, and planet—not just a privileged few. She is a 2006 New Voices Fellow and holds a Master’s degree in Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley with an emphasis in maternal and child health. 

Pia Desangles

Florida

Pia Desangles is one of the Project Stewards for Climate Justice Alliance’s Our Power Loan Fund. Born in Santiago, Dominican Republic and raised in Broward County, Florida, Pia is passionate about working towards a just transition through agroecology and solidarity economics. Before joining CJA, she pursued a certificate in ecological horticulture, worked as Technical Support staff for the Farmworker Association of Florida and several other orgs fighting for justice in Florida and the southeast. She is the co-founder of Lantana Language Collective, an aspiring language justice cooperative based in Central Florida. She holds a BA in Economics and Latin American & Latino Studies. In the summer you can find her reading dystopian novels on the beach and in the winter you can find her hiking and learning about Florida’s beautiful ecosystems.