Meet Our Team

Staff

 

Caitlin Cameron - Project Director

Caitlin joined the Thrive team in 2022 as Project Director. Originally from Carmel, Indiana (the roundabout capital of the world), Caitlin has also lived and worked in Ithaca, San Francisco, Boston, and Portland, Maine. With a background in architecture and city planning, her experience and interests include creative placemaking, smart growth, food systems, public art and memory, design policy, and sustainable design and development. No stranger to Ithaca, she studied architecture at Cornell University and has a Masters in City Planning from MIT. Caitlin is a Certified Forest Therapy Guide through the Association for Nature and Forest Therapy.

 

Board of Advisors

 

Heather Sullivan-Catlin

Heather Sullivan-Catlin is Professor of Sociology at SUNY Potsdam. Her primary areas of interest are family, environment, and qualitative research – all of which intersect in her work on community food security and sustainable communities (especially cohousing neighborhoods and ecovillages). She serves as co-chair of the President's Sustainability Team at SUNY Potsdam, as a lead organizer with the North County Partnership for Environmental Action, Community and Sustainability (NoCoPEACS), and is also active with the New York Coalition for Sustainability in Higher Education (NYCSHE). In between teaching and activism her favorite pastimes include paddling and hiking in the Adirondacks, seeing live music, travel & exploring local food and drinks, and down time with family, friends, and pets.

Jen Myers

Jen is a Visiting Assistant Professor and chair of the Sustainability program at Wells College. She has studied re-localization efforts in communities throughout the world, investigating what Dr. Mindy Fullilove calls “community practices of love.” She is particularly interested in the ways people develop and maintain place-based resilience in the face of systemic injustice and climate change. Jen’s experience includes work in the non-profit sector building local food systems, serving on the board of Power Up for Climate Solutions, and leading backpacking trips for Big City Mountaineers. She moved to the Ecovillage at Ithaca with her daughter in 2022.

Anna Post

Anna first got involved with Ecovillage at Ithaca as a participant in the 2018 Eco-gap program. She holds a B.A in Journalism from Michigan State with 2 minors in Media Relations and Media Design, and has experience in Copywriting, Content strategy/development, Adobe Software, and Email marketing AI software helping Thrive with PR and Communications. Currently living in Michigan, Anna has also volunteered at urban development organizations like the Heilderberg Project in Detroit and served as a weekend community volunteer at Greater Lansing Food Bank.

Julia Ellis

Julia Ellis is a licensed Psychotherapist and Expressive Arts Therapist who is passionate about the intersection of healing, community, and creative expression. Julia spent many years involved in multi-generational intentional communities in the California Bay Area, as both a resident and community leader, before moving to Ecovillage in July 2021. She currently lives in the SONG neighborhood with her partner and young daughter, and her mother-in-law lives right nearby in TREE. You can often find Julia singing, telling stories, tending to children, hosting an "Ecoboogie", or walking the land at EVI. 

Michele Belot

Michele is a Professor of Economics at Cornell University. She moved to EcoVillage with her family in 2020. She is originally from Belgium, but has spent a large part of her life in other countries (7 years in the Netherlands, 12 years in the UK and 4 years in Italy). She has spent the last decade designing and evaluating interventions aimed at encouraging healthy behaviors among poorer communities. She is passionate about understanding what makes societies work well.

Wren Anjali

Wren is the founder and director of OneFire Forest School based at Ecovillage at Ithaca. They previously served as Program Director for Primitive Pursuits, a non-profit affiliate of Cornell Cooperative Extension and 4-H New York. They have held numerous administrative and teaching roles in educational organizations. “I feel blessed to be able to devote myself to what I value the most: ever-deepening my relationship with nature; living as gently as possible in relationship to the Earth in an ecovillage community; serving in the world as a nature-connection mentor; and helping to develop and support programs to encourage people of all ages to learn more about, grow in appreciation of, and be present with the natural world.”

Steve Gaarder

Steve is a founding member of the first Ecovillage at Ithaca neighborhood - FRoG. His involvement with environmentalism started way back on the first Earth Day, marching against pollution. He has a strong interest in renewable energy and sustainable communities. Having a lot of knowledge about sustainable technology, community dynamics, and permaculture & site design, Steve is good at figuring things out and at finding win-win solutions, and has been an integral member of setting up and maintaining systems, infrastructure, and social events at EVI.

Steve and his wife Suzanne now live in Burlington, Vermont at Burlington Cohousing East Village.