Amanda McKenzie – National Director

Before joining the AYCC, Amanda McKenzie established ASCENT, the Australian Climate Change Education Network in 2006, an independent non-profit organisation aiming to bring accurate information about climate change to the average person. She has also played a key role in the development of the international youth climate movement. Amanda has attended the UN Climate Change Conferences in Bali, Poznan and Copenhagen. She has represented Australian youth in discussions with the Prime Minister, Federal Ministers, Premiers and State Government representatives, and business and industry representatives from across the world. In 2007 Amanda completed an Arts/Law degree completing a law honours thesis on emissions trading with first class honours.

Ellen Sandell – General Manager

Ellen was recently recognised as Melbourne’s leading environmentalist, winning the Melbourne Awards for Individual Contribution to the Environment 2009 and was featured in The Age Melbourne Magazine as one of the top 100 influential Melburnians of 2009. She was previously the Environment Officer in the University of Melbourne Student Union, leading a successful campaign to get the University to commit to carbon neutrality. Ellen is the founder of the award-winning Leadership in Environmental Action Program (LEAP), an  environmental leadership conference for high school students, held each year in Melbourne.  Ellen has also worked as a Policy Adviser in the Office of Climate Change in the Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet. Ellen was born in Alice Springs and grew up in Mildura, in northwest Victoria.  She had a wide range of jobs, including rehabilitating numbats at Scotia Santuary in rural NSW, and researching plant genetics at the CSIRO in Merbein.

Claire Snyder – Online Communications Director

Claire Snyder started her career as a journalist in her hometown of Margaret River where she developed a keen interest in writing on local environmental issues. She has since worked, traveled, studied and volunteered her way across the globe. It was meeting concerned communities and seeing the changing world with her own eyes that ultimately focused her interest on climate change.  Claire joined AYCC in May 2010 armed with a Masters in Communications and Media Studies with a first-class thesis on the political economy of the media. She brings specialist skills in writing, multimedia design and new communications technologies as well as a passion for positive environmental change.

Emily Lawrence – Fundraising Director

Emily’s climate campaigning journey began with a train ride across the Nullabor to Perth to a youth environment conference as a first year student. Since then, Emily has represented the AYCC as part of the Australian Youth Delegation to the UN Climate Negotiations in Bali in 2007; been an organiser for LEAP (the Leadership Environmental Action Program for high school students; been involved in 2009 AYCC projects such as Powershift and Youth Decide, and was founder and organiser of Pedal Back to 350, a landmark Melbourne event that added momentum to 350.org’s International Day of Climate Action in October 2009. Having recently completed a BSc at the University of Melbourne, Emily is thrilled to be a part of the movement to create a clean, green, just and sustainable world for all people.

Kirsty Albion – National Volunteer Director

Kirsty Albion is AYCC’s National Volunteer Director and also a team member of Project Survival Pacific.  Through Project Survival Pacific, she has had the opportunity to work with youth in Fiji, to help start a Pacific Youth Climate movement.   A strong believer that education and inspiration are key to creating the social change we require, Kirsty has been involved in many environmental education programs including AYCC’s Switched On Schools,  Parks and Wildlife’s Discovery Program, Melbourne Museum’s School Holidays Program and the online resource Ecomedia.

Key Volunteers:

Lisa Caripis – Volunteer Coordinator

Lisa began her involvement in the AYCC as the 2009 Victorian Director of the Youth Climate Leadership Project. She
currently works with Kirsty to support and train the AYCC’s key volunteer coordinators. Lisa was selected as one of
Australia’s Brightest Young Minds in 2007, worked as a founding member and organiser in the national student
network Hooked: Students for Trade Justice and has volunteered for a range of organisations including Oxfam,
the Sustainable Living Foundation and the Fitzroy Legal Service.  Lisa is completing her sixth year of Arts (majoring
in Development Studies and German) and Law at the University of Melbourne.

Natasha Lay – NSW Universities Coordinator

Tash began her activist life when she was 13 with her school’s social justice group and has since worked with  youth organisiations such as Vision Generation and the Oaktree Foundation. She believes in prevention over cure and now campaigns on the climate front to prevent poverty and ensure a safe future for the world’s most vulnerable. She is active in her local community in South-West Sydney, having chaired the Liverpool Youth Council for 4 years and been awarded the Liverpool City Young Citizen of the Year in 2008. Tash started volunteering with the AYCC during Power Shift 2009. She was also a youth delegate to the UN climate conference in Copenhagen where she coordinated creative actions. Currently completing a combined communications and law degree at UTS, Tash is passionate about empowering young people to reach their full potential and is excited to continue mobilising the youth climate movement.

Ahri Tallon – Member & Partner Groups Liason

Ahri was raised in the hills of the North Coast NSW Rainbow Region by two blockading, permacultural Environmental Science Graduates and so was never going to escape campaigning for the planet. He worked with the Police Community Youth Club as the NSW State Youth Representative before working with his school environmental committee. Frustrated at the inability for schools to integrate sustainability into their curriculum, operations and infrastructure he helped establish the Northern Rivers Youth Environmental Society (YES). After a year of YES, bush regeneration and tree planting he moved to Sydney and became Member & Partnerships Director at the AYCC. Ahri is studying at Macquarie University to become a teacher and is also working on AYCC’s Green our Curriculum campaign.

Lucy Manne – Media Liason

Lucy started studying a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Melbourne in 2007. After studying environment politics, she decided to become involved in the Australian Youth Climate Coalition. She has volunteered for the AYCC in a range of roles, including as the Victorian University recruitment co-ordinator for Power Shift in 2009 and as the National Curriculum campaign co-ordinator in 2010. In 2009 Lucy was also part of the Australian Youth Delegation to the Copenhagen Climate Summit, where she was part of the media team. She has also volunteered at the Australian Conservation Foundation and completed an internship at The Wilderness Society, working on their Green Carbon campaign. Lucy is currently AYCC’s Media Liason.

Rufus Coffeith – VIC State Coordinator

Rufus was first introduced to a sustainable way of living at the age of five when he lived for two years on a sustainable organic farm in the south Indian state of Tamil-Nadu.  Returing to Melbourne and growing up in Elwood Rufus continued with this direction in life, tree-planting in rural Victoria and oranising events and actions at his high school.  After getting motivated and inspired at Power Shift 2009 in Sydney, Rufus now volunteers with the AYCC in the Melbourne office as the Victorian Volunteer Coordinator. He is currently working hard to get as many young people as he can involved in Power Shift 2010. In his spare time he manages to study law and anthropology at Monash University.

Joel Dignam – SA State Coordinator

Joel Dignam first ‘got’ climate change at the 2008 Students of Sustainability Conference. After that, he was involved in the
Climate Emergency Action Network of South Australia, before being part of the AYCC Australian Youth Delegation to the
Copenhagen Climate Conference in December of 2009. Since returning from Copenhagen, in addition to his work as South
Australian state coordinator with the AYCC, he has helped out with organising the Adelaide World Naked Bike Ride, and also
holds the post of Environment Officer at Adelaide University. Joel is currently completing his studies in Sustainable Energy
Engineering.

Ramya Krishnan – NSW State Coordinator

19 years old, Ramya is currently studying a Bachelor of Arts/ Bachelor of Laws, majoring in Political Economy, at the University of Sydney. After completing an internship following high school at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, where she worked on the Climate Change Action and Whales teams, she soon got involved with the AYCC. She hasn’t looked back since. In 2009 she took part in AYCC’s Youth Climate Leadership Program, was the NSW Recruitment Director for Power Shift and was an Australian Youth Delegate to the the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. She has also been involved in campaigning on climate change, and social justice issues more broadly, on her university campus. In 2008 Ramya was part of the executive of the Young UNIFEM Australia Sydney Chapter and the Young UNIFEM National Schools Outreach working group. This year, she is the University of Sydney Union (USU) Social Justice Co-Convenor and is doing an internship at the Sydney Centre for International Law (SCIL)

Alicia Crawford – Power Shift Director

Alicia comes to the AYCC after many years working for community based youth and environmental organisations both in Australia and overseas. She is passionate about getting young people interested in issues affecting them and actively involved in making positive and meaningful change in their world. She has studied a BA(International Studies) with a focus on grassroots community development and youth involvement in community organisations. She has participated in and facilitated at many youth leadership and development programs including three years on the Taskforce for the Victorian Youth Parliament Program. Her interest in climate change began in 2006 when she begun working at CERES Community Environment Park in Melbourne as the facilitator of their Climate Change Action Group.  Most recently Alicia she has spent 18 months living and working in Lesotho, Southern Africa coordinating a youth development project and travelling throughout Africa. She is very excited to be on board working with the AYCC as Director of the Power Shift Youth Summits in August 2010.

Charlotte Wood – ACT Coordinator

Charlie, 20, was born and bred in Canberra. During high school she was an active volunteer with Amnesty International and Conservation Volunteers Australia, for which she received a Green Ambassador Commendation in 2006. She has interned with former Greens MLA Dr. Deb Foskey. In 2008, she worked for the Centre for Sustainability Leadership and also as a volunteer illustrator and writer for a not-for-profit literacy organization. Charlie joined the AYCC at the beginning of 2009 during which time she organized and fundraised for over 50 Canberrans to attend the AYCC’s Youth Climate Summit (Powershift) in Sydney. She also helped in the organization of AYCC lobbying sessions at parliament and coordinated the ACT’s Youth Decide Events. Charlie served on the ACT Office of the Commissioner for the Environment and Sustainability’s Reference Panel and was one of the Office’s Youth Ambassadors during 2009. She is studying environmental science and sustainable architecture and in 2010 received the ANU David Edwards Memorial Prize in Geography and the Canberra Young Environmentalist of the Year Award.

Sam Millar – Power Shift Recruitment Manager

Before joining AYCC, Sam was involved with OzGreen, a member group of AYCC. During his final years of high school, he was successful in reducing his school’s ecologocial footrprint and promoting sustainability within his high school, which earned him an Australian Defence Force Long Tan Leadership Award and the 2009 Wodonga City Council Youth Environmental Award. After attending Power Shift ‘09 in Sydney, Sam’s interest turned to climate action as he took part in Youth Decide and in December 2009, he attended the UN Climate Change Confrence in Copenhagen as part of the AYCC Australian Youth Delegation. Sam’s interest in climate action and positive social change stems from his upbringing in the foothills of the Australian Alps. He aims to inspire and motivate the public to create positive changes towards a clean energy and sustainable future.

Heather Bruer – SA State Coordinator

Heather Bruer is a 20 year old from Adelaide and is currently Co-coordinating AYCC in South Australia. In 2009, she founded a climate change group at Flinders University which ran a number of successful campaigns promoting personal commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well as a free event for students as part of AYCC’s Youth Decide. Heather has also worked for The Oaktree Foundation and is passionate about ending extreme poverty. She is now studying economics at the University of Adelaide.