Our Advisers

Interfaith Oceans Advisers

Frederick W. Kreuger, Executive Director, the World Stewardship Institute (WSI), National Religious Coalition on Creation Care (NRCCC), and Religious Campaign for Forest Conservation, launched and led the first expedition to Hawaii. Working near San Francisco, he has had a long passion for saving the marine life and systems upon which they depend. He has worked on establishing religious ethical precepts in other areas, such as the Religious Campaign for Forest Conservation and the Spiritual Value of the Wilderness. He also serves as the Executive Director for the Orthodox Fellowship of the Transfiguration (OFT) and previously led the Christian Society of the Green Cross and organized the North American Conference on Christianity and Ecology. In the 1990s, when asked why he was speaking out with others to care for the forests and the rest of earthly creation, he replied: "For religious reasons, not environmental reasons, we're making this call. Religion in the modern era has broken the circle because of its failure to have an integrated relation to God, creation and people." Over a quarter of a century, he has helped to change this situation, working with others of faith to return mainstream religions to their nature-people-caring roots.

David Krantz, Co-founder and President of Aytzim: Ecological Judaism (parent organization for Green Zionist Alliance: for the Greening of Israel, Shomrei Breishit: Rabbis and Cantors for the Earth, and Jewcology.org: Home of the Jewish Environmental Movement). He serves on the steering committee of Interfaith Moral Action on Climate; on the founding team of the Interfaith Ocean Ethics Campaign; and on the cabinet of the American Zionist Movement. David previously served as a leadership fellow at the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life and as a global-justice fellow at American Jewish World Service. He is also the editor of the Jewish Energy Guide. David earned three master's degrees, including one in journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, and two through a Steinberg Fellowship at New York University, where he studied Judaism and environmental policy. He has spoken about Israeli, Jewish and interfaith environmentalism on four continents.

Jodi Rose is the Executive Director of Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake -- Forming Faithful Stewards, Caring for Sacred Waters. This organization serves as a model of what interfaith groups for watershed protection can accomplish together. She graduated from the University of Illinois with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry. She worked in the environmental consulting field managing soil and groundwater remediation projects. In the early 2000s, as a volunteer in her Indianapolis Roman Catholic parish, she spearheaded several environmental greening efforts and recognized that caring for Creation is all about loving your neighbor. She is deeply committed to engaging all people of faith to address the environmental crises of our time as an act of love for our brothers and sisters, and future generations.

Ryan Ono is a Program Manager at Ocean Conservancy where he engages fishermen, shellfish farmers and other non-profit groups on legislative and management policies related to ocean acidification. His work further includes supporting commercial industry voices on this global environmental threat at the state, national and international level. Previously, Ryan worked for five years in support of sustainable fisheries management tools in the Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic regions with Environmental Defense Fund. He holds a Master of Marine Policy degree from the University of Delaware where he studied shellfish aquaculture permitting policies and a Bachelor of Science and Arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley. Ryan has been a Christian since 2002, and has been using his faith as a guiding resource in his professional work. He advises Interfaith Oceans on matters related to ocean acidification, and climate change.

Dr. Sarah Sayeed is Director of Community Partnerships at the Interfaith Center of New York City. Among the programs she oversees are the Rabbi Marshall T. Meyer Retreats for Social Justice and Muslim-Catholic Initiatives. A former assistant professor at Baruch College, Sarah graduated from Princeton University in 1990 and earned her Ph.D. in communications from the Annenberg School for Communications. Sarah is a board member of Women in Islam, Inc. , and she has authored numerous articles about women, Islam, and public health.

Kristen Mitchell, Ph.D. has worked on ocean issues for more than 10 years, first as a scientist, and now in policy. As a AAAS Congressional Fellow she helped write legislation aimed at reducing pollution in the ocean. Twice, Kristen has sailed the Pacific Ocean with Sea Education Association, first as a student then as a guest scientist aboard the Plastics at SEA: North Pacific Expedition in 2012 where she investigated the relationship between plastic and marine chemistry.

At Eckerd College, Kristen was a member of the sailing team and graduated with a degree in marine chemistry. After graduation she moved to Denmark as a Fulbright scholar. She earned her Ph.D. from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, but worked on her dissertation at Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Waterloo, with extensive collaboration at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Kristen did postdoctoral research into using remote sensing techniques to map and quantify marine debris at the University of Waterloo. Kristen has authored several peer-reviewed scientific articles.

Kristen can be found regularly in the Sant Ocean Hall at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History where she is a volunteer.

Allen Johnson, Co-founder and Director, Christians for the Mountains (group focused on ending mountaintop removal mining), was a member of the first interfaith ocean expedition. As an evangelical Christian named as a mountain here, he said, "My faith guides me to protect mountains and work for clean water and justice for all." He received his Masters in Theology and Public Policy from Palmer Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, has served as a fellow with Evangelicals for Social Action, and has worked to foster peace and nonviolence and resolve conflict with Christian Peacemaker Teams around the world. He currently serves on the Steering Committee of the National Religious Coalition on Creation Care. THis group is co-sponsoring health studies in central Appalachia, and with the help of a dedicated band of volunteers, conducting field surveys in mountaintop removal areas. "I believe I must love, serve, give generously without expecting something back, work for justice, trust in God, and protect God’s kingdom...It just gets into you, I guess. It’s in the spirit, something that gets deep down in your heart, and it’s just there."

Mirjana Mataya, student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was part of the first interfaith ocean ethics expedition, working to help film proceedings and add insights as a teenager. Long an advocate of working to save species, she started her own environmental club and website when she was in elementary and middle school. The oceans and marine species are of particular interest to her, and she hopes to find ways to be part of ocean preservation and restoration efforts as she moves into college studies and career. She loves music and art, and will do what she can to get youth involved in this project.