People
Alumni Excellence
Below you can explore a sampling of Gaia University graduates. Read about how they joined the global Gaia University community, the projects they undertook during their program and the inspiring work they are currently doing in service to the ecosocial regeneration of our planet.
Richard Kuhnel has an extensive background in software systems design and implementation, business consulting and event organizing. He applies these skills in his work for sustainability oriented organizations and businesses. Richard has been involved in myriad regenerative activities, from designing composting toilets to developing curricula about water and the role it plays in ecosystems and society, to building straw bale shelters and gardening. His studies in the fields of psychology and indigenous traditions in combination with his focus on his own personal development and inner practice have led Richard to a deep appreciation of the connection between inner and outer ecologies. Through his business, Gentle Harvest, Richard offers...
Christian Schorpp is a long-time nature mentor and teacher. His passion for connecting with nature on a deeper level was born after he read Tom Brownʻs book, The Tracker, as a young man. He made his first trip to Brown’s Tracker School in 1997. In 2000 he began the Kamana Naturalist Training Program, which he completed in 2004. A year later he met Jon Young and Mark Morey at their first Art of Mentoring workshop in Europe.
Christian has been offering workshops and trainings in wilderness skills and nature awareness since 1999. Since 2005 he has been Co-director of the Corvus Wilderness School in Southern Germany near Lake Constance. In 2006 Christian started to work with troubled youth as a nature connection mentor. Since...
Lily Ovadya is a world-crafter and re-connector. She weaves her vision and community through networking, listening, designing and co-creating. Lily is a budding gardener, natural builder, herbalist, plant food artist, leader and facilitator. She is passionate about conscious, compassionate communication and redesigning our use of language and how we move and act to reflect and embody the world we wish to manifest. Her worker-owned cooperative, Nature Works, offers regenerative gardening, cooking services as well as permaculture and “living skills” workshops. This business is focused on aligning livelihood with life purpose, and working towards planetary and social regeneration while building local community and resiliency....
Kyle Theirmann is a pro surfer and activist with a passion to systematically affect world change. His first documentary video, Claim Your Change, details how money kept in multinational banks is used to finance destructive projects all over the world. One such project, a proposed coal-fired power plant in Constitucion, Chile, is the focus of the video.
The Claim Your Change Project has had a global impact, inspiring over ten thousand account holders in South America, Africa and Europe, to move more than $110 million dollars of lending power out of centralized banks into local banks. Kyle is now developing a second video which will track a product sold in the US back to its manufacture in Sri Lanka. The goal of the project is to...
With a name that represents the garden of gardens, heaven on Earth – humanity's ecological potential – Eden Vardy was set up to be an ecological activist from day one! Eden was born in Tel-Aviv, Israel and moved to Aspen, Colorado with his family at age two, where he lived through high school.
Eden received a bachelor’s degree in sustainable food systems and ecological design at Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, where he earned very high marks throughout his studies. He helped start a sustainable student-run café initiative at Evergreen, which is now a successful demonstration model. Eden was also managing Chez Cascadia, an eco- minded hostel in Olympia, during this time.
In 2006, Eden began to feel...
Ever since high school, Tara Tieman knew that she wanted learn both American Sign Language (ASL) and more about becoming self-sufficient. She earned a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies with a focus on Deaf Studies from Empire State College in 1982, becoming a proficient ASL interpreter. After ten years immersed in that field, Tara began to spend several months each year feeding her interests in environmental sustainability. First, she volunteered on a CSA farm, and later began attending workshops on themes related to sustainable living. She was finally able to marry her primary passions when she began volunteering with Deaf people in Belize, Central America, and lived in a village that was ninety percent self-sufficient.
In...
Having traveled the world in search of wisdom, Javiera Carrion found it at home where she started: the seeds of sustainability were contained in the common sense of her own, Chilean people. Javiera studied agricultural engineering and, following her nose, entered the workforce as a grape grower and wine maker. She then began to explore agroecology, biodynamic farming and organic agriculture. Inspired, she returned to her roots and mobilized her family to begin the process of transitioning their farm to organic.
During her student days, Javiera discovered permaculture, and after a long search for the right place and time, attended a permaculture design course in New Zealand in 2006. Having resonated deeply with...
Mana has been a resident and full-member at Earthaven Ecovillage, North Carolina, USA, since 2007. At Earthaven, where she is researching Ecovillage Life, she makes her living as an eco-carpenter/natural-green builder and as manager of the community kitchen. She is also actively involved with orienting and integrating the flow of incoming volunteers, called the ‘New Roots’ of Earthaven. Mana was the logistics/volunteers coordinator for the Southeast Women’s Herbal Conference 2009 and she gives haircuts when folks let her.
Before starting her Gaia U program, Mana was on the road, traveling and networking through Australia, the US and Europe with WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms). Partly because of their...
Monica grew up in a small village in South Brazil where she learned how to read the clouds in the sky and respect the natural world. Confused with her life and the world, she went to central Brazil to study and practice permaculture and ecology in 2007 at Ecocentre IPEC (Instituto de Permacultura e Ecovilas do Cerrado). Here she completed a permaculture design certification course as well as other Ecoversity courses. Monica now works professionally as an environmental educator for both children and adults in a variety of contexts, including school gardens.
In 2007, Monica learned about Gaia University and decided to go to England and learn the English language. After two years of studies, travels and discoveries, she went back to...
Ben is the founder and president of Greener Living, Inc. and has been involved in the fields of sustainability, natural and green building, energy efficiency and renewable energy for over a decade. Though he claims to have started his career in natural building while playing in his sand box as a child, he has since been involved in various building projects around the world. More recently, Ben has received a Certificate in Permaculture and Agroforestry from the Institute of Permaculture in Bahia, Brazil and a Natural Building Certificate from Yestermorrow Design/Build School in Warren, VT. He has also received the United States Green Building Council's LEED AP credential with a specific accreditation in residential homes.
Prior to...
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