Jay Hailey is a founding Director and Secretary-Treasurer of Equidad ATX, a Texas nonprofit corporation working on holistic, equitable and sustainable neighborhood revitalization in Austin's "Eastern Crescent", and focusing right now on the Colony Park neighborhood. Jay recently retired from the DLA Piper law firm, after a SO-year career as a real estate lawyer in Austin, where he focused on all types of commercial real estate, including urban mixed-use projects and publicprivate partnerships. He continues to represent a couple of longstanding clients, but he now spends the majority of his time as a volunteer for Equidad and other charitable organizations, focusing on community development, affordable housing, services for people experiencing homelessness, and racial equity and reconciliation. His professional and community leadership has included service as Chair of the ULI Austin District Council; member of the ULI Austin Affordability Strategic Council; Chair of the Social Equity Committee of the Austin Area Research Organization; Chair of the Real Estate Council of Austin; President of the Austin Bar Association.

Monica, a native Austinite, is a community leader who focuses on community organizing, research and evaluation on public policy issues, consulting with project coordinators/managers in locating community members key to project goals, providing outreach to persons not on digital systems, and organizing meetings to pull community together for goal realization.Her passions include public education, housing affordability, Latino community health, social service systems, and domestic violence, and serves on the Caritas of Austin Board of Directors. She earned an MA in Human Sciences (Sociology & Education) from Our Lady of the Lake University, and a BA from St Edward’s University in Political Science. Monica works to build GAVA’s coalition in North Austin, leads and coordinates the work of the GAVA Policy Team, and keeps tabs on transportation & mobility issues as well as police-community interactions.

Shoshana Krieger is the Project Director of Building and Strengthening Tenant Action (BASTA) at Texas RioGrande Legal Aid. BASTA organizes Austin renters to work with their neighbors to ensure that all Austinites have access to safe and affordable housing by facilitating the development of tenant associations and supporting those associations with legal representation. BASTA targets slumlords who profit off of renting substandard properties the conditions of which negatively impact the health of families. Prior to her work at BASTA, Shoshana was a staff attorney at Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County (NLSLA) for four years. Shoshana graduated UCLA in 2011 with a joint degree in law and urban planning. While at UCLA, she focused her studies on community and economic development, housing, and food policy. Prior to graduate school, Shoshana worked as a tenants rights’ organizer at Good Old Lower East Side (GOLES) in New York where she advocated for the rights of project-based Section 8 tenants and spearheaded GOLES’s land-use and planning campaigns.

Dr. Prince is the Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Jelani Consulting, LLC; Senior Policy Advisor & Education Coordinator, Office of Mayor Steve Adler; and, Project Manager, Mayor’s Task Force on Institutional Racism & Systemic Inequities, Mayor’s office. He is a Board member for the Anti-Defamation League, Earth Day ATX, and Equidad ATX. He serves as a member of the Blueprint Leadership Council and Policy Advisor for the E3 Alliance; as Chair of the East Austin Coalition for Quality Education; as an Advisory Board Member for the Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis at the University of Texas at Austin; and as a Civil Rights Advisory Council Member for the Travis County District Attorney’s Office.

Sean is an economic developer, land strategist, strategic planner, facilitator, and revitalization expert. He leads a team of planners and analysts in providing strategic advice and direction to public and private sector clients. A transformational experience in Africa with the Peace Corps as well as hands-on development and revitalization experience at home in East Austin, Texas has helped shape Sean and Pegasus to become a mission-driven firm focused on making a difference in our communities. Sean has an undergraduate degree in Anthropology from George Washington University and a Masters from UT Austin in Community & Regional Planning. He is on the boards of CNU-Central Texas, Chestnut Neighborhood Revitalization Corporation, and the YMCA. Sean was recognized by his graduate alma mater (UT-Austin) for "Outstanding Work in the Field of Community Engagement."

Dr. Laura J. Cortez is the CEO and Founder of Cortez Consulting, a public engagement firm in Austin, Texas. Laura is from the Rio Grande Valley and came to Austin in 1999 as an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer. She earned her B.S. in Environmental Science from Drake University, and later went on to earn her MBA from St. Edward’s University and a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin. Laura spent fourteen years in higher education serving as a scholar-practitioner. In 2012, Laura served as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas at Austin where she served as the Director of Public Engagement. In this role, Dr. Cortez led one of the City’s most comprehensive public engagement projects known as the Colony Park Sustainable Community Initiative. Laura credits this experience with changing her professional trajectory and after completing the project she launched her own firm, Cortez Consulting. Today, Laura is designing new ways to effectively engage the community, particularly those individuals who are traditionally left out of the public planning process. Cortez Consulting is involved with an array of projects across the City of Austin working to build positive relationships within the community. During her free time, Dr. Cortez is active in the local community. She is a graduate of Leadership Austin Essential Program and serves on the board of the Austin Parks Foundation and Leadership Austin.

Mandy is deeply passionate about community-driven climate, food, and environmental justice initiatives and the infrastructure and policy that allows them to thrive. In her prior role at the U.S. Green Building Council, she supported the improvement of the LEED rating system for sustainable buildings, with a focus on social equity and international applicability. She has also studied and worked on climate change resilience and equity initiatives from the local to national scale in the U.S. and East Africa.