M. Paloma Pavel, Ph.D., President of Earth House Center and co-founder of the Breakthrough Communities Project, served as Director of Strategic Communications for the Sustainable Metropolitan Communities Initiative at the Ford Foundation. She has taught at several Bay Area academic institutions, lectures frequently internationally, and is the author of several award-winning publications, including: Breakthrough Communities: Sustainability and Justice in the Next American Metropolis and Random Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty.