Staff

Wendy Philleo, Executive Director
Wendy has been affiliated with New Dream for the last 10 years as a board member and donor. She brings 20 years' experience in the nonprofit and philanthropic fields in the areas of environment and natural resource management, community development, women's empowerment, advocacy, and civic engagement. Prior to joining New Dream, Wendy ran a philanthropy and nonprofit consulting business. She also worked as a program officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, focusing on protecting freshwater, public lands, and wilderness in the west. Prior to that, she served as a program officer at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation where she designed and ran a $25 million, five-year cross-cutting initiative on population, health, and environment. Before working in philanthropy, Wendy was a program officer at the World Wildlife Fund working on the adoption of a priority-setting strategy for global biodiversity conservation (Global 200) and on developing an ecoregional approach to conservation. She has also worked for WorldWIDE Network (Women in Development and Environment) and for the United Nations Environment Programme. She received her B.A. from the University of Colorado and her M.A. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Wendy enjoys being outdoors, hiking, mountain biking, camping, and running. She also enjoys squash, art (painting and drawing), and spending time with her family. Wendy lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with her husband, two children, and two cats.

Kathy Hedge, Deputy Director
Kathy brings to New Dream both a passion for its mission and over 20 years of experience working for the nonprofit sector in program management, organizational capacity-building, and fundraising. Prior to joining New Dream, she worked for 14 years at BoardSource, advancing its mission to improve the effectiveness of nonprofit organizations by strengthening their boards of directors. Kathy served as BoardSource’s chief fundraising officer and later as strategic initiatives advisor, and co-authored the report, Advancing Good Governance: How Grantmakers Invest in the Governance of Nonprofit Organizations. Prior to BoardSource, Kathy served in leadership and fundraising positions at the American Red Cross, Hosteling International-USA, and the Hariri Foundation. She received her B.A. from Indiana University and her MBA from the University of Maryland.

Outside of New Dream, Kathy and her husband are busy with their two young boys—both with school and extracurricular activities and preserving unstructured time for play and reading.

Sieglinde Peterson, Operations Officer
Sieglinde comes to New Dream with experience in the fields of telecommunications, higher education, and politics. Her environmental awareness was awakened as a young child when she learned about the materials collected and reused by citizens during World War II. Sieglinde is very involved with her local community and served on her town’s recycling and environment committee and was a member of the city employee relations board. She spent two years as an executive board member of a local community foundation. She received her B.A. from Washington University and her J.D. from Washington University School of Law.

In her spare time, Sieglinde enjoys reading, biking, and spending time with her husband and two children. Sieglinde is committed to responsible consumption and has never met a plastic bag she couldn’t recycle.

Lisa Mastny, Online Media and Communications Director
Lisa comes to New Dream with nearly 20 years' experience in the environmental and sustainability fields. She worked for six years as a researcher at the Worldwatch Institute, where she focused on issues of green purchasing and consumerism, sustainable tourism, and environmental governance and was co-director of the report State of the World 2004: The Consumer Society. Lisa has served as senior editor at Worldwatch since 2005, providing editing support for World Watch magazine (now discontinued), the Worldwatch report series, as well as occasional reports for the U.N. Environment Programme, U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, REN21, and other international organizations. Lisa has also worked briefly at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and with Greenways/Zelene Stezky, a group seeking to promote cultural preservation and sustainable tourism in the Czech Republic. She received her B.A. in International Studies from Johns Hopkins University, her M.A. in International Relations from Yale University, and her M.E.M. in Environmental Management from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

In her spare time, Lisa volunteers on the board of the Sustainability Alliance of Southwest Colorado in Durango, Colorado, where she lives with her husband, young daughter, and energetic Australian cattle dog.

Wen Lee, Communications Associate
Wen hails from the San Francisco Bay Area and is excited to be on the New Dream team. Since she was a teenager she has been fascinated by where stuff comes from and where it goes when we throw it out. Her passion is to spread this knowledge to others and educate people about the environmental, social, and political impacts of our purchasing decisions. She has spent over five years in the education field, teaching students from ages 5 to 25. She is also an independent filmmaker and has produced numerous web videos about sustainability and conscious consumerism. One of her most recent works, KNOW YOUR STUFF! What's in a cup of coffee?, aired on Oregon Public Broadcasting television in 2010. In addition to being a Communications Associate with New Dream, she is also a Presenter with the Alliance for Climate Education. Wen holds a B.A. in Biology from Occidental College and an M.S. in Environmental Studies from the University of Oregon.

Wen loves being outdoors, eating vegan food, playing music, and trying something new at least once a week. Follow her on Twitter at @WenTV.

Jennifer Prediger, Arts & Culture Fellow
Jennifer is a video journalist and writer who has produced and hosted videos on Newsweek, Onion News Network, the Washington Post, SlateV, and Barely Political. She is the creator and face of Grist.org's popular video advice series "Ask Umbra" and has also written the Ask Umbra column and Urbivore's Dilemma. Jennifer has covered new activism including tar sands action and the 2009 Copenhagen Climate talks for Grist.org with comedian Eugene Mirman. She’s made videos with The Yes Men and interviewed luminaries like Thom Yorke of Radiohead, Tom Friedman, Tom Hanks, and Tim DeChristopher. She has been a commentator on The Today Show and NPR's All Things Considered and also dished out workplace advice on a series known as "Hey Penny" on SlateV. Jennifer has reported from locales as far-flung as Burkina Faso, Denmark, and Iceland.
 
Jennifer is currently writing a screenplay for a fictional film about the indigestion caused by an all-you-can-eat America. She is a 2010 TogetherGreen fellow with the National Audubon Society and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Elsa Jagniecki, Collaborative Communities Intern
Elsa has experience in strategic sustainable development, community engagement, organizational development, process facilitation, renewable energy development, and wilderness advocacy. She is passionate about helping organizations and communities thrive by planning for resiliency through long-term visioning, strategic planning, leadership, branding, and cultivating internal culture. In her own community, she volunteers with local energy action plans and as a board member of the Sustainability Alliance of Southwest Colorado; outside her community, she is connected with the New Leaf Initiative, a collaborative nonprofit specializing in sustainability. Elsa earned her master’s degree in Sustainable Development and Leadership from Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden, where she researched how communities can strategically plan for more sustainable community (distributed) renewable energy development. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Cultural Anthropology.

When not working multiple jobs, Elsa enjoys gardening, hiking local mountains, floating down rivers, and traveling.

Amy Curtis, Communications Intern
Amy is entering her third year as a student at the University of Virginia, majoring in American History and minoring in Urban Planning. She has a passion for the creating communities and feels strongly about the importance of environmental preservation. She organized an on-ground farmers market at UVA during her first semester and a community gardening project for a local low-income community during her second year. She also helped create "Flash Seminars," weekly seminars in alternative lessons spaces that increase intellectual stimulation and lively discussion outside the classroom. These seminars, coupled with the weekly email she helps create to highlight events, speakers, and forums happening throughout Charlottesville, Virginia, provide her with the most fulfillment as a student.

In her free time, Amy loves to listen to folk music, attend festivals, hike, send annoying (but funny?) emails to her friends, read, explore Charlottesville's breakfast shops, and spend time with those she loves.