Rising Leaders Fellowship Manager
Jess Rivas (she/ella) is the Rising Leaders Fellowship Manager at Justice Outside. She is from the land originally and still inhabited and cared for by the Tongva, Tataviam, Serrano, Kizh, and Chumash Peoples aka North Hollywood, California. She is a first generation graduate and received her B.A. in Cognitive Science with a minor in Socio-Cultural Anthropology.
Jess has worked alongside the brilliant minds at the University of California, Merced as the Yosemite Leadership Program coordinator and lead Yosemite Wilderness Ranger. Since the start of her career, she’s worked towards ensuring environmental programs and experiences were centered around equity and accessibility and that programming was relevant to communities. She’s worked with over 50 environmental organizations consulting and coaching their equity and inclusion journeys.
The outdoors can be healing and although everyone deserves access, she works to understand the systemic barriers that keep people from enjoying these spaces. The highlight is working with the industry baddies who come through the Justice Outside programs. These leaders inspire, recharge and motivate her to continue the journey of disrupting cycles of poverty and inequality with humility.
Outside of her profession, she enjoys going to hip hop shows, pop-ups, magazine stands and museums with friends, learning about the esoteric wonders of the world, daydreaming, falling in love and styling clothes she finds at flea markets and thrift stores. Ask her about her vinyl collection 🙂 To contact Jess, send her an email at Jessica@justiceoutside.org