Board of Directors

Kris Badertscher
After finishing her PDC at Sirius in Western Massachusetts in 2008, Kris Badertscher began studying Architecture and Regional Planning at UMASS. Currently, her main focus is interviewing prominent writers, social critics and entrepreneurs about our global oil depletion and creating short, coherent and entertaining “webisodes” for her online KrisCan.com Show.  She is also the creative director of AWE TV, an upcoming, local television show presenting women entrepreneurs in the Pioneer Valley. In addition, Kris also takes on social media and voice over work for various Peak Oil organizations. Kris credits her PDC course as being the lens through which she observes the world; the foundation for all of the design, community, and technology projects she undertakes. Despite our environmental challenges, her mantra since completing the course, the problem is the solution, has helped her persevere in raising awareness with a positive and hopeful attitude.

Giovanni Ciarlo, M.A.
Board President
Born in Italy in 1951 and raised in Venezuela Gio received a BA in Foreign Languages and Education at the University of Connecticut and did graduate course work in Linguistics and Education in the late '80s. Gio has been involved in group facilitation since 1978 and co-founded Huehuecoyotl Ecovillage in Tepoztlan, Morelos, Mexico in 1982. In 1991 he studied formal consensus and conflict resolution with C. T. Buttler and later translated C.T.s book into Spanish. In the mid and late 90s Gio studied Consensus and Facilitation with Bea Briggs and later with Caroline Estes. He has applied his knowledge and expertise in facilitation and conflict resolution in educational and community settings including the Ecovillage Network of the Americas of which he is a Board member and at Huehuecoyotl where he spends extended time every year. Gio is also the program director for Living Routes' J-term course in Mexico: Leadership for Social Change.
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John M. Gerber, Ph.D.
Professor of Plant Sciences and Sustainability Studies at the University of Massachusetts, John Gerber teaches courses in Sustainable Agriculture, Sustainable Living, Agricultural Systems Thinking, and other related plant science courses. John is chair of the Amherst Conservation Commission and was a founding member of the Consortium for Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education, and the Loka Institute for Democratizing Technology. He was Director of the University of Massachusetts Extension System from 1992 to 2000, and has also served as Associate Dean in the College of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. In addition, he was the Assistant Director in the Illinois Agricultural Experiment Station and Program Leader for Sustainable Agriculture in the Illinois Cooperative Extension Service (1989-1992). John was responsible for the establishment of the University of Illinois Agro-Ecology Program.
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Daniel Greenberg, Ph.D.
Executive Director and Board Member, has studied and directed community-based educational programs for over 20 years. Daniel wrote his doctoral thesis on "Education within Contemporary Intentional Communities", and has visited and corresponded with over 200 communities in the U.S. He spent a year developing educational programs at the Findhorn Foundation and then four years working with the Geocommons College Programs in India and France. In addition to directing college-level semester programs, he has developed curricula on sustainable community development, deep ecology, ecological auditing, and systems thinking. Daniel has held the vision for Living Routes for decades and has steadily built the experience and networks of support necessary to assure its success. He brings immense commitment, contagious enthusiasm, and a unique blend of broad vision and grounded action to his role as Executive Director.
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Mary Ann McGarry, Ed.D.
MaryAnn McGarry is an Associate Professor with the Department of Environmental Science and Policy and Center For the Environment at Plymouth State University (PSU) where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses and works with prospective science teachers and environmental educators promoting service learning opportunities. McGarry has helped build international educational partnerships with institutions and organizations in Russia, Italy, India, Chile and Pakistan and has developed travel study programs for PSU students in Costa Rica, Ecuador, and the Four Corners Region of the U.S.. She has been the lead science educator for the month long Pakistani Educational Leadership Institute, funded by the U.S. State Department, offered on the PSU campus for the last seven summers. While working in higher education, McGarry has held a series of joint positions with non-profits, serving as the Director of Education, first for the Maine Lakes Conservancy Institute and then for the Hubbard Brook Research Foundation. As an educator, McGarry is drawn to Living Routes, because she values learning opportunities which promote living more sustainably on the planet. Her commitment to thinking like a global citizen becomes stronger all the time. McGarry bikes or walks to work, composts, and has solar hot water in her home.
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Larkspur Morton, Ph.D.
Larkspur Morton happily spent over a year in the Peruvian rainforest to earn her graduate degrees from the University of California at Davis. She has taught for the Audubon Expedition Institute (AEI), Colby College, Lesley University, and UCDavis over the past two decades. Her work with AEI’s Ecological Education and Leadership Programs as well as her recent semester teaching for Living Routes in India strengthened her commitment to alternative approaches to education, to teaching leadership, group process, cross-cultural understanding, systems thinking, and sustainability. Serving on the Living Routes board brings together several of Larkspur’s life passions: holistic and progressive education, travel and culture, social and environmental justice, living in community, and caring for the earth. Larkspur is currently on the leadership team for a project that is re-establishing the expedition education degree programs (formerly of AEI) so that more learners have the opportunity to expand their worlds, re-connect with themselves, each other, and the earth, and become the leaders and educators we need for the 21st century.
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Alison Rosenblatt, M.Ed.
Ali holds an M.Ed. in Adult Education from the University of British Columbia and a B.S. from Skidmore College where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with Honors in Management and Business.  She attended the Living Routes semester in India in the Spring of 2005 which sparked her interests in ecovillages and alternative economics.  As a result of her Living Routes experience, Ali wrote her undergraduate thesis on the relationship between ecovillages and participatory research.  Ali was a cofounder of NextGEN (Next Generation of the Global Ecovillage Network) and she served on the Global Ecovillage Network Board for two years.  She has helped launch two local currencies, Los Angeles Ecovillage LETS and Mountain Money, and is in the process of writing a book on how to start a local currency.  Following her passion for local food and land conservation Ali is currently working for the Central Colorado Foodshed Alliance and the Land Trust of the Upper Arkansas.
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