(PDF, 111KB)View the roster(PDF, 176KB) of the current commission members, including term lengths and demographic makeup
Anne-Marie Braga
Anne-Marie Braga is a transformational leader with 25 years of experience in the health and human services field. She recently joined Mayor Johnston’s cabinet as the Executive Director for Denver Human Services where she supports a diverse group of 1,300 employees who serve 1 in 3 Denver residents. She embodies a strengths-based approach, is dedicated to community engagement and enjoys solving complex problems to get results. Prior to this appointment, Anne-Marie worked for the State of Colorado’s Department of Human Services and Public Health and Environment where she provided people-centered leadership to a variety of programs that helped Coloradans thrive. She holds a Masters of Science degree in Social Work from Columbia University and has earned a variety of state and national awards for her work. And while Anne-Marie thrives on serving others, her roles as wife and mother to her two extraordinary children keep her grounded and happy.
Dana Sobel
Dana is a public health professional and Registered Dietitian with over ten years of experience working at the intersection of community nutrition, food access, and program/project management. In her current role, Dana supports local partners through strategic planning, capacity building, and collaboration. Before this, she ran a Mobile Pantry program at Food Bank of the Rockies, serving over 30 rural and urban sites, juggling logistics, volunteers, and community relationships to make food distribution more equitable and nutritious.
Dana is also a new parent, which has given her a whole new level of patience and a deepened empathy for families trying to balance it all. That perspective shows up in her work and personal relationships daily. Dana cares deeply about making systems more inclusive, community-centered, and grounded in real-world needs.
Giselle Díaz Campagna
Giselle is the Executive Director at The GrowHaus, a Denver nonprofit dedicated to cultivating community-driven food justice through education and food access. She is a veteran nonprofit leader, multicultural social equity promoter, fundraiser and social justice program developer. She has held executive management appointments at various local and national non-profit, media, healthcare and higher education organizations. Giselle’s lifelong passion for food justice and children’s causes fuels her volunteerism and work with local organizations to promote sustainable food systems programs for youth. When she is not out tending to her vegetable garden, Giselle explores life as a yoga teacher, creative writer, art student and social activist.
Jess Ridgway
Jess Ridgway is an equity-driven leader with 20 years of experience in education as a teacher, assistant principal, principal, and district leader. She is known for expanding access to rigorous instruction, cultivating collaborative teams, and redesigning systems to better serve students and families. Jess has led in diverse contexts, from large urban districts to smaller charter organizations, with a consistent focus on high-need communities. At Denver Public Schools, she helped guide district-wide initiatives and played a key role in the COVID-19 response, developing strategies to support students, educators, and families during a time of disruption. She later served as Executive Vice President at Education Partners, leading national efforts in leadership development, instructional design, and strategic planning with superintendents across the country. Jess now serves as Executive Director of Denver’s Office of Children’s Affairs, where she advances transformative policies and partnerships that support children and families citywide.
Joshua Yuen-Schat
Joshua Yuen-Schat serves as the Youth Garden Educator with Kaizen Food Rescue. He is Indigenous Taiwanese from the Atayal tribe. His maternal grandfather was the first peach farmer in Taiwan and played a significant role in supporting the economic and social well-being of rural, mountainous Indigenous communities. Inspired by his upbringing and heritage, Joshua pursued studies in Environmentalism at Kenyon College and Sustainable Food Systems at the University of Colorado Boulder. Since 2019, he has worked with farmers' markets, urban farms, school gardens, public health agencies, and food and farming non-profits in Colorado. He approaches his work with community participatory and equity-centered values and looks forward to collaborating with fellow commission members. In his free time, he enjoys playing basketball, teaching cooking and gardening classes, tending to his community garden, and serving as a church organist.
Karin McGowan
McGowan is a long-time public health leader in Colorado, bringing years of experience managing public health and environmental crises and delivering results for healthy communities. She is Mayor Johnston's last cabinet appointment as ED of DDPHE. An avid gardener, she appreciates the connection between fresh, healthy foods and positive health outcomes for kids and families. She has annual mediation encounters with tomato hornworms and they usually win.
Lacy Lavon McDonald III
SSG Lacy McDonald served honorably with the United States Army for 13 years with 2 deployments to Afghanistan. Currently, he volunteers full-time at Lake Middle School as a fitness coach and garden lead, providing weekly lessons to Lake’s center-based students. Additionally, he created a nonprofit organization called Outer Haven that provides outdoor urban education through fitness, camping, gardening, and archery. Lacy was a highly decorated Soldier being awarded the Bronze Star, Meritorious Service Medal, Military Outstanding Volunteer Service Medal, Combat Action Badge, Army Commendation Medal with Valor, and nominated Soldier of the year in 2014 by the Chamber of Commerce of Aurora. Lacy has an extensive background mentoring and guiding the youth over the last 8 years. It is Lacy's goal to provide wisdom, character building, social-emotional support, and leadership skills for the youth today to become the leaders of tomorrow. Lacy demonstrated policy leadership in the development of the Big Green DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) as an experiment in democratizing and decentralizing our grant making when it comes to Food Justice. Lacy enjoys spending time with his family and youth from his community that he serves.
Maggie Kinneberg
Maggie is a multi-faceted collaborator, focused on intersections of food systems, learning experiences, and thriving communities. With a BS in Human Nutrition-Dietetics from MSU Denver, she has honed diverse skills across small business management, nutrition and wellness education, and large-scale fundraising event production and logistics. Throughout COVID-19, Maggie led a social impact organization to distribute millions of pounds of emergency meals and local food; she now supports a statewide family foundation and a national food access tech nonprofit.
Raised on WIC, SNAP, and other assistance programs, Maggie is committed to improving health, housing and economic opportunities for dignity, equity, and longevity. She was born and raised in rural Michigan and has made Colorado home since 2010. Outside of work, she enjoys various movement practices and exploring Mother Earth’s majesty with her husband and dog.
Megan Tracz
Megan is a senior social impact and public policy leader with 15 years of experience driving advocacy initiatives, building cross-sector partnerships, developing the capacity of nonprofit leaders, and investing in strategic initiatives. She has held leadership roles in social innovation and public policy with the United Way network, driving national campaigns to increase food security, build financial stability, and expand access to healthcare. Megan consults for social impact organizations seeking to drive systems-change through public policy and advocacy, optimal program design and delivery, and grant fundraising and investing. She volunteers as a grant reviewer with Serve Colorado, is an AmeriCorps*VISTA alumna, and received her BS from Cornell University and her MPA at the George Washington University.
Through her career, Megan has advocated to increase access to food (SNAP, summer meals, last mile food delivery) and she’s thrilled to bring her skills and passion to the Commission. In her free time, you’ll find Megan cooking, hiking, and exploring Denver’s amazing culinary scene.
Milagro Nunez-Solis
Milagro is a mother, Latina, and rural woman who is currently a Sociology Ph.D. candidate at Colorado State University. She has over 10 years of experience in areas such as participatory community development, rural development, business and entrepreneurship, food systems and food insecurity, and transformative gender approaches to development. Currently, she works as a research assistant at CSU-Spur on community-engaged food systems research projects. One of her projects is based in Globeville, Elyria, and Swansea (GES) which aims to understand the various barriers and challenges the community faces in enjoying a prosperous food system, as well as how families navigate food insecurity in a neighborhood considered a food desert. The other project is a longitudinal study on urban farming in Denver, focusing on the challenges and barriers that farmers and organizations encounter in sustaining urban food systems. Additionally, in her current dissertation work, she is exploring the relationships between food security and the rights to paid and unpaid care for families and communities. This project is also based in GES and seeks to understand the different strategies that working families, communities, and the government employ to support low-income urban neighborhoods, with a special emphasis on care politics and policies
Councilman Paul Kashmann
Paul is a New Jersey native and moved to Colorado in 1971. A long time resident of the Virginia Village neighborhood, he has made his home in District 6 for some 40 years.
Paul has always been invested in community, having run The Washington Park Profile newspaper for 36 years. Wanting to continue his love for people and passion for community service, Paul successfully ran for City Council in 2015. Paul is currently serving his third and final term on council, where he is focusing his policy on the environment and children.
The proud parent of a blended group of five wonderful children and six grandchildren, outside of work Paul enjoys running, golf, hiking, reading, live music and live theater. Paul and his guitar are in great demand for bedtime lullabies and campfire singalongs. He is renowned among his circle of friends for his skill at three-ball juggling.
Tessa Cushman
Tessa Cushman, MPH, RDN (she/her/hers) has been lovingly referred to by colleagues as a food justice activist, fueled by her lived expertise of food insecurity, with special interests in 2SLGBTQIA+ rights, racial equity, diversity in dietetics, and Indigenous food sovereignty. As a fierce advocate and change maker, she leads systems-level, community-initiated solutions that advance just and sustainable food systems. Her Master of Public Health in Food Systems and the Environment from Johns Hopkins allows her to apply cutting-edge research into her work.
During Tessa’s practice as a diabetes educator, she piloted a 2SLGBTQIA+ centered diabetes prevention program which focused on weight neutral and body inclusive care. This pilot gained attention throughout diabetes care spaces, which ignited a slew of invitations from academic and professional journals for publications, peer review, and panel presentations of her subject matter expert on 2SLGBTQIA+ diabetes care for all gender identities, sexualities, and body types. In January, Tessa began her career in academia as an adjunct nutrition instructor at Ball State University, revisiting her love for education.