Meet Our Team!
Randi Madison
Climate Adaptation Program Manager
Bristol Bay Native Association
Randi is the Climate Adaptation Program Manager at the Bristol Bay Native Association. Randi is Inupiaq from Tikigak (Point Hope), Alaska. Previously, she was an Alaska Tribal Climate Resilience Coordinator for the BIA, and prior to that served the Region 10 EPA Tribal Operations Committee Consortium (RTOC) as the Non-Profit Executive Director and various other RTOC capacities between 2009 through 2024. In the early 2000’s, Randi was the Program Coordinator for Recruitment and Retention of Alaska Natives in Nursing (RRANN). She grew up in Spokane, Washington, and moved to Alaska in 1996 after graduating from Eastern Washington University with a B.A. in Recreation Management and Outdoor Recreation. Since then, she has been blessed to have traveled to Pt. Hope, accompanying her grandmother, who had not been back there for 50 years, and again to conduct interviews with women about their childbirth experiences as a PhD research assistant. She is married and has two lovely children.
Adelheid Herrmann
Co-Investigator
Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Preparedness (ACCAP)
Adelheid is a lifelong resident of the Bristol Bay area, residing in the Naknek area. She has been a commercial fisherman since the age of 6 years old, first set netting on the Kvichak River at the Cutbank in the 1960’s and 70’s and in the 1980’s taking over her father’s drift operation. She retired from fishing in 2012 but continues to advocate for fisheries. Her passion is working on fisheries education that can be used in K-12 and post-secondary learning, like Career and Technical Education. She has helped work on the Alaska Maritime Works Plan, taught classes on Bristol Bay Fisheries and has been on many boards and commissions that focused on fisheries, seafood processing, and maritime industries. Currently, Adelheid sits on the board of the Alaska Pacific University’s Elder’s Council and is a member of the Polar Research Board. She served 6 years in the Alaska Legislature representing the Bristol Bay region, Aleutians and Pribilof Islands, and the Western Alaska Peninsula. She has her bachelor’s in Public Policy, Fisheries and Native Studies and her Doctorate in Education in Organizational Leadership with an emphasis in Fisheries and Oceans. She is currently doing post-doctoral research on climate adaptation issues and resilience for UAF’s ACCAP but is based out of Anchorage.
Harmony Wayner
WALI Network Coordinator
Alaska Conservation Foundation (ACF) Northern Latitudes Partnerships
Harmony is from Naknek Native Village and grew up in Naknek, Dutch Harbor, and Anchorage as the daughter of a bush pilot. She is a 6th generation woman set-netter and a marine scientist specializing in communicating our way of life and advocating for community well-being in fisheries management and research. She holds a Master of Resource Management degree from the University Centre of the Westfjords in Iceland and a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from the University of Alaska Southeast. Most recently, Harmony served as an Indigenous Liaison at the International Arctic Research Center. Harmony is excited to support the connection with the BBRC and the Western Alaska Landscape Initiative (WALI) at ACF’s Northern Latitudes Partnerships.
Jenna Travers
Coastal Resilience Fellow
Alaska Conservation Foundation (ACF) Northern Latitudes Partnerships
Jenna is one of the NOAA Coastal Resilience Fellows on this project. She grew up in Southeast Alaska and coastal communities across the US, where she experienced both the negative community impacts of climate change and the determined efforts from her communities to build resilience in response. She has a marine biology degree from the University of Oregon where she tried everything from being a legislative aide to helping train an AI model to identify/track salmon migrating upstream. Following her interests in science communication, Jenna started covering climate change as a writer for a small news outlet and worked as a researcher studying the impacts of media framings on climate policy and action. She earned her M.S. in Marine Resource Management at Oregon State University while also working as a USFS tech mapping salmon restoration efforts and sharing the data with communities. Jenna currently lives in Oregon with her husband and dog.
Sascha Petersen
Adaptation International Founder & Director
Adaptation International
Sascha has been working specifically on climate change for almost 20 years. He has partnered with and has led dozens of projects with western municipalities and Tribal communities, Governments, and organizations. He has also helped develop field-wide resources such as a Tribal Climate Change Adaptation Guidebook and the Tribal Resilience Action Database. Originally from Homer, Alaska, Sascha is grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with and learn from the communities in Bristol Bay as we work together to build climate resilience.
Cassandra Jean
Senior Climate Resilience Specialist
Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Preparedness (ACCAP)
A child of Haitian immigrants, Cassandra is driven by a deep passion for building, organizing, and cultivating safe, affirming spaces. Centering community voices through community-based participatory methods, they work alongside communities to co-develop sustainable procedures, practices, and solutions grounded in lived experience. Having experience working with Black, Indigenous, and communities of color throughout the U.S. and in the U.S. Virgin Islands, their work integrates diverse disciplines and knowledge systems to support skill-building, health and wellness, and collective education, with particular attention to non-Western approaches. At the heart of Cassandra’s work is a commitment to meaningful connection and finding shared points of alignment that transform collaboration into lasting impacts and sustained practices and procedures, especially in the context of a changing climate. Cassandra holds a Ph.D. in Sociology and Criminology from Howard University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the School of Public Health at the University of Washington.
Willow Jackson
Coastal Resilience Fellow
Adaptation International
As a Tlingit woman from the rural village of Kake, Alaska, Willow has a deep connection to the land and sea. In her small island community of fewer than 600 residents, the environment is central to their cultural identity and subsistence lifestyle. With only one grocery store and high prices due to barge shipments, many rely on the land and sea for food, but Willow witnessed a troubling decline in subsistence resources that has worsened food insecurity, inspiring her to pursue a path in environmental stewardship and resilience. She earned a B.S. in Environmental Science and Resource Management from California State University (CSU) Channel Islands, where she completed research internships with Alaska Sea Grant, the University of Washington, the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. As a NOAA Coastal Resilience Fellow, Willow is eager to build on this experience and support climate adaptation in Alaska Native communities.