Andrew Millison is an innovative educator, storyteller and designer. He founded the Permaculture Design education program at Oregon State University (OSU) in 2009. Andrew serves as an Education Director and Senior Instructor who offers 25 years of experience, and a playful approach to regenerative design. He lives in his own permaculture paradise with his beloved wife and children in Corvallis, Oregon.
Marisha is an internationally recognized permaculture educator, designer and speaker based in Portland, Oreogn. Marisha has practiced permaculture in both urban and rural environments. As an avid gardener and herbalist, Marisha specializes in food production, ecology and useful plants. Marisha believes that it is possible to respond to the current environmental challenges, lower our ecological footprint and continue to live equally delightful lives through permaculture design.
Tao Orion (she/her) is an author, permaculture educator and entrepreneur. Tao consults on holistic farm, forest, and restoration planning through her company Resilience Permaculture Design, LLC. She holds a degree in agroecology and sustainable agriculture from UC Santa Cruz, and a MSc degree in Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security from the National University of Ireland, Galway. She lives with her husband, two children on her southern Willamette Valley smallholding, Viriditas Farm.
Devon is a teacher, farmer and ethnobotanist. She began her permaculture journey in Oregon in 2000 and has been teaching at OSU since 2014. She founded and ran Fern Hill Nursery and Botanical Sanctuary, pioneering organic container cultivation with a diverse array of multifunctional plants. Devon recently began homesteading with her family in central Vermont. Her family farm is focusing on season extension for year-round nutritious vegetables and fruits in a northern climate. Devon loves working with students from a diversity of bioregions.
Neil is a regenerative specialist who has focused on integrated water harvesting, agroforestry systems, homestead production gardens with season extension, medicinal pollinator habitats, and ecological restoration for over 12 years. He has been a permaculture instructor at OSU since 2014. He holds degrees in Biology and Environmental Science and owns an ecological design and education firm, RT Permaculture, specializing in effective and regenerative landscapes. When not teaching, designing, or building Permaculture systems, you can find Neil playing in his high desert forest garden with his family in Reno, NV.
Javan is a life and land designer working with clients the world over to cultivate more abundant, diverse and profitable lives, landscapes and businesses. He has been working with the OSU Permaculture Design education program since 2015, developing content, curriculum and the PDC Template. Javan is the principal designer at All Points Design and founded the educational platform Regenerative Living. He enjoys sharing his message to work with, instead of against nature. He calls a small watershed in British Columbia Canada home, where he stewards 400+ac with his family and dog Noa.
Jamie has always had a focus on naturalistic landscapes. This started a lifelong journey of learning, teaching and practicing various landscape design and construction approaches over 35 years ago. He has received numerous national and provincial landscape awards. Jeff Lawton, Darren Doherty, and David Holmgren were a few early influencers in his permaculture path. Jamie is thrilled to be an instructor with this OSU team and still designs landscapes with his wife Angela.
Kelda is passionate about cultivating gardens for self-reliance, sale, trade, or educational demonstration. Her current work in Fairland, Oklahoma is umbrella’d under Divine Earth Gardening Project. Kelda studied Permaculture at the Bullock’s Permaculture Homestead, completed a Permaculture teacher’s training through Cascadia Permaculture, earned diplomas in Permaculture Site Design and Permaculture Education and helped launch Permaculture Guilds in Seattle and Tacoma. She also served on the board of the Northwest Permaculture Convergence and as field advisor with Permaculture Institute of North America. She teaches at OSU, The Permaculture Women’s Guild and Starhawk’s Regenerative Land Management course.
Jyoti’s deepest passion is design. She is a certified permaculture designer, consultant and educator who has been designing land-based systems for more than a decade. She facilitates permaculture workshops and courses while also consulting ethical businesses and academic institutions in India under the umbrella of permaculture. Her roots and heart lie in Chaitraban, her homestead and the place she experiments with designs and techniques. The plants and animals at the small homestead are her inspiration and energy stores.
Ecological design, resilient community design and water harvesting systems have been Karen’s focus for over 30 years. She builds permaculture gardens where ever she goes and loves to inspire others to embrace the permaculture principles and practices. She is a permaculture educator and designer with Siskiyou Permaculture LLC, located in Southern Oregon, where she has been exploring community resiliency since 2009. After receiving her Bachelors of Interior Design degree from Auburn University and through a series of events, Karen was guided to a community in the AZ desert called Arcosanti where her life was changed forever as she was introduced to a world of alternative ways of living on this planet.
JR is inspired to help the youth and less privileged become involved in permaculture, sustainability and healthy living. He found his passion while living in the beautiful Island of Puerto Rico, where he graduated with a B.S. in Business at the University of Puerto Rico. He is an educator and designer with over 10 years of organic gardening experience. He has certificates in Permaculture Design, Advance Permaculture Design, Horticulture, Nutritional therapy and a Landscape Contractors’ License. His business, Morganic Roots Eco Firm specializes in regenerative landscape and permaculture. JR currently lives in Eugene, Oregon with his wife and two children.
Ricky is a lover of the intelligence of the wild. He is an enrolled member of the Numunu (Comanche) Nation. Ricky received his permaculture design certificate with Shad Qudsi at Atitlan Organics in Tzununa, Lake Atitlan, Guatemala in 2015 and a permaculture teacher training certificate with Jude Hobbs of Cascadia permaculture and Rico Zook at La Loma Viva in Gualchos, Granada, Spain in 2018. Ricky’s source of inspiration is the continuous wonder of nature itself and the humbling knowledge and resilience of indigenous communities, their ancestry and the debt permaculture and society itself owes to the wisdom of people who came before and tended this land. He is the president of High Quality Gardens, Inc. and serves as a permaculture teacher, designer and consultant.
Sunshine Rose Claymore is a mother from Standing Rock Reservation. A graduate from Sitting Bull College with a Bachelor’s in Environmental Science, there has been a drive to better understand natural processes on our planet. Recently taking the position of Permaculture and Food Systems Coordinator for NDSU and Regenerative Land Management Coordinator with Earth Activist Training, environmental education along with systems design has been a long time passion.
A native of Chile, Monica is a New York City-based community organizer, sustainability educator, and ecological designer since 2007. An avid gardener as a small child with her grandparents in Chile, she rekindled her passion for growing food as an adult while living in Skagway, Alaska. Monica is committed to improving food systems while advancing social and environmental justice globally. As Executive Director of Beyond Organic Design, a permaculture education organization, she partners with public schools and community centers.She has dedicated her life to working with diverse and marginalized communities in education and local development in the U.S. and abroad.
Lion was born and grew up in Queens, NY with his first job at the age of 14 spending a summer working at the Queens County Farm (at the time, the only working farm in New York City). As a young adult, he spent years traveling around the world, volunteering and studying sustainability and permaculture in places such as Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Israel, Palestine, the USA and more. His travels and studies brought him to become a certified Permaculture Designer, Master Gardener, Land Steward and Sustainable Community Agriculture Guide. He holds a B.A. in Social & Environmental Sustainability, and a M.S. in Ecological Landscape Design from The Conway School Graduate Program in Ecological Landscape Planning & Design. He has also completed coursework in advanced site grading, surveying for water & earthworks, natural farming practices, and permaculture teacher training.
