Personal Stories

Change Consultant Evelyn Clark was just recently awarded for her work in justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) and social justice within peer support. Presented by Jones Community Solutions, a Black-owned peer organization in Washington state, the Peer-O Award represents so much more for Evelyn. The peer movement has been [...]

Cynthia (Cindy) Rivera is originally from Arizona, where she grew up on a dirt road in the middle of the Sonoran Desert. Although she loves the area, she knew she wanted more than what her small town could offer. Cindy attended the University of Arizona for her bachelor and master’s [...]

Molly Jean Oberweiser Kennedy (she/her, white-bodied, cisgender, queer, woman) was born and raised primarily in Montana with a few years in Washington State. She left Montana at 18 to attend college in Minnesota, remained there for 13 years, and then moved to Oregon in 2009. She knew at just 15 [...]

Melissa Smith comes to Change Matrix (CM) with a wealth of experience empowering individuals and communities through education, coaching, and advocacy. She grew up in Virginia and found her calling as an educator early on. After obtaining her bachelor's and master's degrees, Melissa worked for over 15 years as a [...]

As a creative, Jennifer Wilkins has made a career of collaging opportunity, interests, and passions. Earning her bachelor’s degree in fine art, she quickly headed creative production teams to apply creative problem-solving skills and curiosity to program start-up and development. She was the founding administrator of the Pediatric Surgery Residency [...]

While foundational concepts like critical thinking and analysis are taught in schools, it isn’t so common to find classrooms that are dedicated to experiential learning. From a young age, Alina Taniuchi was not only taught to learn by doing, but she was encouraged to think through the interconnected nature of [...]