Megan Amaral has decades of leadership experience in mission-driven organizations. Her professional and volunteer work has spanned the arts, education, community development, and sustainability, often at the intersections of these fields and with a social justice lens.  Her commitment to social justice and general curiosity about how we form identity grew from her own shifting–and often marginalized–identities: mixed race, mixed culture, mixed class, and queer.

She has 20 years post-secondary and youth education experience: administration, program design, curriculum development, community outreach, research, student affairs, advising, teaching and mentorship. Higher education has been her focus, holding positions at Portland State University, California College of the Arts, and The University of California’s Santa Cruz, Davis, and Berkeley campuses.

Megan is knowledgeable across a breadth of environmental sustainability and social justice issues and cross-discipline solutions. She managed UC Berkeley’s renowned Energy and Resources Group from 2014-2022. Most recently, she worked as Operations Manager and Acting COO for international climate justice network The Sunrise Project during the launch of their US nonprofit entity.

Megan holds a Bachelor of Arts from Goddard College and a Master of Science in Community Development from UC Davis, with a focus on community arts and culture. She believes the arts are key to both wellbeing and effective climate change action having witnessed the profound role they play in major culture and societal values shifts.

After growing up primarily in Minnesota she moved to Vermont, then Oregon, and then spent 15 years in California before settling in British Columbia. She now makes her home on what is now known as Salt Spring Island, the traditional unceded territories of several First Nations, including the SENĆOŦEN and Hul'qumi'num speaking peoples.

In addition to her professional work, she loves to hike, write fiction, dance, learn new crafts, dabble in various digital media, and help others tap their sense of play, creativity, and curiosity. She lives with her partner, daughter, dog--and hopefully cats and goats someday.