Meet The Headwaters Team
Megan Seifert, PhD
Executive Director
Morgan Long
Program Manager
Mary Ellen Benier
Programs
Rian Fried
Program and Fundraising Assistant
Katie Cannon
Program Manager of the Bay Area
Tara Webster
Outreach and Fundraising Coordinator
Courtney Kudera
Data Analyst and Research Experience Manager
Headwaters Board of Directors

Alec Atkin
Board President
Alec is currently the Director of Performance Improvement at Crestwood Behavioral Health. He previously worked for over 15 years at Hewlett Packard. He has his Mechanical Engineering degree from MIT, an MBA from the London Business School in England, and a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt from Villanova University. He spent 6 years living and working in Japan in the automotive/manufacturing sectors and is fluent in Japanese. Alec is a member of the MIT Educational Council. He is involved in his children’s schools as a Science docent and has been president several School Site Councils. He and his family enjoy the outdoors and are avid cross country skiers.

Shandon Lloyd
Secretary
Shandon has spent the past 20 years volunteering for nonprofits and local government while raising two kids. She has served on several boards, chaired town committees and has fundraised and organized events for local schools. Her professional experience includes event planning for Stanford University and for sporting events in England. She holds a BA in History from UC Santa Cruz and has done graduate study in the geography of water resources. Her interests and hobbies include watershed restoration, western water resources, climate change, biking, skiing, paddling, and hiking.
Janet Burke
Janet (J.L.) Burke has been a Board Member since September of 2023. She has over 20 years of experience across multiple facets and roles as an accountant, including sixteen plus years of teaching at the University level. Ms. Burke earned her MBA at UC Berkeley, and her CPA at KPMG, San Francisco. She has served on several Non-Profit Boards including The Board of Directors of the Piedmont League of Women Voters, Piedmont School organizations, local Rotary Club, and others. She manages her own firm in the San Francisco Bay Area, focused on financial and advisory services. She is particularly interested in hands-on science education opportunities for youth, emphasizing awareness and competency directed toward survival and sustainability. She and her family enjoy the outdoors and are enthusiastic about backcountry trips, trout fishing, and volunteering.
Jack Holmes
Jack holds a Bachelor’s degree in psychology from UC Berkeley and Master’s from UC Davis in human ecology. He is retired from UC Davis, where he worked as a Programmer Analyst focusing in biostatistics, UCD/USDA relational database design, Geographic Information System Laboratories Design, as a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, and worked in grant writing. Jack now sits on the Board of Directors of the Sacramento Youth Symphony Foundation and the Camellia Symphony Association.

Donna L. Luisi, PhD
Donna is currently an Associate Research Fellow at Pfizer Inc. She holds a PhD in Chemistry and completed her post-Doctoral work in Biophysics. Donna is currently leading a group of scientists and engineers in the Pharmaceutical Research and Development group at Pfizer. She has over 20 years of experience in research and development in the pharmaceutical industry.
Donna enjoys baking, gardening, and volunteering and fostering those passions in her three boys.

Craig Rowe
Craig is a career communicator, holding a variety of roles involving public outreach, academic communications, corporate marketing, fundraising, and writing. Most notably, he was the Director of Communications for several years at The North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, one of the nation’s premier high schools, and one of four founding members of The National Consortium of Secondary STEM Schools. Craig has been a full-time contract writer for seven years, works as a wilderness guide, and is a strong proponent of experiential education and all forms of hands-on education. He has a Bachelor of Arts in English and Professional Communication from Nazareth College.

Toyin Weaver, MD
Toyin is a Family Medicine physician working in Reno, NV. She received her medical degree from SUNY Upstate Medical University and completed her family medicine in Albany Medical College.
She has 13 years of experience and her specialties include hyperbaric oxygen therapy, wound care, hospitalist medicine and urgent care. She is also a Clinical Instructor of Family Medicine at University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine.
In her off time, she loves traveling with her husband and kids. She enjoys being a Girl Scout’s leader and volunteering with several different organizations.

Michelle Furbershaw
Emeritus
Michelle has been a licensed architect in the state of California for over 32 years. She has a passion for both the natural and built environments. She believes that in an ever-increasing technology based world, environmental education, awareness, and interaction are vital for survival and sustainability. She has been self employed for the past 32 years, is a member of the American Institute of Architects, and has volunteered countless hours at her local schools. She hopes to bring collaboration, ethics, and creativity into Headwaters processes, problem solving, and development. Michelle loves swimming, cross country skiing, hiking, kayaking, and just enjoying the beauty of our natural environment. She graduated from the University of California in Environmental Design with an emphasis in Architecture.
Important notes about our staffing and emergency policies:
Headwaters Science Institute is committed to maintaining the highest safety and security standards for our programs. When your children are in our care, you can trust that they are safe.
- All employees and contractors are background checked before they start working with us. We use a national-level background check program called National Crime Search (nationalcrimesearch.com) that searches all states and county records for any criminal records, sex & violent offenders, and includes a terrorist search.
- Our staff members are all first-aid and CPR certified. Some are Wilderness First Responder certified as well.
- We have a safety plan for every field site we use and know where the nearest fire station is located. We are never more than a few minutes walk to the nearest road.
- In the unlikely event of an emergency, we always work in areas that are easily served by 911. Our field site on Donner Summit is less than 2 miles from the nearest fire station with full-time EMT services and the hospital is a short 10-minute ride away.