NLC Staff

Ellen Concepcion – Executive Director

Ellen Concepcion is the co-founder and Executive Director of New Leaf Collaborative and is also an instructor for NLC’s Community Science Workshop Program. Ellen has a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from San Francisco State University, a Master’s Degree in Curriculum and Instruction from University of the Pacific and a Nonprofit Management certificate from Cal State East Bay. Ellen holds a clear California teaching credential in Geosciences and has over 8 years of middle school classroom teaching experience in Vallejo and Crockett. Through New Leaf Collaborative’s programs, Ellen hopes to inspire youth to learn, act and think creatively, confidently and responsibly and to introduce them to career options that lead to sustainable prosperity.

Email: ellen@newleafcollaborative.org

Mary Peeff – NLC Business Director

Mary is responsible for the management and administration of New Leaf Collaborative (NLC) grants, budgets, contracts, invoices, bookkeeping and financial and corporate compliance.

Email: mary@newleafcollaborative.org

Tina Wong – Earth Ambassadors Program Manager

Tina inspires, informs, and enables responsible environmental decision-making and sustainable practices by providing leadership opportunities in education for high school and elementary students to become agents of sustainable change.  She also works to further connect interested Empowering Educators participants to resources that renew a love of teaching, provides opportunities for reflection upon personal strengths, and ultimately re-envisions transformative learning environments for students. 

Based on her work inspiring young people to become good stewards of the environment, Tina was named “2022 Contra Costa Woman of the Year”.

Email:  tina@newleafcollaborative.org

Erica Thompson – Ecoliteracy Green Team Instructor

Erica Thompson is our lead instructor for our Earth Ambassadors program with almost 8 years experience in providing sustainable education to students TK through 5th grade. She tries her best to live a more sustainable lifestyle by swapping daily tasks and products for more sustainable/eco-friendly alternatives to reduce the effect we have on the environment. Fun fact: when she was young, she could not decide if she wanted to be an interior designer or a teacher. She ended up studying interior design, but is loving this phase in her life of empowering our younger generation in understanding why the environment is important.

Email: erica@newleafcollaborative.org

Amy Ross – Ecoliteracy Green Team Instructor

Amy strives to inspire, inform, and enable responsible environmental decision-making and sustainable practices by providing leadership opportunities in education for high school and elementary students to become agents of sustainable change.

Email: amy@newleafcollaborative.org

Community Science Workshop “CSW” Educators provide hands-on tinkering with Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math (STEAM) in ways that foster curiosity, creativity, perseverance, and critical thinking.  They engage students in grade-level appropriate hands-on science experiences.

Community Garden Workshop “CGW” Instructors providing enhanced, hands-on, experiential, multi-disciplinary, curriculum based learning opportunities to MJHS students at the MUSD Community Garden.