NLC Staff

In Memoriam of Paul Stroube
May 25, 1964 – September 5, 2025

Paul joined our New Leaf team in September of 2015 and was an essential part of our community. He loved being in the classroom, helping kids with their projects, encouraging their curiosity & making sure every student felt successful. Paul was instrumental in continuing the work of the Community Science Workshop programs for the past decade. He was our scheduling whiz and on-the-spot technical support, helping with EcoKids registrations, website updates, and calendaring, while always generously offering his wit and wisdom. He has certainly made a lasting impact in the lives of the staff he worked with and the kids he has taught and will be deeply missed.

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.

Email: ellen@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 incorporate transformative learning environments for students into the Earth Ambassadors program. 

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 Educator

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 – Program Educator

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.

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