Our Team
Staff
Our team comes from a wide variety of backgrounds, bringing a diverse blend of expertise and experience in food business strategy and sustainability, finance, data analytics, culinary arts, research, agricultural development, and communications. Meet the people who make our work possible.
Dana Gunders
President
Deemed "the woman who helped start the waste-free movement" by Consumer Reports, Dana Gunders is a national expert who has dedicated her career to helping industry, policymakers, and consumers activate solutions to reduce food waste. Her landmark 2012 report "Wasted: How America is Losing Up to 40% of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill" sparked a national dialogue about the consequences of food waste, and since then, she has continued to bring the issue to a wider audience through testimony before Congress, her Waste-Free Kitchen Handbook, and appearances in media such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Time magazine, Fox News, Teen Vogue, PBS Newshour, and hundreds of other outlets. Before joining ReFED in 2019, she served as a founding Board member for the organization. When not worrying about it professionally, Dana spends far too much time convincing her two young kids to eat broccoli stalks and reinventing their uneaten lunches as family dinner.
Sara Burnett
Executive Director
Sara Burnett is ReFED’s Executive Director, providing organizational leadership with direct oversight of ReFED’s programs, operations, and administration, and contributing to the organization’s strategic vision. Most recently, she served as Founder and Principal Consultant at Burnett Strategy and Communications, helping purpose-driven organizations grow their businesses while driving positive impact. Prior to this, Sara served as the VP of Food Beliefs, Sustainability, and Public Relations at Panera Bread and Panera Brands for 18 years, where she pioneered the company’s Clean Food Commitment and also led Panera Bread’s Day-End Dough-Nation program and the Panera Bread Foundation. Sara began her career as a food scientist and supply chain expert leading programs in ingredient quality, food safety, climate strategy, and animal welfare. She was a Pathfinder Environmental Fellow at Washington University, St. Louis, where she received her Bachelor of Arts in Biology and Psychology, and also holds an MBA from Webster University, St. Louis. Sara is the proud mother of two teenage daughters and has been happily married to a St. Louis firefighter for nearly 20 years. When she’s not on the sidelines at soccer games or attending school events, you can find her running, hiking, or reading.
Asch Harwood
Vice President, Data & Insights
Asch Harwood serves as ReFED’s Vice President, Data & Insights, where he leads research and product development to advance data-driven food waste solutions. He has spent over 15 years working at the intersection of research, design, and technology to promote positive social change at organizations like the Council on Foreign Relations and UNICEF. Some of his proudest professional accomplishments include establishing the Council on Foreign Relations' Nigeria Security Tracker; conducting field research into the state of Kenyan media; and developing a media literacy pilot series, "Anomaly," which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Asch likes to ride mountain bikes, build guitars, and go to (un)necessary lengths to ski untouched powder. He mainly sustains himself on the food scraps left behind by his wife and two kids.
Travis Wright
Director of Product
Travis is the Director of Product, responsible for setting ReFED’s overall product vision, establishing product and engineering priorities, and resourcing projects. Travis is an experienced technology executive who has successfully led product strategy, product development, digital transformation, and growth initiatives for global enterprise SaaS and digital consumer products. After serving in the U.S. Navy as a Preventive Medicine Technician for eight years, he launched a career as an information management consultant, helping organizations navigate their digital transformation and process improvement initiatives. He then spent several years leading a marketing and design agency, helping small businesses and non-profit organizations tell their unique stories through branding, communications, and promotional campaigns. Over the past 15 years, he has held product management and leadership positions in a few high-growth technology organizations. Travis holds bachelor’s degrees in Computer Science and Philosophy from the University of Washington, where he focused his undergraduate research on computational biology, computational neuroscience, and artificial intelligence. He also holds an MBA from Seattle University with a specialization in Sustainability. As a father of two high school students, Travis spends a lot of his free time supporting their shared passion for music and art. He also enjoys cooking, traveling, and exploring the outdoors in his camper van or on his paddle board.
Skyler Sinclair
Director of Engineering
Skyler Sinclair (they/them) serves as ReFED’s Director of Engineering, leading the development of the data infrastructure that powers ReFED’s technical products. Skyler has worked across the nonprofit space as an engineer enabling voting rights, fighting COVID misinformation spread, and streamlining access to government services. They came to software engineering through mathematical modeling, where they first authored papers in fluid dynamics and operations research, then built machine learning computer vision models for Google Research. Skyler first joined the food waste space as a machine learning engineer predicting a pizza truck company’s ingredient usage and has been hooked on the issue ever since. They are passionate about food systems both globally and locally and are an active volunteer at their local food bank.
Erik Mudrak
Senior Frontend Software Engineer
Erik serves as ReFED's Senior Frontend Software Engineer, supporting the look, feel, and functionality of the Insights Engine in an effort to make it "easy enough for Grandma to understand," yet with enough depth that a researcher can gain insights. Previously, he engineered products for other people-centric causes including K-12 Computer Science education and college Greek life. Erik holds a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science from Transylvania University (a 98% vampire-free liberal arts college).
Jeffrey Zurita
Software Engineer
Jeffrey Zurita serves as ReFED’s Software Engineer, supporting the development of ReFED's Insights Engine in an effort to create a more robust data platform with which to combat national food loss and waste. Jeffrey brings his engineering and research experience from Boston Children's Hospital, where he was published on multiple Immunology papers, and from the world of oncology drug research, where he contributed to the success of taking multiple drugs to clinical trials. Jeffrey holds a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering from Boston University.
Selena Mao
Manager, Research & Insights
Selena Mao serves as ReFED’s Manager, Research & Insights, developing information and accompanying technical products to help galvanize national efforts to reduce food loss and waste. Previously, Selena supported the Chief Sustainability Office for Los Angeles County to assess how the L.A. regional food economy was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. She has also authored policy and academic research on opportunities to localize food economies and build urban climate resilience. Selena holds a Master of Arts in Urban Planning from UCLA and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from Stanford University.
Minerva Ringland
Manager, Climate & Insights
Minerva (Minnie) Ringland serves as ReFED’s Manager, Climate & Insights, studying the greenhouse gas emissions factors used to link food waste to climate change, translating these findings to support ReFED's partners and solution providers, and generally working to improve our understanding of food waste's impacts. She also supports key Data & Insights work, including Insights Engine updates and food business initiatives. Minnie has followed an interest in food systems since college, where she led the Food Action student club, working on food waste and nutrition issues, and helped organize the annual Yale Food Systems Symposium in 2015. She holds a master’s degree from the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, where her capstone project investigated emissions and carbon sequestration associated with Santa Barbara County's agricultural lands.
Alexandria Coari
Vice President, Capital, Innovation, & Global Initiatives
Alexandria (Alex) Coari serves as Vice President, Capital, Innovation & Global Initiatives at ReFED, where she is responsible for having launched the organization's two catalytic regranting funds and overseeing its million-dollar innovation challenges, strategic advisory services, and funder network. Having worked across Latin America and the U.S. for the last 17 years, she has experience in emerging markets investment banking, impact investing, sustainable food supply chain certification, and innovation acceleration at multinationals, startups, and nonprofits—including time at JP Morgan, Fair Trade USA, OLLY, and Agora Partnerships. A lover of travel, Alex has lived and worked in more than 10 countries and studied at the Universidad de Buenos Aires and Wellesley College, where she holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Spanish. She is passionate about helping mission-driven companies grow their impact and believes in the power of market-based approaches to solving today's biggest challenges.
Alejandro Enamorado
Senior Manager, Capital Initiatives
Alejandro serves as ReFED’s Senior Manager, Capital Initiatives, working to spur investment in the food waste sector, contributing to the Insights Engine, and building relationships with solution providers. He brings six years of technology investment banking, equity research and sales, and trading experience, including time at TD Securities, CI Investments, and RBC Capital Markets.
Angel Veza
Senior Manager, Innovation Initiatives
Angel Veza serves as ReFED's Senior Manager, Innovation Initiatives, working to catalyze the adoption of top food waste solutions. She originally worked in the education field teaching underserved communities. After working with students for seven years, Angel received her Grade Diplome at the French Culinary Institute and worked through New York City’s top restaurants, including Morimoto and two-Michelin starred Atera, and with foodservice companies like Compass Group. During that time, she witnessed the significant amount of food being wasted in the hospitality industry and decided to work with the Food Waste team at World Wildlife Fund. As an expansion of that, she worked in supply chain and led strategic sourcing and procurement with a focus on food waste reduction at Manhatta Restaurant, part of Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group in New York City.
Kayla Mosby
Analyst, Capital Initiatives
Kayla Mosby serves as ReFED's Analyst, Capital Initiatives, working to streamline and automate business operations to assist senior management to make business decisions quickly and efficiently. With a Master of Professional Studies in Industrial Organizational Psychology from UMBC and seven years of experience in improving data management processes, her career has been marked by a dedication to applying adaptable, data-driven solutions to evolving project needs for cross-functional teams across the finance and consulting industries. Before joining ReFED, Kayla served as a Senior Consultant at CohnReznick LLP, where she designed automated reports, data visualization tools, and KPI dashboards to facilitate critical business decisions for multi-billion-dollar contracts. She saved hundreds of work hours annually through her work on building advanced Power BI and Excel reports, ultimately optimizing business output efforts.
Jackie Suggitt
Vice President, Business Initiatives & Community Engagement
Jackie Suggitt has spent more than 10 years working in sustainable food systems. She oversees ReFED’s work with food businesses, including both one-on-one strategic advisory support and the U.S. Food Waste Pact and Pacific Coast Food Waste Commitment—the nation’s first data-driven and action-oriented pre-competitive platforms for private and public sectors to collaborate on food waste reduction efforts. Jackie also leads ReFED’s community engagement efforts to build the organization’s diverse stakeholder network across businesses, investors, innovators, policymakers, and more, which includes overseeing ReFED’s Food Waste Action Network and the annual Food Waste Solutions Summit. Before joining ReFED, Jackie worked on Walmart’s sustainability team, where she led a number of sustainable food and nutrition programs for Walmart’s global and private brand business.
David Ly
Senior Manager, Business Initiatives
David Ly serves as ReFED’s Senior Manager, Business Initiatives, working with businesses on a range of initiatives in support of their efforts to reduce food waste. Holding a Bachelor of Science in Supply Chain Management from the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, he began his career in management consulting. David later transitioned to the consumer packaged goods sector, where he spent five years at General Mills and Hormel Foods, gaining experience in innovation, brand management, and consumer insights. Returning to the Carlson School for an MBA as a Social Venture Fellow, David launched a consulting practice dedicated to democratizing technology for small businesses. In addition to his role at ReFED, David teaches Sustainable Development as Adjunct Faculty at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
Lisa Accardi
Events Manager
Lisa Accardi serves as ReFED’s Events Manager, overseeing the planning, management, and execution of ReFED's events, most notably the annual Food Waste Solutions Summit. She has more than 20 years of experience managing events, projects, and communications for both large corporations and nonprofits. Nicknamed the "Queen of Leftovers" by her family, Lisa is passionate about solving the food waste crisis, as well as other climate change initiatives. Prior to ReFED, Lisa was Events and Communications Manager for a biomedical research institute in San Francisco, where she oversaw overall event operations and led the planning of all high-level events. When not working, Lisa likes gardening, beach cleanups, and hiking the gorgeous trails in Northern California, where she lives.
Jeffrey Costantino
Communications Director
Jeffrey (Jeff) Costantino serves as Communications Director, helping ReFED connect to its key audiences with engaging and actionable content. Previously, he oversaw communications and marketing at the Western Union Foundation, which works to empower refugees and other migrants with education and workforce training. He also served as Managing Director for Marketing at Truth Initiative, a national public health nonprofit promoting tobacco-free lives. Jeff's career began in advertising account service, where he worked with a range of clients at McCann-Erickson and Crispin Porter + Bogusky. He holds a Master of Business Administration from George Washington University and a Bachelor of Business Administration from the College of William and Mary.
Vanessa Mukhebi
Communications Manager
Vanessa Mukhebi serves as Communications Manager at ReFED, leading creative communications execution and brand strategy across the organization. Before joining ReFED, Vanessa worked in the international NGO sector, creating multimedia content and inclusive interventions to promote improved nutrition, climate-smart agriculture, gender equity, and poverty alleviation across sub-Saharan Africa. Vanessa is the Vice Board Chair on the Auxiliary Board of Inspiration Corporation, a nonprofit offering a broad array of programs designed to support individuals and families in Chicago experiencing houselessness, hunger, and employment barriers. She is passionate about indigenous food systems and the cultural dimensions of food security. Vanessa holds a Master of Art in Anthropology (Food) from the University of Chicago and a Bachelor in Media and Communication, Sociology and Anthropology from the University of Sydney in Australia.
Nia D’Emilio
Communications Coordinator
Nia D’Emilio serves as ReFED’s Communications Coordinator, supporting the Communications team in messaging, analytics, and audience management. Before joining ReFED, Nia worked in the emergency management space as the Learning & Events Coordinator for Epicenter Innovation. In that role, she oversaw the organization’s learning management system, managed and coordinated events, and led communications strategies for both internal and external audiences. She is passionate about making the world a more sustainable place through education and resilience-building. Nia holds a Master of Science in Leadership for Creative Enterprises from Northwestern University and a Bachelor of Arts in Religion from Denison University.
Shawn Shepherd
Vice President, Operations & Finance
Shawn Shepherd serves as ReFED’s Vice President, Operations & Finance, with a focus on bringing philanthropic support to our mission of eliminating food waste. She has a more than 30-year career leading nonprofit organizations and advancement offices in institutional settings. Shawn has worked in the food system space as a national staff member with the American Farmland Trust and has served on several regional boards addressing food insecurity. Recognized as a leader in environmental issues in her home states of Texas, New Mexico, and Idaho, her passion for addressing the existential crisis of our time—climate change—is what drives her work with ReFED.
Katy Hart (Franklin)
Director, Finance & Administration
Katy Hart serves as ReFED’s Director, Finance & Administration, supporting organizational development and strategy and designing systems for effective program implementation and management. Previously, Katy managed operations at Sustainable America, where she gained a deep understanding of successful food waste reduction programs with consumers, food service providers, and private firms, and at major events. She has authored industry and academic research on food waste and opportunities to solve this global challenge. Katy also helped develop Further with Food, a public-private partnership convened to address food loss and waste.
Nicole Chandler
Director, People & Culture
Nicole Chandler serves as ReFED's Director, People and Culture, where she spearheads human resources and talent strategy initiatives. With over 17 years of experience in the human resources field, Nicole has a rich background across diverse industries, including hospitality, retail, consumer packaged goods, and entertainment. She is the driving force behind ReFED's internal JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion) Committee, passionately working to cultivate a workplace where every individual has the opportunity to contribute and thrive. Throughout her career, Nicole has brought her expertise to renowned organizations such as Westin Hotels, DreamWorks, BAMCO, Pixar, Procter & Gamble, and Lumistella/The Elf on the Shelf. She holds a degree in Business Administration and Fashion Merchandising from Brenau University in Gainesville, GA, blending her business acumen with a keen eye for creativity and innovation.
Sam Buck
Senior Manager, Development
Sam Buck serves as ReFED's Senior Manager, Development, supporting fundraising efforts to eliminate food waste, address climate change, and increase food security. Previously, Sam worked in development to improve educational outcomes at several institutions including Stanford, where he served as Associate Director of the Business School Fund. He holds an MBA and Master of Science in Sustainability from the Erb Institute at the University of Michigan. While a graduate student, Sam co-founded the first student-run climate tech investment fund in the country and designed a food recovery business for Conservation Corps North Bay. He believes passionately in philanthropy's ability to convene stakeholders and catalyze coordinated action on important issues.
Salma Khan
Senior Manager, Human Resources
Salma Khan serves as ReFED's Senior Manager, Human Resources, supporting organizational growth, employee engagement, and human resources. Before joining ReFED, Salma worked as the Chief of Staff at Liaisons Inc., a luxury travel and event management agency based in Miami. Prior to Liaisons, she worked at EPL Nonprofit Management Consulting supporting the temporary staffing needs of various global NGOs. She founded EPL in Barcelona in 2018 after working in human resources for nearly two decades. Salma previously lived and worked in New York City at companies such as Boston Consulting Group, Getty Images, Moët-Hennessy, and Tapestry. She graduated from Indiana University with a Bachelor of Science in Public Affairs Management.
Board of Directors
Our Board is comprised of leaders in the business, technology, philanthropic, and nonprofit sectors who inform the organization’s strategic initiatives, offer technical expertise, and collectively provide a holistic analysis of the challenges and opportunities for food waste reduction.
Steven Swartz
Board Treasurer, ReFED
Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer, Chief Technology Officer, The Wonderful Company
Learn MoreJesse Fink
Emeritus Board Member, ReFED
Trustee, The Betsy and Jesse Fink Family Foundation
Learn MoreJeff Rhodes
Board Member, ReFED
Vice President Finance, Trane Technologies, Commercial HVAC Americas
Learn MoreYalmaz Siddiqui
Board Member, ReFED
Vice President, Environmental Sustainability, The Walt Disney Company
Learn MorePast Board & Steering Committee Members
Nicola Dixon (B)
Director of Global Impact
General Mills
Stacey Greene-Koehnke (B)
Chief Operating Officer
MedShare
Rob Kaplan (B)
Founder and CEO
Circulate Capital
Eric Woods (B)
Corporate Officer, VP Field Operations
Sysco
Devon Klatell (SC)
Managing Director, Food Initiative
The Rockefeller Foundation
Advisory Council
ReFED’s strength has long rested in the power of the people who surround, advise, and contribute to our work. The Advisory Council is a group of thought leaders helping to provide expert input to ReFED’s priority programs and long-term strategy.
Regina Anderson Harmon
Executive Director, Food Recovery Network
Louisa Burwood-Taylor
Head of Media & Research, AgFunder
Aaron Desatnik
Vice President of Corporate Development, OvaInnovations
Amy Duffuor
General Partner, Azolla Ventures
Nora Goldstein
Editor/Publisher of BioCycle CONNECT ® and BioCycle.net, the Organics Recycling Authority.
Leah Lizarondo
CEO and Co-Founder, Food Rescue Hero
Clementine O’Connor
Programme Officer, Sustainable Food Systems, UNEP
Denise Osterhues
Sr. Director, Sustainability & Social Impact; President, The Kroger Co. and The Kroger Co. Zero Hunger | Zero Waste Foundation
Dr. Brian E. Roe
Van Buren Professor in the Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics,
Ohio State University
Julia Ruedig
Principal, Amazon Fresh
Andrew Shakman
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, LeanPath
ReFED's work is made possible with generous support from and in partnership with our funders.