Save the date - we're holding our 14th annual StreetTalk 10-in-1 6pm-8:30pm on Wednesday, December 4th at the Old South Meeting House! At this free event, you'll get to hear 10 speakers who will talk about topics like Boston transit history, public art, new approaches to housing, and more. Light refreshments will be available, along with a cash bar.

REGISTRATION IS CLOSED

RSVP for the livestream below!

Walk-in Registration Info: Due to building capacity constraints, we aren't able to confirm whether we will have space for walk-ins in advance. If we can accept any walk-ins, we won't be able to do so until just before the event begins. If you would like to walk-in register, please don't arrive to the venue before 5:55pm. Walk-ins will be first come, first serve, and the number of walk-ins we can accept depends on how many registrants no-show. Please be prepared for the possibility that we will not be able to accommodate you. Thank you!

Livestreaming

We will also be partnering with GBH Forum Network to stream the event online - RSVP here to attend the event virtually. 

Speaker bios

Check back for updates as the event nears!

Maha Aslam
Program Manager: Streets + Transit, LivableStreets

Topic: A Day in the Life of a Transit Advocate

Maha Aslam is the Program Manager: Streets + Transit for LivableStreets. She has worked in New York City as an Urban Planner, and is familiar with New York City planning and policies; she has conducted related urban policy research, including overcrowding of schools in Sunset Park, the BQX Street Car, Transit-Orient-Development, East Harlem rezoning and Mandatory Inclusionary Housing, and Jamaica Bay Resiliency plans. As an urban planner she believes in safe & equitable access to transportation and a community centered approach to the process of planning.

Maha has a Master’s Degree in Design & Urban Ecologies from Parsons School of Design and a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from National College of Arts, Lahore, Pakistan.

Julia Campbell
Deputy Chief of Streets for Infrastructure and Design, City of Boston

Topic: Fixing Boston's sidewalks, one intersection at a time

Julia Campbell is Boston's Deputy Chief of Streets for Infrastructure and Design. Within the Streets Cabinet, her team is responsible for designing and constructing capital improvements and maintenance for sidewalks, streets, bridges, and footpaths in the City of Boston. Julia joined Boston in 2023 after about a decade of public service in transportation in Los Angeles. Her experience spans both policy and implementation across the fields of planning, engineering, and governance, with a focus on sustainability, climate policy, and environmental justice. She has led large and small infrastructure projects improving active transportation and safety, as well as supportive programs and legislation. Julia received her civil engineering degree from UC Berkeley and practiced with a focus on green infrastructure before pursuing a graduate degree in Urban and Regional Planning from UCLA. She holds a professional engineering license and enjoys her role as a translator between planning and engineering, most notably in the role she held as a lecturer teaching Active Transportation Planning at UCLA's Luskin School of Public Policy.

Lorraine Fryer
Senior Content + Culture Manager, LivableStreets

Topic: How to Create a Cohousing Community in 10 Easy Steps

Lorraine is the Senior Content + Culture Manager at LivableStreets, keeping the website up-to-date, designing reports, and spending a great deal of time contemplating the nature of organizational culture; she is always creating projects that will teach her something new. Lorraine is a self-taught web designer and front-end developer, but first she earned a B.A. in Visual Art from Brown University and an M.L.A. in Museum Studies from Harvard Extension School.

Lorraine lives with her partner & bat-eared dog in Bay State Cohousing, a cohousing community of which she is a founding member. She's enjoying getting to know her new city of Malden, and appreciates the abundance of bubble tea options with a ten-minute walk.

Reynaliz Herrera
Founder & Director/Composer/Scriptwriter/Lead Performer of "Ideas, Not Theories"

Topic: Reynaliz Herrera’s Bicycle Music & her company “Ideas, Not Theories”

Included in The Boston Globe’s “The best of Boston music” 2023 list, Boston-based and originally from Mexico, Reynaliz Herrera is a multi-award winning performing musician, percussionist, composer and producer, who has performed throughout North America, Caribbean Islands, and Europe.

Reynaliz Herrera is the founder, director, composer, scriptwriter, and lead performer of “Ideas, Not Theories,” a theatrical percussion company for unconventional instruments that features Reynaliz’s original music for bicycles and other unconventional instruments.

For the last 12 years, the focus of Reynaliz Herrera’s musical work has been to explore the different capabilities of the musical bicycle by composing and performing her own original music for this atypical instrument. Throughout the past years, Reynaliz has composed 6 full length bicycle pieces, all of them exploring and using the bicycle as a musical instrument in different ways. She performs these original compositions in the form of programs with her company "Ideas, Not Theories." Since 2012, she has brought "Ideas, Not Theories" to perform throughout NorthAmerica and the Caribbean at renowned venues.

Thanks to support and funding from The Boston Foundation and The Somerville Arts Council, in 2021, Reynaliz premiered her composition "BIKEncerto: a concerto for solo bicycle and orchestra", and in 2023 she released a critically acclaimed and award-winning album of the piece. She will perform "BIKEncerto" in 2025/2026 both locally and on tour with the support of her "Live Arts Boston 2024" grant from The Boston Foundation.
Reynaliz has received awards such as The Global Music Awards, the National Arts Center of Canada’s "My First NAC Award," MTV Latin America’s "Agent of Change Award," National Youth Award (Mexico), and PERCUBA (Cuba), and as a percussionist she has performed with renowned ensembles, and venues throughout the world.

Emily Isenberg
Founder & Creative Director, Isenberg Projects

Topic: Power to the People: Tactical Urbanism for a More Connected City

Emily is a creative force in place based work, As Founder and Creative Director, Emily Isenberg has led the creative vision and framed commitments to neighborhood scale since IP’s inception. Emily’s dedication to connecting people to ideas, and places has been a lifelong passion.

Drawing on over 15 years of social design, community engagement, marketing and production, Emily has overseen and led creative activations, engagement programs and pop-ups for large-scale corporations, institutions, universities, and brands in both the public and private sectors across the country.

As a leader, Emily focuses on the intersection of real estate strategy and designed experience for the activation of great public spaces. Often working at multiple scales as a translator between with both private and public clients, she works to develop aspirational yet sustainable and implementable solutions.

When Emily isn’t at work, she’s riding one of her vintage road bikes to Cambridge coffee shops, or to check out local art and cultural experiences in basements, bars and museums alike.

Jarred Johnson
Executive Director, TransitMatters

Topic: Commuter Rail Is Doing Well, But Here's Why I Want It To Disappear

Jarred has been the Executive Director of TransitMatters since 2019. He has overseen the transformation of TransitMatters from an all-volunteer organization into a premier transit advocacy non-profit. Jarred previously worked as a Real Estate Project Manager at Codman Square Neighborhood Development Corporation, where he also served as the Millennium Ten Program Manager. Before that, he co-wrote the City of Boston’s first volunteer plan and launched the “Love Your Block” mini-grant program as an AmeriCorps VISTA. He has an extensive background in political campaigns, including work on the Obama campaign and various state and tribal campaigns.

He holds a B.A. in Mass Communications from Oklahoma City University, is an alumnus of the Institute for Nonprofit Practice and Tufts Tisch College of Civic Life, and is a former Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Culture of Health Leader.

Jarred has embraced a car free lifestyle since moving to Boston 9 years ago. He knows how vital the MBTA is to the lives of so many in the region and to the economy. Jarred has been proud to work with advocates and allies around the region to embolden the MBTA to consider the bigger picture and make bold, meaningful investments. He is particularly excited to make Regional Rail a reality. It has the potential to revolutionize how people live, work, and move around the Greater Boston region and lift up our Gateway Cities. Let's make the county's first transit system first class together!

Liz Luc Clowes
Director of Engagement and Food Forest Construction, Boston Food Forest Coalition

Topic: A network of 30 Food Forests in Boston builds a future of environmentally and socially resilient communities that thrive in many ways.

Liz is the Director of Engagement and Construction at the Boston Food Forest Coalition. She joined the organization a year and a half ago to continue building the network of edible food forest parks. She is a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) and is one of 10 recipients for ASLA’s Women of Color Licensure Advancement Program recipients for 2023-2025.

Liz’s role with BFFC is also to support neighbors in acquiring land and building new food forests in their communities. She does this by listening to community member goals, working through City processes, attending and guiding community meetings throughout the design process, and managing the construction of each new project.

Liz is trained as a landscape architect and has been engaged in various roles related to sustainable design for two decades. During this time she has served in a variety of roles across the field: Sustainable Agriculture Director at a youth development agency; designer and project manager at landscape design and build firms; Conservation Commissioner focused on open space; residential designer; Board Chair of Speak for the Trees, a non-profit working to expand Boston’s canopy; climate committee organizer of landscape architects; and as a small business owner with MWBE status (Minority and Women owned Business Enterprise). Liz also serves on the Climate Action Committee of the Boston Society of Landscape Architects. She's a graduate of Boston Architectural College, and Babson College.

Secretary Tibbits-Nutt
Secretary of Transportation & CEO, Massachusetts Department of Transportation

Topic: The Intersectionality of Safety and Empathy

Monica G. Tibbits-Nutt is the Secretary of Transportation and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation CEO. As Secretary, she is responsible for the four divisions of MassDOT: Highway, Rail and Transit, the Registry of Motor Vehicles, and Aeronautics. In this position, she also serves on the Massport and MBTA Board of Directors. Tibbits-Nutt was previously appointed Undersecretary of Transportation by Governor Healey in January 2023 before being sworn in as Acting Secretary of Transportation in September 2023. As Undersecretary, she led the effort to stand up the first-ever Office of Transportation and Climate Planning and Policy.

Tibbits-Nutt previously served on the MassDOT Board of Directors and as the Vice-Chair of the Fiscal Management and Control Board (FMCB) that oversaw the MBTA from 2015 to 2021. Before joining the
Governor’s Cabinet, she was Executive Director of 128 Business Council, a transportation management association and regional service provider that builds privately funded, cooperative public transportation routes throughout the Route 128 West Corridor. Secretary Tibbits-Nutt is an active American Institute of Certified Planners member and a LEED Accredited Professional in Building Design & Construction with the U.S Green Building Council.

She is a Board Member of TransitCenter and a founding member of YEP – Youth Engagement Planning, a non-profit organization focused on educating young people in grades K-12. Originally hailing from the rural Midwest, she is a first-generation college graduate.

Pete Wilson
Senior Policy Director, T4MA

Topic: Transportation finance and what it means to your community

Pete is a longtime communications and policy expert who has experience in municipal and state government as well as campaign consulting. He served as the Legislative Director for the Massachusetts House Committee on Ways and Means from 2009-2011 and as press secretary and policy advisor to former Senate President Stan Rosenberg. In his free time, he enjoys downhill skiing, playing golf, cycling and spending time with his family.

Giovanny Zuniga Piamba
Transit Justice Organizer, GreenRoots

Topic: Inclusive transportation begins when communities are part of the conversation

Giovanny Zuniga Piamba is a Colombian who emigrated to Chelsea five years ago with his wife and two wonderful children, Valentina and Sebastián. He has a Bachelor's Degree in Business Management, a Master's Degree in Project Management from the University of Lebrija in Madrid, and an MBA in Business Management from EALDE Business School in Florida.

He has experience working in public, cooperative, and solidarity economy entities, supporting vulnerable communities through social investment projects. In these roles, education and information access were fundamental pillars in achieving goals and positive outcomes.

He has participated as a volunteer in different community programs, events, and festivals in Chelsea and East Boston. Additionally, he has facilitated training sessions on topics of interest for Latino communities.

As an immigrant who has gone through the process of adaptation and inclusion, Giovanny has sought to contribute to creating more effective communication channels between Latino communities and their environments. He believes that everyone should have the opportunity to realize what they can achieve with their previous knowledge and experience.

Disclaimer: Though speaker topics have been crafted in partnership with LivableStreets, speakers views are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of LivableStreets.

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