Our Staff
Melissa Bosley
Senior Organizer and Operations Manager
Melissa leads SBU's organizing to bring neighbors together and strengthen community power. As Operations Manager, she also coordinates programs and helps the whole staff keep sight of our mission in the office.
She is a passionate community organizer, advocate, and storyteller focused on the connection between built environments and communities. As a Bronx native, she engages with her community through the power of storytelling, addressing the material inadequacies she has witnessed firsthand. Melissa graduated from The City College of New York (CUNY), where she double-majored in political science and history. After graduating, she joined BronxWorks, advocating for homelessness prevention among Bronx residents. This experience inspired her to explore alternative approaches to securing safe, affordable, and adequate housing.
Melissa completed her Master’s Degree in Design of Urban Ecologies at Parsons School of Design. She worked closely with grassroots organizations to understand the effects of urban design on communities and how those communities organize to combat the negative consequences of such designs, from the physical spaces to policies. Melissa remains committed to serving her community through her work with SBU, emphasizing the importance of Bronx residents telling their own stories through advocacy and direct action. In her free time, Melissa enjoys reading, writing, playing basketball, photography, and watching films!
Anjali T. Chen
Managing Director
Anjali oversees administration, operations, and finance at South Bronx Unite. She supports the critical work of the amazing SBU staff and board team.
She is a mission-driven nonprofit management leader, working most recently as interim Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer for non-profits in transition. Before that, she was Director of Operations at Groundwork USA (a national environmental network) for nearly a decade. She managed immense growth and change at the national office and worked closely with its 20 chapters across the country to address their organizational challenges.
Anjali brings extensive environmental and public policy experience to her work, gained in her years as a Senior Economist and Energy Analyst with consulting firms in Washington DC and with non-profits. An activist since her college days, Anjali is now a local Planning Board member in her hometown of Hastings-on-Hudson, an Advisory Board member of the New York Community Trust-Westchester, and serves on the Westchester County Asian American Advisory Board since 2020. Anjali received her B.A. in Economics & Sociology from Brandeis University, and her M.A. in Environmental Policy from Columbia University's School of International & Public Affairs.
Mychal Johnson
Founding Board Member & Organizational Lead
Mychal is a community-based advocate for environmental, economic, and social justice in the South Bronx, a co-founder of South Bronx Unite (SBU), and a founding member of the Mott Haven-Port Morris Community Land Stewards (CLS), where he is a board member. As board/staff liaison, Mychal oversees strategic direction and program implementation on a day-to-day basis at both SBU and CLS.
Mychal is a long-time activist organizing for greater access to open green space, truly affordable housing, a healthier quality of life, and community-focused development that supports, not displaces, residents. He serves on the board of directors of the NYC Community Land Initiative (NYCCLI), the Bronx Council for Environmental Quality, and the Community Advisory Board of Columbia University’s NIEHS Center for Environmental Health in Northern Manhattan. Mychal was also appointed as a civil society voting member of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Open Space Committee. He has been a member of Bronx Community Board 1 and was notably selected by the United Nations to serve as one of 38 global civil society appointees to the historic UN Climate Summit in 2014.
Javier Marchand
Air Quality Advocate
Javier leads South Bronx Unite’s Air Quality Program. He collaborates with our team at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, working with SBU’s network of 65 Air Quality Monitors deployed throughout the South Bronx.
Raised in the Bronx, he knows all too well the consequences of environmental injustice.
He now lives in the Melrose section of the South Bronx, and is an active member of The Rainbow Garden of Life and Health, a small but vibrant urban farm.
Additionally, Javier serves as the Bronx Representative for the USDA Farm Service Agency Urban County Committee. In this role, he aims to ensure that the Committee becomes a supportive partner for New York’s urban farms, particularly in underserved communities. He believes that by serving as a source of education, information, and support, the Urban County Committee can help urban farms throughout the city become a model for combating food deserts and their impact on community health.
Kaila Paulino
Community Organizer
Kaila Paulino is SBU’s Community Organizer. A long-time community activist in the South Bronx and beyond, Kaila is a singer, drummer, songwriter, and poet. She uses art and culture to connect to the spirit of liberation, love, resilience, and unity that guided our ancestors in stewarding these lands.
Kaila is also an educator and a healer, and has worked and volunteered with many local organizations over the years. She works in several community gardens in the South Bronx, especially Friends of Brook Park Community Garden. As a holistic health practitioner, Kaila serves community healing through connection to land and waters, auricular acupuncture, herbalism, sound therapy, Reiki, and massage. She’s passionate about creating intergenerational safe spaces for our communities to heal and share blessings.
Kaila was born in the Bronx to Caribbean parents, is bilingual in Spanish/English, and enjoys providing translation/interpretation in community spaces to empower and bring people together.
Lori Schlabach
Director of Finance and Operations
HEArts Center & Community Land Stewards
Lori Schlabach leads the financial and operational planning for the HEArts Center.
She is a Finance, HR, and Operations professional who has spent the last 15 years helping nonprofit organizations run more effectively.
Lori has built her skills in a variety of roles at Hester Street, a NYC-based nonprofit organization that partnered with NYC communities and government agencies to ensure neighborhoods were shaped by their residents. There, she managed the internal workings of the organization, from finance to hiring to HR, all through an equity lens.
Lori started her career as an ESL teacher and administrator in Tianjin, China. She also spent 5 years in media and publishing in rural Ohio, where she grew up. She moved to NYC in 2008 and lives in Brooklyn. In her free time, she loves theater (watching and performing), travel, and reading.
Matthew Shore
Director of Planning and Development
Matthew leads the advancement of South Bronx Unite’s capital projects via project management, community planning, and organizing.
He is an embedded planner, organizer and policy enthusiast inspired by grassroots movements focused on community stewardship, health, and racial justice. A Bronxite from Bedford Park, he’s active in Bronx-based efforts that aim to upend extractive planning and development in exchange for long-term community-led solutions that build our right to self-determination boroughwide, like the Northwest Bronx Community & Clergy Coalition’s campaign for shared ownership of the Kingsbridge Armory. Prior to joining South Bronx Unite, he supported anti-displacement organizing for small businesses and learned from the City’s oldest CLT as an ANHD Graduate Fellow for Cooper Square Committee. He also helped kickstart efforts to build an open space equity coalition between several nonprofits in Brooklyn CB1. He provided research and administrative support for the passage of the CLCPA while working as an Environmental and Urban Policy Analyst for the NYS Assembly.
Matthew obtained a B.A. in Public Policy from SUNY Albany and an M.S. Urban Planning degree from Columbia University, where he critically engaged with the City’s work regarding climate justice, flooding resilience, rezoning, affordable housing, and street vending in frontline communities in the Bronx and Harlem. When free, he enjoys parks, soccer, international movies, and chats with his cats!
Jada Tulloch
Youth Engagement & Environmental Justice Educator
Jada is an Environmental Justice Educator and Youth Engagement Coordinator at South Bronx Unite, where she leads hands-on programs that connect New York City public school students to the local waterways, water infrastructure, and green spaces that shape their communities.
As a budding Caribbean-American ecologist with a background in biology, ethnobotany, and public health, Jada’s work is grounded in a deep reverence for the climate and ecological knowledge that exists in every corner of our city. This knowledge is rooted in stories of diaspora, displacement, and the generational relationships people have with land, water, and each other.
Before joining South Bronx Unite, Jada worked as a GIS Environmental Educator at NYC H2O, leading field programs that connected NYC public school students to their local waterways, water infrastructure, and green spaces. She has also conducted environmental health research at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and contributed to community science projects with the New York Botanical Garden and the Shinnecock Nation.
Our partners
Markus Hilpert
Scientific and Public Health Advisor
Dr Markus Hilpert and his team from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health have supported South Bronx Unite since 2016 to evaluate the environmental health impacts of industry and pollution on the South Bronx.
Markus is an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University and an expert in environmental pollutant transport working at the interface between environmental engineering and environmental health.
Currently, Dr. Hilpert’s group helps South Bronx Unite with analyzing the air quality data that is collected by the air quality monitoring network that has been deployed in the South Bronx.
Brandon LaFontaine
Civic Engagement Fellow
Brandon is a Civic Engagement Fellow through CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance. He’s focused on encouraging South Bronx residents to participate in local politics. A Mott Haven native, Brandon knows the struggles this community faces and shares a passion to help.
He’s a senior at Hunter College getting a BA in Political Science. While at Hunter, he’s worked for NYPIRG (New York Public Interest Research Group) as an intern and board of directors. He has focused on encouraging college students to register to vote.
As an organizer at NYPIRG, he has lobbied for bills like the Climate Change SuperFund Act, the New Deal for CUNY, and the Bigger Better Bottle Bill in Albany. As a board of directors, he helped manage the budget and expand interests of the organization, and more. He continues to support the organization overall.
In his free time, Brandon crushes his friends in Mario Kart on the Nintendo Switch, rock climbs, and leaves the city to go hiking.
Edwin Pagán
Arts and Events Liaison
Edwin Pagán helps South Bronx Unite curate events that bring our community together.
He is a Bronx-based multidisciplinary artist—photographer, filmmaker, curator, graphic designer, and cultural activist with over 35 years of hands-on experience in both the non-profit and commercial sectors.
He’s assisted the Bronx Council on the Arts (BCA), Association of Hispanic Arts (AHA), Black Filmmaker Foundation, and We STAY/Nos Quedamos.
Eddie has also managed the Bronx Culture Collective (BxCC), a coalition of 16 South Bronx organizations focused on social, health, technical, and environmental issues, including gentrification, via an organizing practice he’s coined “Cultural Identity Reclamation,” as a means of expanding community-based engagement and arts participation in the South Bronx.
During this period, he helped develop and curate Stage Garden Rumba, a project that brought culture into ten community gardens and alternative green spaces.
He has served on the boards of various cultural organizations, including the National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP), was president of its New York chapter, and the Hispanic Organization of Latino Actors (HOLA).
Eddie co-founded Seis del Sur, a photo collective of photojournalists and documentary photographers who have documented the South Bronx for over four decades. He’s a lifelong horror fan and founded the online portal LATIN HORROR in 2008.
David Rosales
Communications Associate
David leads storytelling and public communication efforts for South Bronx Unite, helping the organization’s message resonate with clarity, purpose, and heart.
A writer by trade, David brings a background in creative writing and digital marketing to his role. He studied the timeless principles of persuasion at New York University while staying fluent in the 21st century’s emerging media platforms. As a freelance writer, he cut his teeth in the dog-eat-dog world of internet marketing, but has always found his way back to the issues he’s passionate about.
Originally from Vermont, David has brought a passion for nature with him to the South Bronx. He’s a steward at Maria Sola Green Space, a nearby community garden, and a passionate composter.
Outside of South Bronx Unite, David writes about sustainability, traveling, and language learning (he’s trilingual). He believes that communication is one of the most powerful tools for shaping a more just world. He lives with his partner Shylin in Mott Haven, and spends too much of his free time arguing about bike lanes on TikTok.
Taleigh Smith
Grant Writer
Taleigh Smith is a key member of South Bronx Unite’s fundraising team.
She is a strategic planner, grant writer, and environmental consultant with over twenty years of experience in the non-profit sector, including shaping international climate change policy and negotiating with developers to integrate environmental standards, local hiring, and opportunities for youth.
She launched the Bronx Green Contractor Association and the Bronx Youth Green Jobs Academy, promoting environmental literacy, climate science and renewable energy. She was selected by the Applied Research Center Green Cohort for Racial and Gender Equity and as a Fellow for Public Health and Climate Change in Cuba. She is certified in Permaculture and Advanced Social Systems Design; Building Envelope Analysis; Green Walls & Roofs; and Urban Stormwater Management.