Alumni

A Few of Our Lovely Alumni

Paul: I’m an old teacher – mostly ESL. My students came from all over the world and they are all the best kids. I really want to have peace in the world. I want the U.S. to stop making war on Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, and anyplace else they might be thinking of. I also want all the children in the world to get enough to eat. There is no reason for anyone on this planet to go hungry. There’s plenty of food for everyone. I would like industrial capitalism to stop killing our planet.

K.T. (she/they)
I work in a university library, managing a design studio and teaching principles and processes for making videos and posters, and recently completed an M.A. in Museum Education. I also do work as performer, writer, and book-maker, typically around gender & relationships. I have an interest in mental health and trauma healing, particularly for survivors of sexual assault & intimate partner violence. I’m in my late 20s, white, Jewish, in the dyke-realm of gender & sexuality, nonmonogamous (solo poly), and I was raised rural and poor in the Northeastern US (I’m firmly a city girl now but I have a lot of country pride). I’m an extrovert; dancing, making community, sharing meals, & long conversations bring me joy!

Sarah (she/her)
Plant forager, wannabe circus artist, theater geek. I like searching for delight in the big and small things in the world. I get joy from miniature dance parties, little free libraries, close friends, doomed cooking experiments, and shameless self expression. 

Noah
Hi! Orange is my favorite color (and 2nd favorite fruit). I love foggy, dewy days; funk and nu-disco dance parties; late night snacks. Differential geometry is my preferred branch of math, and for physics (although I don’t understand much) statistical mechanics.

Jay: Music, book, and food lover, white, queer 20-something and a bit of a geek about sexuality, neurodiversity, math & engineering. I love people and like to learn, teach, cook, and experience life with them. Pursuing racial, queer, and disability justice particularly related to capitalism & education.
Cora: A recent graduate of divinity school, she is a life coach and facilitator extraordinaire, and baker of bread…

Anna: A master’s student in education and a lover of literature and poetry…

Chris: A writer by day (and night) and practiced in the ways of transcendental meditation…

Yan: A professor of art history, Asian and Asian American studies…

Carolyn: A running enthusiast with a professional and personal passion for food…

Ricardo: A master cook and artist who plays the guitar and does tatoos…

Sarah: A mathematician who loves hiking and is known in the house for her love of candles…

Ricardo Monroy: Chef, cooking instructor and program coordinator at Take Back The Kitchen (Haley House), a non-profit cooking class program for kids and seniors. Illustrator and other things 😉 Born in Guatemala and loving Boston ! Oyster and seafood lover! Bikes everywhere and likes to dance.

Grey Lee: Well, I’m a long-time cooperator, having lived in coops since my days at Slade Hall Eco-Coop at UVM in the early 90’s. I enjoy the cooking and camaraderie, and of course group process. I used to run an educational farm in the suburbs and like to travel all over the place. Currently, I am the executive director of the US Green Building Council, Massachusetts Chapter, working to build the community of green building professionals and advocate for green building market adoption and public policy at the state and local level. I’ve been at the Cambicoop since 2004.

Samantha: I’ve lived here since 2012 and love the community 11933432_10153493663321113_7917263288648163353_n I’ve found at the coop. Moved to Boston a year prior from upstate NY. My upbringing and my education have inspired in me a desire to transform our world into one that is life-giving and rooted in love. For me, a big part of that is organizing for social and economic justice on a grassroots level and connecting our work to a broader social movement. It’s also about prioritizing relationships, looking within, and always being open to learn and grow.

Dan: I’ve been busking all over the world for the past thirty danyears as a one man band .  Now I’m back in the States and I’ve landed at the Cambridge Coop Club. I really love this place and it looks like I’ll be sticking around for a while. I’m working on a new Peace Wave Generator at the moment. It concentrates the energy of music, turns it into Peace Waves and broadcasts it to all the troubled spots of the world.

Laura R: Native to this area, I’ve called Boston my home for the past few decades.  For me, home is where the heart is, in the presence of my family, friends and now Coop family; yet I love to travel around the U.S. and abroad, visiting old comrades and meeting new ones.  My social nature led me to study Sociology and Social Work, and currently to work administratively in a research lab supporting great science. Living at the Coop has taught me to grow my sentient being in the ways of self-knowledge, mindfulness and awareness, and to be cognizant that beyond the walls of this community, we are indeed bound to the larger community with all beings and nature on our earth.  How then shall we live? Small pleasures of mine include rocks from different places, the music of Stevie Nicks and serious IPAs.  A large pet-peeve of mine is that we’ve allowed for-profit corporations to be given the rights of “people,” and that is not just in my book at all.

Nancy: After living across the U.S. and in Europe for 7 years, while working in a variety of fields and raising my own family, I feel very fortunate to have landed into a new “family” at the Cambridge Coop. I’m finishing the education I started years ago and plan to spend the rest of my life working on water conservation issues. What a great place to do that amongst so many socially and environmentally conscience people! 🙂

Oscar: An architect and student imagining alternative design in cities around the world from Spain to Nepal…

Garga: I come from Kolkata, the capital of Bengal (West Bengal in India) – a city of 15 million people. I remain very much from Kolkata and plan to return there. At present, I am a PhD student studying Visual Perception but my other interests take up more time and still there is not enough time! I am deeply interested in plural and sustainable futures for peoples and cultures, music – mystical and otherwise, understanding what colonialism does to your self-hood . I am trying to decrease my carbon footprint on the earth, slowly and my oppression footprint on other people, generally. I have not succeeded much but I am trying.The Coop is fast becoming my extended family. And yes, we have regular documentary film shows!

Ra: Lover of peace and harmony.  Thrilled to be a part of this  beautiful community. It is stretching me and nurturing my growth in the most interesting and often hilarious ways.  Current roles: Full-time Music Student, Performing Artist, and Teaching Artist.  Lifetime role: Peaceful & Loving Soul.  My heart remembers a time when humanity lived together as one, and honored the innate brilliance of every man, woman, and child. I am here to refresh the collective memory.

Luyao Li: Coming from China, I’ve lived in North America for the past four years. I enjoy seeing different parts of the world, meeting people with different values and lifestyles. Being an astronomy major, I’m curious about nature, and am constantly reflecting on how do I fit-in to this world as an individual human being. My husband is starting up a sustainable farm in rural China, and I’m supporting him in ways that I can. I believe the vast universe is full of unknowns, and a lifetime of an intelligent being is a lifetime of learning and discovering.

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Laura H.: Before moving to the Coop, I spent a few years in Nicaragua working with women and youth at a cultural center in Managua, and now I’m a divinity school student exploring Buddhism, counseling, and community organizing. I’m interested in holistic healing and trauma healing work with grassroots communities. I like to make concoctions of medicinal plants,dance, do yoga, and, of course, meditate.

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Eric: I come from Portland, Maine and I still identify as a Mainer. Science currently feeds me (I’m pursuing a PhD in Psychology), but I wrestle with mystery, plurality, and morality in my spare time. My joys include dance, ultimate, plants, woods, mountains, snow, water, critters, ping-pong, and cooking. I love epic adventures out in the world, but I also appreciate quiet dinners with my housemates.

Bridget: When you meet me, I’ll probably be smiling. I am a native of the always-sunny Littleton, Colorado and am in love with the mountains and the mysteries of the oceans. Science is a highlight in my life, along with making music, gardens, traveling, artwork, photography, herbalism, collecting spoons, dreams, camping, leisurely bike rides, rock climbing, my kitty, and baking. I absolutely love surprises, adventures, spontaneity, and family. I’m super excited to be living in such a down to earth Coop, and to be working together to create a flourishing sustainable community.

Elizabeth: I’m a full-time student studying to be ordained as a minister in the United Church of Christ. Desiring to live again in a politically active community grounded in social justice drew me to the coop. For the record, I’m a single white straight-identified 30-year-old female who spends a lot of time struggling to figure out what to do with my liberal upper middle-class guilt! To offer an in-the-moment snapshot into my everyday life: Tonight I rode my bike back over the river after Greek class to attend a mini-mindfulness retreat, then brought home leftover pie to share with my housemates over tea and chatting in the kitchen, and now I’ve come up to my third-floor room with its beloved bay window to procrastinate on making final revisions to my thesis and to wonder, as I often do, about the extent of my (up)rootedness in New England after having spent most of my life in Southern California.

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Leah: M.A. candidate in women’s health. I thrive on travel. I am passionate about the promotion of holistic health and well-being especially for girls and women and especially for under served populations. I need solo trips. I am an avid hiker. I call Colorado home. Meditation, self-knowledge, authentic voice, and empowerment are important to me. My mother is Colombian and my father is a Brazilian Jew. I wander somewhere in between. Finally, laughter and slow time are critical! The cosmos could collapse tomorrow, and yet here we are now.

Liz! Howdy.  That’s literally how my dad greets people on the street. Howdy Partner. Literally.  And he’s not joking.  He’s serious.  (and yes. he’s often wearing cowboy boots.) I was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona.  Now I live in New England, where people don’t do street greetings.  But I just can’t stop!  I enjoy smiling at, even saying ‘good morning’ to people on the street.  Yes. I’m one of those annoying folk who throw social interaction into uncharted territories.  People scowl back.  I deserve it.  It’s not nice to confuse New Englanders early in the morning. I’ve been living in Boston for almost two years now.  I moved here to study religion in graduate school.  Some other things I do:  go to Outdoor Church, dance, read, make new friends and keep the old, play ‘happy birthday’ and ‘the house of the rising sun’ on the guitar, eat, spin fire, hike and camp and hike, travel around, ride bikes, and do my Arabic homework in the coop kitchen from 6:30 to 8 am. Living in this community is indeed a primary and consistent delight in my life.


Louise: grew up in England, moving to the States when she was 13 years old. Louise studied health and nutrition in college and continues to learn about herbal medicine, energy healing and her spiritual path. Louise is about to embark on a three-month long adventure to the cloud forests of Ecuador in an effort to career transition into conservation and environmental management. She can be found hiking, learning Spanish, playing in the dirt and enjoying our compost!


Marta: My first dog’s name was Sushi. Partial to Earl Grey tea, giant sunflowers and children. Canadian-Ethiopian. Border straddler. Is in the perpetual quest to read or write the perfect sentence. As a Libra seeks balance, as a doctoral student never have any. Believe in true love and dragons and the power of well timed acts of kindness. Favourite word is possibility.  Kind of quiet with pockets of crescendos, especially during the ping-pong games at the house.

Claire: I carry the distinct honor of being the co-op’s newest and youngest member. I just graduated in May from Notre Dame and am loving life in Boston. I currently work at Oxfam and I will be a qualified yoga teacher in December! I like drinking tea, speaking French, reading good books, learning about the world, doing yoga, and cooking (my fellow housies know well my affinity for sweet potatoes, smoothies, hummus, and garlic, among many other things).