Meet
Our Team
of Experts

Climate STARR Collaborative

Climate Strategies for Trauma, Action, Resilience, & Regeneration

The Climate STARR Collaborative convened in 2023 to develop the Climate STARR training curriculum. The team brings expertise in trauma, resilience, climate psychology, restorative justice, conflict transformation, sustainability, indigenous wisdom, theology, law, diversity and inclusion, and immigration.

Climate STARR is modeled after the successful “mother” program, Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR), a justice-and-conflict informed curriculum developed in response to the collective trauma of 9/11 - located at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, Eastern Mennonite University. For over two decades, STAR has equipped thousands of community leaders in over thirty countries and many US states to build resilience in the face of natural disasters, conflict, and systemic injustice. Climate STARR leverages this proven framework, applying the concepts and principles to the psychological and social impacts of climate change. As with STAR, the Climate STARR curriculum will be adapted to reflect unfolding research, the cultural context, and insights gained from the communities and participants we serve.

The Collaborative members share a common background of years of experience as STAR trainers in the US and internationally. Meet our Collaborative members!

Climate STARR Collaborative

Carolyn Yoder, MA, LPC, NCC

Executive Director
Carolyn is a licensed psychotherapist and international individual and collective trauma and resilience trainer. She is the Founding Director of Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR), the convener of the Climate STARR collaborative, and author of The Little Book of Trauma Healing: When Violence Strikes and Community Security is Threatened. Her climate work is motivated by her love for her four grandchildren and young people everywhere.
Beverly Bushyhead, MA, MPA (she/her)

Director of Administration & Marketing
Beverly is an enrolled citizen of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. She has 20 years of experience in nonprofit management and public administration and is passionate about building liberating and healing tools for generational, historical and collective trauma. She is the Leadership Visionary and Restorative Practitioner at Bushyhead Consulting, where she partners with organizations to create transformative and sustainable change. She lives in St Paul, Minnesota.
David Anderson Hooker, PhD, JD, MDiv 

David’s expertise in conflict, civil rights, reconciliation, narratives, and community organizing has taken him around the globe, to universities (including Notre Dame  and Boston University), and to his own neighborhood as a community builder. He is the author of The Little Book of Transformative Community Conferencing, a Hopeful, Practical Approach to Dialogue and the Founder and Principal Narrator for CounterStories Consulting LLC in Atlanta, Georgia.
Donna Minter, PhD, (she/her)

Sustainability Advisor
Donna is a licensed psychologist with specialties in trauma, resilience, peacebuilding, neuropsychology, and forensic psychology. As the founder of Minnesota Peacebuilding Leadership Institute, she brought the STAR Training concepts of trauma healing and resilience, restorative justice, and racial equity to more than 16,000 people in her region. She is the instigator of the Grammy Ride – Grammy Rides Across America for Climate Action to raise awareness and funds for climate action organizations. She brings passion and enthusiasm to all her work.
Saulo Padilla, MA

As the US Immigration Education National Program Director of Mennonite Central Committee, Saulo coordinates immigration law training for nonprofits and leads Borderlands Learning Tours on the Mexico/US border. He is co-creator of the STAR based immigration and migration training. Born in Guatemala, he is a Canadian citizen who now lives in South Bend, Indiana. His personal experience of applying STAR principles to his life experiences imbues his work with compassion and wisdom.
Rev. Sue S. Park-Hur, MA (she/her)

Sue is the director of racial/ethnic engagement for Mennonite Church USA. She is co-founder and co-director of ReconciliAsian, a peace center in Los Angeles specializing in conflict transformation, restorative justice, and trauma and resilience for the Asian immigrant communities. Born in a divided Korea and raised in the States, her passion is to be an agent of healing and reconciliation. Sue resides in Pasadena, California.
Wayne Teel, PhD.

Science Advisor
Climate STARR collaborative members are advised by Wayne Teel, PhD, a specialist in ecology, soil, biochar, and environmental science in the Department of Integrated Science and Technologies, James Madison University. He is an expert gardener and grows native trees and plants around his straw-bale insulated home in Keezletown, Virginia. In 2024, Dr. Teel received first place in the Personal Mobility category of the EPA’s My Electric Ride: An EV Transportation Video Challenge.
Elaine Zook Barge, MA

Elaine is a resilience/trauma educator and consultant. Her work in Central America as program director for an NGO in the 1980’s and 1990’s, a time of conflict and war, brought her to STAR (Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience). She served as STAR Director for eight years, led trainings on six continents and compiled Village STAR, a resource for shorter training experiences. In addition, she is the co-creator of two specialized STAR-based trainings, one focused on incarceration and the other on migration - Addressing the Impact and Trauma of Migration.