Board of Directors
The Karuna Foundation Board of Directors is composed of friends of Eric Lemelson. Collectively, they boast a wide-ranging set of professional credentials and an array of skills and experiences that contribute to Karuna Foundation’s creative grantmaking.
Eric Lemelson
Eric Lemelson is the President and Founder of the Karuna Foundation, Vice President and Treasurer of the Lemelson Foundation, an environmental lawyer, a winery owner, and a climate change and energy policy activist.
Jennifer Bruml
Jennifer Bruml is an active community volunteer involved with a number of organizations in Portland, Oregon. The majority of her work focuses on homeless youth, primary through high school science education and art education. She is currently on the board of The Lemelson Foundation, OMSI, Our Table Cooperative and Pear.
Lisa Danzig
Lisa Danzig is an infectious diseases physician and Vice President of Clinical Development and Medical Affairs at PaxVax. She spent over 18 years at Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics where she worked on the development and licensure of meningococcal vaccines and blood screening solutions. She is an independent director at OrSense, serves on the boards of the Merola Opera Program and the Karuna Foundation and is an advisor to the Lemelson Foundation, Kernel, and the Batchery.
jeremiah lemelson
Jeremiah is a returning student at Brandeis University studying anthropology and political science. He took leave from college in February of 2022 and pursued various interests during his time away, which ranged from working with a general contractor in Portland, Oregon, taking a semester of woodworking school in rural Vermont, to working for an environmental justice non-profit in Brooklyn, New York. He is passionate about justice in all forms, any machines that tick, good R&B and poetry, and good friends. In his free time, he loves to read, write, polemicize, and spend time enjoying the unparalleled beauty of the natural world.
Tom Novick
Tom Novick is a partner at M+R, a progressive national public affairs company, and a former Oregon State legislator with 40 years of experience working on public policy issues and campaigns at the state and national levels. Tom currently works with numerous foundations, funder collaboratives, organizations and individual philanthropists, providing evaluation services and strategic and political assessments.
Julia Novy
Julia is a Lecturer at Stanford University, with research and teaching focused on building a sustainable society - integrating human and ecological priorities. A World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, Clinton Global Initiative Topic Leader, Fulbright and Marshall Scholar, and graduate of Stanford University, Julia has served as a non-profit leader and foundation executive for 20 years – advancing social enterprise throughout the developing world, creating new market-based approaches to conservation, and authoring articles and book chapters on innovation, sustainable development and impact investing.
Patrick Maloney
As the head of Occam Advisors, Patrick Maloney advises foundations, financial institutions and individuals on investments that combine financial, social and environmental returns. He has previously worked for Google.org, Lemelson Foundation and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize for Peace.
Holly Pruett
Holly Pruett has a masters degree in organizational development and has worked as a leader and consultant with non-governmental organizations at the state and national level in the US since 1985. Additionally, as a secular Celebrant certified in Thanatology she supports families and communities with building resiliency amidst individual and collective grief.
Amy Wong
Amy Wong is a Portland-based attorney who earned a JD with a certificate in Environment and Natural Resources Law from Lewis and Clark Law School. Asia has long been an area of interest, as Amy lived in Beijing for three years while studying Chinese. In addition to serving on the Karuna Foundation board, Amy runs the Oregon Organic Coalition. She previously was the Policy Director for Friends of Family Farmers, and also served as the Chief of Staff to Oregon State Senator Jeff Golden.
In Memoriam
Lafcadio Cortesi (1961-2022)
Lafcadio Cortesi was a founding Board Member of the Karuna Foundation. As a dedicated and passionate environmental and social advocate, Lafcadio’s work took him around the world, including to Bhutan. We are grateful for the time Lafcadio shared with us and we honor his spirt and energy through our ongoing work.
Staff
Lindsay Skog, Executive director
Prior to joining Karuna Foundation in 2019, Lindsay spent several years living, working, and researching in the Eastern Himalaya. Her research and expertise includes the societal impact of climate change, human and sacred geography of the Himalaya, and the social politics of environmental change. Lindsay spent over 15 years teaching Environment-Society Geography courses at several U.S. universities and colleges, as well as with the School for Field Studies Program in Bhutan, as well as leading studying abroad programs in India and Nepal. Lindsay is a Fulbright and National Science Foundation scholar and she holds a PhD in Geography from The University of Colorado at Boulder. Lindsay is also an alumna of Interlochen Arts Academy, were she trained in classical and opera voice performance and piano.