Melissa Bumstead is the founder and co-director of Parents Against Santa Susana Field Lab (SSFL). The SSFL is one of California’s most toxic places and the site of one of America’s worst nuclear meltdowns, located in the hills outside Los Angeles. Melissa became an accidental activist for the site’s complete cleanup when her four-year-old daughter was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of leukemia and after she kept meeting other cancer families in her neighborhood. She is featured in the Emmy-nominated documentary, “In the Dark of the Valley,” screening on Peacock TV.

Denise Duffield is the Associate Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles (PSR-LA.) She directs PSR-LA's Nuclear Threats program, which advocates for nuclear weapons abolition and policies that prevent exposure to radioactive waste and contamination. Denise serves on the Steering Committee of Back from the Brink: Bringing Communities Together to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a national grassroots disarmament campaign. She also leads PSR-LA’s efforts to fully clean up the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, a contaminated nuclear site near LA. Denise represents PSR-LA in the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, a national network of organizations located near nuclear weapons production and waste cleanup.

Cathy Iwane, a UCSB alum and mother of two, boasts a 25-year career as an English teacher in Wakayama, Japan. Completing her post-graduate studies at the Wakayama Institute of Foreign Studies in ‘94, she achieved JLPT N1 fluency in Japanese. Co-founding Gaia English Academy in 1990, she shaped its immersive curriculum and global teaching staff until 1998. Having lived through the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdowns, she spearheaded a fruitful campaign to prevent Japan’s nationwide plan to incinerate radioactive debris at filter-less waste processing centers in Wakayama. After evacuating to San Diego in 2012, she championed the closure of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station by serving as interpreter to Japanese Prime Minister, Naoto Kan and speaking publicly. Cathy leverages her experiences to raise awareness about nuclear waste storage risks with NPOs, San Clemente Green and Public Watchdogs. Currently, she’s working to pass California State Legislation, ‘CalSafe Nuclear Waste Storage Plan Act.’

Linda Seeley has served as Vice-President and spokesperson for San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace since 2009 and has been a member of the Diablo Canyon Decommissioning Engagement Panel since its inception in 2018. She retired from a 32-year career as a certified nurse-midwife. Mother of 3, grandmother of 3, and great-grandmother of one baby boy, she understands the existential threat of climate change effects on the aging fleet of nuclear reactors. She is very concerned about the triple threat of sea level rise, vulnerable radioactive waste storage and the connection between nuclear power and nuclear weapons.