Brandon One
Brandon Bir is a coffee and sustainability professional with a passion for equality and community development. When he’s not traveling to coffee-growing countries to teach classes focused on quality and sensory science or working on zero waste at the SCA Campus in Columbus, Bir can be found representing the CrimsonCup, speaking to students at universities and events around the world.
As the Director of Sustainability, Bir is developing recent sustainable practices for all professionals in the coffee value chain. Brandon is a certified Q Instructor Assistant, SCA Content Creator and holds a Masters from the University of Wisconsin.
Taya Brown
Dr. Taya Brown is an agronomist and participatory researcher who specializes in smallholder coffee production systems. She spent the better part of seven years living with smallholder coffee farmers in Guatemala and studying innovation and profitability in Central America. She has worked with enormous and miniature coffee farmers, roasters, importers, and organizations such as SCA, CQI, WCR, Anacafé, Starbucks Foundation, and Dunkin’. Taya is happiest when mentoring the next generation of coffee professionals and facilitating cross-cultural educational exchange and capacity building. She co-founded the nonprofit Del Fuego Project, which supports education throughout the coffee supply chain, and has organized numerous educational events designed to bring roasters and other coffee enthusiasts face-to-face with farmers for candid discussions on significant issues. Taya is currently completing a postdoctoral fellowship at USDA-ARS in Hilo, Hawaii, focusing on identifying cultural management of leaf rust to lend a hand maintain farm profitability in the presence of rust.
Vera Espindola Rafael
Vera is a development economist who focuses on farmers’ resilience and livelihoods. She currently leads the strategic initiatives of the export company Azahar Coffee, in particular the production cost studies for “A Sustainable Coffee Buyer’s Guide”, a pricing tool, and leads the export operations in Mexico. As an advisor to the Mexican Secretary of Agriculture, she focuses on specific coffee-related activities such as living and income from well-being. Since 2016, she has been part of the Mexican delegation of the International Coffee Organization.
Her work began with the analysis of agricultural supply chains while working at ANACAFE’s research division, from where she continued at UTZ Certified, heading the global coffee and cocoa program, and then focusing on Latin America. From 2016 to 2018, Vera worked with the Mexican Secretary of Agriculture on the country’s coffee renovation plan, with an average investment of $70 million.
Susan Heller Evenson
Susan Heller Evenson is the Africa and Continental Asia (India, Myanmar, and Laos) Sales Representative for Atlas Coffee Importers. Her mission is to strengthen relationships between Atlas specialty coffee producers and North American coffee roasters.
With a special interest in the complexities of coffee logistics, she is an Excel nerd and a certified Q Arabica sorter. Susan lives in Seattle with her family and when she’s not cupping/trading coffee for work, she can be found in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest.
David Lalonde
David is the founder, roaster and buyer of Rabbit Hole Roasters based in Montreal, Canada.
While taste is paramount, he decided to focus on trying to have a greater impact at the source, engaging with farmers in a way that would provide them with stability and a living income, harvest after harvest.
David enjoys devoting his time to studying various aspects of social justice and connecting those issues to the coffee industry.
Mitchell Belt
Lane Mitchell is a leader in specialty coffee and sustainability with a focus on equity and community development. With over 30 years of artistic and strategic leadership in sales and marketing, Lane serves coffee by creating relationship-based success and product innovation with sustainability at its core.
Focused on building teams that create and champion disciplined ideation channels and strategies that drive sales, build communities, escalate brand recognition, and strengthen the bottom line while creating and nurturing flourishing, equitable, and regenerative coffee value systems.
Lane is honored to serve on the Leadership Council of the USA Chapter of the Specialty Coffee Association. She serves on the Strategic Committee for the US Coffee Championships and serves as a sensory judge for the US Barista Championships. She co-leads the Women in Coffee Project, which supports women throughout the coffee value chain.
As an expert in coffee sustainability, Lane has spoken and presented on gender equity at the Specialty Coffee Association Annual Expo. She has taught sustainability at George Washington University School of Business and Lees-McRae College in North Carolina. Lane joined Vanderbilt University’s Coffee Equity Lab as a mentor in 2021 and is honored to continue serving coffee while supporting sustainability programs.
Julia Housh
Julie currently serves as the Director of Education, Research and Development at Carvela Coffee.
Julie is an SCA Authorised Trainer (AST) for Sustainability, Barista and Brewing. Prior to joining Caravela, she worked in the Sustainability and Knowledge Development team at SCA, supporting a variety of sustainability and education projects and events, including the Price Crisis Response Initiative (2019).
Jenn Rugolo
Jenn Rugolo is a curator and editor who aims to communicate elaborate ideas in specialty coffee through a wide range of media. Always curious about how people create culture and belonging through different activities, Jenn has a BA in Ad Hoc Music (Northwestern University) and an MA in Ethnomusicology (University College Cork). Before taking on her current role as Curatorial Director at the Specialty Coffee Association, Jenn worked in designing and running informal learning platforms in roles at 3FE, World Coffee Events, Facebook and Tamper Tantrum.
As a Partner at Playset Coffee, Jenn spends her “free time” supporting the growth of specialty coffee through projects that are based on collaborative learning and sharing.
Jenn’s current work mainly focuses on: 2004 evolution of the SCA cupping system a holistic coffee valuation systemrecognizing internal and external attributes in four separate assessments, and Sustainable Coffee SCA An agenda that takes a systems approach toaddressing the issue of fair distribution of values throughout sector.
