Lisa Arkin is the Executive Director of the Beyond Toxics, providing innovative policy leadership and grassroots organizing for this statewide environmental justice organization since 2007. Under her guidance, Beyond Toxics organized the first Oregon Environmental Justice Bus Tour, the first set of regional environmental justice forums and is currently preparing for Oregon’s inaugural Environmental Justice Pathways Summit. She is an appointed member of a number of state workgroups, including Governor Brown’s Cleaner Air Oregon Policy Advisory Committee and the State Pesticide Stewardship Partnership Advisory Committee. Arkin’s work with Beyond Toxics develops grassroots movements to demand the highest standards of protective and equitable policies in environmental regulations by transitioning away from pesticide, protecting farm workers, reducing air toxics and promoting climate justice. She is dedicated to placing human rights and social justice at the forefront of all environmental protection and climate resiliency policies. Prior to finding her passion as an environmental advocate, Arkin enjoyed a career in dance and taught in the dance departments of Stanford University and the University of Oregon, She directed community dance companies in San Francisco and New Orleans. Attracted to both the arts and science, she also attended a doctoral program at Tulane University in neurophysiology. Arkin is the granddaughter of Russian Jewish immigrants who fled pogroms and persecution to pursue their dream of becoming farmers.