Our Team

It takes a Village

Board of Directors

Kali Kirkendall

Founder + Executive Director

Mikolaj Zadecki

Board of Directors

Kristina Joss

Board of Directors

Eric Titus White

Board of Directors

Myra Beaveridge

Board Member

Mia Avrill

Board Member

Kali Kirkendall

Founder + Executive Director

Kali Kirkendall is the Founder and Executive Director of the Blue Atlas Project. She holds a degree in International Relations with a concentration in Development Studies.

With 20 years of experience in food systems and 6 years in nonprofit management, Kali has combined her background in sustainable agriculture with a proven ability to scale impact. Her career spans raising over $600k in funding, organizing training, and providing small shareholder grants to farmers across the Caribbean and Uganda. She has also worked extensively across food systems—from smallholder farms and CSA programs to wholesale markets and farm-to-table initiatives—while conducting international fieldwork on how local food systems strengthen economies and improve public health.

Through the Blue Atlas Project, she leads efforts to advance food security and climate resilience in vulnerable communities worldwide.

Mikolaj Zadecki

Board of Directors

Mikolaj Zadecki is a business consultant and entrepreneur with a passion for social, environmental, and humanitarian causes. He has dedicated a lot of his spare time in his adult life to supporting initiatives aimed at bettering the conditions of people and their planet. He is a lifelong believer in the wisdom and necessity of sustainability in all human activities and was an early supporter of the ideas that led to the Blue Atlas mission.

Today he lends his energy, his network, and business expertise to that mission’s fulfillment. He hopes to join the Project in a more active role in the near future. Mikolaj lives in Charleston with his dog, Jerry.

Kristina Joss

Board of Directors

Kristina currently serves as GlobalGiving’s Vice President of Growth, where she is responsible for creating and executing a comprehensive donor engagement strategy to achieve annual revenue and volume growth in service of GlobalGiving’s mission to accelerate community-led change.

Before joining the team, Kristina worked as a sustainability consultant for Salterbaxter in the US and Business in the Community in the UK, working closely with Fortune 500 companies to develop their CSR strategies. She has more than a decade of experience in communications and marketing in both the private and nonprofit sectors. Kristina earned an MSc in environment and development from the University of Edinburgh and a BSc in communications and international development from the University of Miami.

Outside of work, you will find Kristina exploring the outdoors, playing sports, or traveling. She lives in Washington, DC, with her husband and three-year-old son.

Eric Titus White

Board of Directors

Eric brings 10 years of humanitarian work to the Blue Atlas Board. Working in the middle east, aiding in the building of refugee camps and the rebuilding process in post-conflict zones through his company Grand Array Inc. and previously, AERO. He has served on the board of All Together Now PA, heading their food coalition initiative and planning their events. He brings with him years of sustainable food production from running his own large-scale organic farm, Hempstead. He joined the BA board in the middle of 2022 and acts as a key member for organizational focus and direction. Eric resides in Pennsylvania but can frequently be found in airports worldwide.

Myra Beaveridge

Board Member

Myra grew up on her grandfather’s farm in Nassau, Bahamas; always enjoy experiencing the life cycle of animals and plants year after year. Presently, studying Animal and Plant Science at The Bahamas Agriculture and Marine Science institute (BAMSI). After moving to Marsh Harbor and experiencing Hurricane Dorian (2019), food security has become a focus for her and a priority for her community. She brings passion and knowledge to the Blue Atlas Team.

Mia Avrill

Board Member

A self-proclaimed citizen of CARICOM, Mia was born and raised in Castries, St. Lucia, which inspired her passion for the environment. She has since studied and worked throughout the region, from as far south as Trinidad and Tobago all the way up to Jamaica. She is currently based in the Bahamas, where she works at the Cape Eleuthera Island School, managing an aquaponics system and teaching students.

She also spent some time in the South Pacific, adding to her diversity of experience and knowledge and also demonstrating her adventurous and uninhibited nature.

Her current professional interests are in the development of freshwater aquaculture in the Caribbean region, as she holds an MSc in Marine Science with special focus on aquaponics.
When she’s not busy drowning fish, she can be found exploring new places and foods, attempting a jigsaw puzzle, or reading in a hammock on a beach.