CreatIVE and leadership team

As one of the founding members of  the Somerville Community Growing Center, Lisa Brukilacchio was highly motivated by her own childhood experiences to foster an environment where all ages and abilities can discover how to apply their passions and talents towards building a model of inclusion, sustainability, citizen engagement and cultural exploration. Her experience bridges clinical and community health, environmental education and stewardship, municipal government and teaching in out-of-school settings, as well as undergraduate and graduate level venues. Lisa has served on numerous non-profit boards in the areas of inclusion, social justice, food equity, education, and environment. Currently, she is involved with the Nature Connection in Concord and Mothers Out Front-Medford & the MOF Healthy Soil Livable Future Action Group.

Website Photographer

Tony Duong is a photographer and community planner based in the Boston area. Currently living in Medford, his professional, academic, and personal journey extends from his Vietnamese immigrant family in a Michigan suburb, in pursuit of learning about how people cultivate their relationship with places. With this perspective, he enjoys capturing the connection between form and space, seeking harmony within light and color, crafting a moment worth telling. More sensibly, he aims to use photography to enhance his perception of others and discover how he, himself, relates to his own spaces.

Concept, Community Engagement, Programming, Website Maintenance

A Somerville (Davis Square) resident of 23 years, Tom volunteers with the Somerville Community Growing Center, Somerville Stands Together, the Climate Coalition of Somerville, the Cambridge/Somerville node and Solidarity Working Group of 350Mass, and The Racial Justice Collaborative. He taught Queer and Gender Studies, Theater and Performance Studies, and Climate Justice at Brandeis University (Waltham, MA) for 31 years. Prior to joining the academy, Tom worked as a theater artist, with training as a director and making a living as an Actors Equity stage manager. In recent years he has been part of the creative team of the Artists' Theater of Boston, with which he most recently co-produced and directed Now Is Still Here: Climate Change Theatre Action 2026 at the Somerville Community Growing Center.  Through a Public Humanities/Community Engagement Grant from the Mandel Center for the Humanities at Brandeis University (Waltham, Massachusetts), Tom created and curates Urban Pastorals as a vehicle for imagining justice between and within generations and among species. A  2026 NAS Creative Community: New England fellow, he centers equity-driven design principles.

Website Design and Branding

Lee is a full time Graphic and Web Designer and part time Compost Coordinator at the Somerville Community Growing Center. They enjoy gardening, interior design, and reading, and are passionate about sustainability and mutual aid. In their free time, they can be found playing games with friends, reading on their porch, or rearranging their furniture for the millionth time.

Aparna is a writer, chemical engineer, & amateur crossword  constructor based in Cambridge, MA. She edited the anthology Reflections of the Land (Literary Cleveland, 2022). HOME FREE (Game  Over Books, 2025) is her debut full length poetry collection. When not  writing, you can find her organizing/hosting/curating open mics around  the greater Boston area, including the Poetry in the Garden series at  the Somerville Community Growing Center.

Yolanda He Yang is an installation and performance artist.

Her work employs the hidden power of subtlety and ephemerality that often tie to the labor, materiality and storytelling. Her site-responsive practice has evolved through residencies that attune to the distinct material and social conditions of each place — from prehistoric sites in Cairo and Luxor, Egypt, to a demolition and construction recycling site at RAIR (PA), to cornfields at Villkulla Residency (NE), and an upcoming residency in nature at the Marble House Project (VT). Through these contexts, her research process engages observation, embodied response, and collaboration with local environments to uncover the layered temporalities and ecologies embedded within each site.

Yolanda’s work has been exhibited in both public and indoor places, including Harvard Square, Brookline Arts Center, The Rose Kennedy Greenway, Vox Populi in Philadelphia, Villekulla Farm in Nebraska, Artists Studio in Cairo & Luxor, Wind H Art Center, MG Space in Beijing, Flux Factory in New York, Rockwell in Somerville among others. 

She is a recipient of Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Opportunity Fund from Mayor Office of Arts and Culture in City of Boston, Collective Future Funds Ongoing Platform Grant, Boston Chinatown Community Grant, and Cambridge Arts Association among others. As a recently awarded 2025 MassCreative fellow, she continues to lead Behind VA Shadows, a community public art project amplifying the creative voices of frontline staff in nonprofit art museums and organizations. She holds MS’21 in Arts Administration and MFA in Sculpture 24’ from Boston University. In addition, she is a member of Mobius Artists Group.

Diane Wong, founder and leader of the Racial Justice Collaborative, is a distinguished conflict resolution and dialogue facilitator specializing in race-related issues within mixed race groups. Holding a JD from Harvard Law School, Diane is a certified mediator, facilitator, and global conflict resolution processor. Her personal experiences as a multi-racial Black woman fueled her lifelong commitment to pursuing racial justice through open dialogue, learning, and healing.