Kyra Epstein

Kyra is Commonweal’s communications manager, as well as the coordinator for The New School.

For more than 25 years, Kyra has helped non-profit, for-profit, and governmental organizations tell their stories—through the development of messages, websites, print collateral material, and social media platforms. She has served as a writer, journalist, and teacher in the fields of environmental sustainability, natural living, green building, energy efficiency, and renewable energy, and has published more than 200 articles in magazines, journals, and newspapers.

She started her career working for The National Renewable Energy Laboratory as a communications specialist for U.S. Department of Energy programs such as Energy Smart Schools and the High Performance Buildings program. Just prior to Commonweal, she served as communications director and program manager for Strategic Energy Innovations, a non-profit in Marin County , CA, that works with cities and school districts to educate about and improve energy efficiency. As an environmental journalist, she has written for the Sierra Club’s national activist newspaper The Planet, E/Environment Magazine, and ASHRAE’s High Performing Buildings magazine, among other publications.

As a student and practitioner of herbal medicine, Kyra has studied with German herbalist and plant alchemist Suzanne Fischer-Rizzi. Before that she apprenticed with herbalist Stephen Buhner, author of Sacred Plant Medicine; and The Secret Teachings of Plants: The Intelligence of the Heart in the Direct Perception of Nature. She is founder of Gaia Teas, a small, artisan herbal tea company, she leads plant walks and classes, and she makes herbal body products and remedies focused on the plants that grow locally in the Bay Area.

Kyra holds master’s degrees in both environmental policy and communications from the University of Denver and is certified in permaculture design from Commonweal’s Regenerative Design Institute.