CEL Mentors

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Conley Ku (BA ’23)-Program Coordinator

Conley joined the Coffee Equity Lab as a student in 2021 as part of his Immersion Vanderbilt programming, and has been hooked on coffee (physiologically and intellectually) ever since. His undergraduate backgrounds in Economics and History prepared him to engage with coffee’s colonial legacy in social, environmental, and economic contexts, which he aims to study further in a graduate capacity. His work with students is founded upon his passions for holistic justice in the coffee value chain and realizing personal purpose in undergraduate education.

Brandon Bir

Brandon Bir is a coffee and sustainability professional with a passion for equality and international community development. When not traveling to coffee-growing countries to teach classes focused on quality and sensory science or working towards zero waste at the SCA Campus in Columbus, Bir can be found representing CrimsonCup speaking to students at universities and events around the world.

In his role as Director of Sustainability, Bir develops new sustainable practices for all professionals on the valuechain in coffee. Brandon is a certified Assistant Q-instructor, SCA Content Creator, and holds a master’s from the University of Wisconsin.

Taya Brown

Dr. Taya Brown is an agronomist and participatory researcher with special focus on smallholder coffee production systems. She lived with smallholder coffee farmers in Guatemala for the better part of seven years and has studied adoption of innovation and profitability across Central America. She has collaborated with large and small coffee farmers, roasters, importers, and with 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 is cofounder of a nonprofit organization called the Del Fuego Project that supports education across the coffee supply chain and has hosted many educational events designed to put roasters and other coffee enthusiasts in direct contact with farmers for candid discussion on important topics. Taya is currently carrying out a postdoc position with the USDA-ARS in Hilo, Hawaii, focused on identifying cultural management of leaf rust to help maintain farm profitability in the presence of rust.

Vera Espíndola Rafael

Vera is a Development Economist with a focus on farmer resilience & farmer livelihoods. She currently leads the Strategic Initiatives of export company Azahar Coffee, specifically the cost of production research behind “A Sustainable Coffee Buyer’s Guide,” a pricing tool, and leads the export operations in Mexico. As an advisor for the Mexican Secretary of Agriculture, she focuses on specific coffee-related activities such as living and prosperous income. Since 2016, she has been part of the Mexican delegation for the International Coffee Organization.

She is an active volunteer for the Specialty Coffee Association, served on the 2015-2018 Sustainability Council and the 2019-2022 Board, and is a current Coffee Value Assessment Ambassador. She served on the Board of US-based NGO The Chain Collaborative in 2022 and 2023. Her publication has focused on creating market strategies for producing countries; “A Business Case to Increase Specialty Coffee Consumption in Producing Countries” and IICA on “El Mercado del Café en la región Mesoamericana.”

Her work started analyzing agricultural supply chains while working at the research arm of ANACAFE, from where she continued to work at UTZ Certified, leading the coffee and cocoa program globally and then focused on LatinAmerica. From 2016 to 2018, Vera collaborated with the Mexican Secretary of Agriculture on the national coffee renovation plan, with an average investment of 70 million USD.

Susan Heller Evenson

Susan Heller Evenson is Atlas Coffee Importers’ trader for Africa and mainland Asia (India, Myanmar, and Laos), with a focus on strengthening relationships between Atlas’ specialty coffee producer partners and North American coffee roasters.

She is particularly interested in the complexities of coffee logistics, and is an Excel nerd and certified Q Arabica grader. Susan lives in Seattle with her family, and when not cupping/trading coffee for work she can be found drinking it in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest.

David Lalonde

David is the founder, roaster and buyer of Rabbit Hole Roasters based in Montreal, Canada.

Although taste is very important, his focus has shifted to trying to have a more meaningful impact at origin by committing to farmers in a way that brings them stability and a living income, harvest after harvest.

David likes to dedicate his time to studying various aspects of social justice and connect those issues to the coffee industry.

Lane Mitchell

Lane Mitchell is a specialty coffee and sustainability leader with a focus on equity and community development. With over 30 years of creative and strategic leadership in sales and marketing, Lane serves coffee by creating relationship-driven success and product innovation with sustainability at its core.

She is focused on building teams to create and champion disciplined idea pipelines and strategies that drive sales, build communities, increase brand recognition and bolster the bottom line while creating and nurturing thriving,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 sits on the Strategic Committee of the US Coffee Championships and serves as a sensory judge for the US Barista Championships. She co-leads Women in Coffee Project, which supports women throughout the coffee value chain.

As an expert on coffee sustainability, Lane has spoken and led presentations on gender equity at the Specialty Coffee Association Annual Expo. She has taught sustainability at The George Washington University School of Business and Lees-McRae College in North Carolina. Lane joined the Coffee Equity Lab at Vanderbilt University as a mentor in 2021 and is honored to continue serving coffee by serving programs in sustainability.

Julie Housh

Julie currently serves as Education, Research, and Development Director at Carvela Coffee.

Julie is an Authorized SCA Trainer (AST) for Sustainability, Barista, and Brewing. Prior to joining Caravela, she worked in the Sustainability and Knowledge Development Department of the SCA, supporting a variety ofsustainability and educational projects and events, including the Price Crisis Response Initiative (2019).

Jenn Rugolo

Jenn Rugolo is curator and editor focused on communicating complex ideas in specialty coffee through a wide variety of mediums. Perpetually curious about how people create culture and belonging through different activities, Jenn holds a Bachelors of Music Ad Hoc (Northwestern University) and a Masters of Arts inEthnomusicology (University College Cork). Before taking on her current role as Curatorial Director at the Specialty Coffee Association, Jenn worked to design and run casual educational platforms across roles at 3FE, World Coffee Events, Facebook, and Tamper Tantrum.

Concurrently a partner in Playset Coffee, Jenn spends her “free time” supporting progress in specialty coffee through projects that embrace collaborative learning and sharing.

Right now, Jenn’s work is predominantly focused on the SCA’s evolution of the 2004 cupping system into a holistic system to assess coffee value, recognizing intrinsic and extrinsic attributes across four separate assessments, as well as the SCA’s Sustainable Coffee Agenda, which adopts a systems change approach in addressing equitable value distribution across the sector.