Our Team

Our Staff

Niaz Dorry, Coordinating Director

Niaz is the coordinating director of the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance. She & her dog, Hailey, live in Gloucester, Massahcusetts - the oldest settled fishing port in the U.S. Her dog Hailey is one of the lucky dogs who survived Hurricane Katrina and is Niaz' daily reminder of all the fishing communities that are yet to be rebuilt since the Indian Ocean tsunami and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and other disasters. Niaz began working with small-scale, traditional, and indigenous fishing communities in the U.S. and from around the globe as a Greenpeace oceans and fisheries campaigner. She then went on to working on advancing the rights and ecological benefits of the small-scale fishing communities as a means of protecting global marine biodiversity independently. Time Magazine named Niaz as a Hero For The Planet for this work. Her fisheries articles appear regularly in Fishermen's Voice and SAMUDRA as well as a range of random publications. Niaz' work and approach have been noted in a number of books including Against the Tide, Deeper Shade of Green, The Spirit's Terrain, Vanishing Species, The Great Gulf, Swimming in Circles, A Troublemaker's Teaparty and The Doryman's Reflection. She is a graduate of the Rockwood Leadership Program’s Leading From Inside Out as well as Art of Leadership trainings. She serves on the executive committee of the National Family Farm Coalition and Granite State Fish as well as an advisor to the Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and Global Environment. Before joining NAMA, Niaz served as the Interim Chief Operations Office for the Healthy Building Network.

Boyce Thorne Miller, Science Coordinator

Boyce is a marine ecologist who leads NAMA’s collaborative work on science and policy. She works with scientists, social scientists, fishermen and fishing community members who are promoting the use of the best science in fisheries management decisions and the incorporation of spatial and scale considerations into the science informing fisheries management it New England. She has worked in the past for several international and national environmental organizations on marine pollution, at-sea waste disposal, marine biodiversity, the precautionary principle, aquaculture, marine protected areas, and the Endangered Species Act. She has served on government and NGO delegations in international treaties, expert working groups, and other intergovernmental forums. Boyce has authored/co-authored four books on marine biodiversity, as well as book chapters and papers on the application of the precautionary principle to international maritime law and fisheries. She has an MS in oceanography from the University of Rhode Island. For her work with NAMA, she moves between New England and Washington, DC.

Brett Tolley, Community Organizer and Policy Advocate

Brett comes from a four-generation commercial fishing family out of Cape Cod, MA.   He has worked in the fishing industry hanging nets, working on boats of various gear-types, and digging steamers on the flats of South Beach and Monomoy. Codfish and clams paid for his education at Elon University where he received a degree in International Relations with a focus on Social Justice.  Over the past four years Brett has worked in Brooklyn, New York as an Advocate and Community Organizer.  He fought in housing court for low-income tenants and helped organize a citywide campaign around health and housing rights.  Brett wrote and produced an award-winning documentary about the migrant experience along the U.S./Mexico border and was selected to the We Are All Brooklyn Fellowship Program.

“Local fishermen and fishing communities are disproportionately left out of the policy decisions that impact their lives. Power to protect and support fishing communities along with the ocean must be built from the bottom up.  The struggle over who shapes the future of fishing communities and the ocean is something I am fiercely dedicated to,” says Brett.

Cynthia Bush, Finance Coordinator and Program Associate

Cynthia Bush joins Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance team as the Finance Coordinator and Program Associate providing NAMA with Finance Management and Organizational Development. She comes to us from Gloucester, Massachusetts where she lives on the shoreline with her dog Zoey.

She has experience in business management including finance, human resources, customer service and program management. In addition Cynthia’s experience in fundraising and event planning is an asset to NAMA. She has organized and participated in events for energy conservation organizations, along with administering and planning events in the private and public sectors. Her background makes Cynthia a resource that NAMA is pleased to have on our team.

In 2010, Cynthia moved to Gloucester wanting to be closer to the ocean, her source of energy is revived by the sea every morning and night when walking Zoey along the shoreline. She finds that it doesn’t matter what your day puts on your lap, just being by the ocean is so soothing and replenishes all energies exhausted from the day.

She enjoys being by the ocean, friends, family and music of all kinds; her greatest accomplishment is raising her three children and marveling at who they have become. A very proud MAMA.

Our Interns

Cary White, Outreach and Policy Intern

Cary White is a rising junior at Williams College where he is an American Studies major. Growing up in Western Massachusetts, he had little experience with the maritime world until participating in the Williams-Mystic semester program in the fall of 2010. His interests lie in transforming our markets to grant workers more autonomy and control over the product of their labor. In his free time, Cary enjoys playing piano and almost any kind of sport.

Ellen Tyler, Policy Intern

Joining us from Blue Hill, Maine, for the summer, Ellen is a master's candidate at Tufts University's School of Nutrition in their Agriculture, Food and Environment program.  Ellen draws on experience working with a variety of workers' rights and food sovereignty organizations including Food First, the Institute for Food and Development Policy, and Jobs with Justice.  Over the past year, Ellen has been involved with a project called By Land and By Sea, bringing fishing and farming communities together to brainstorm how and when collaboration amongst these two producer groups may make sense.  In her free time, Ellen enjoys playing in, on and around the ocean, biking and going on outdoor adventures.  She is working this summer as a policy intern.

Margot Lord, Design and Marketing Intern

Margot Lord has a background as a designer and a chef.  She is focused on understanding the spoken and unspoken needs of people in communities of interest, and strategically developing marketing and education programs aimed toward addressing those needs. Margot spent a number of years working with The Food Project in Dorchester, and in Lynn, as a volunteer farm assistant and kitchen mentor. She also developed a program of ‘agriculinary’ education for children and adults through the non-profit organization RIPE New England, aimed toward developing emotional connections between people, the food on their plates, and the farmers and artisans producing the food. After moving from Boston to Gloucester in 2005, Margot was a member of the start-up team for the Cape Ann Farmers’ Market. Most recently Margot has been working with NAMA on the ongoing development of educational and marketing programs for area CSFs in support of local fishing communities.

Our Volunteers

Pamela Flash, Social Media and Events Support

Pamela joins our volunteer team from her Long Island home in Port Washington, NY. Also a long-time New Englander, her interests lie in promoting healthful and responsible food choices that include locally caught seafood. Pamela is a former member of the Nutrition Committee for the Port Washington School District where she helped transition traditional vending machines to vending machines with more healthful food. She has also organized student education programs and developed wellness policies to advance food-value awareness in her community. She is a graduate of the Chef's Training Program at the Natural Gourmet Institute for Food and Health in New York City, and has a degree in Public Relations from Boston University. 

Sandy Farrell, Seafood Throwdown Coordinator

We are honored to have Sandy Farrell working with us again this year.  Sandy (on the right in the photo and joined by Linda Amero, Seafood Throwdown emcee, and Nikki Bogin, Cape Ann Farmers Market manager) volunteered her time and energy to our Seafood Throwdowns at the Cape Ann Farmers Market in 2009.  Her enthusiasm and organization skills were invaluable to the events.  We owe her a great deal of gratitude just for her 2009 efforts... but she hasn't stopped there.  This year Sandy has volunteered to coordinate all our Seafood Throwdowns, which is no minor doing considering the surge in popularity for these events.  We already have Seafood Throwdowns in the works for New York City, South Shore, Plymouth, Martha's Vineyard, Portsmouth, NH, Gloucester, Stonington, ME, Unity, ME, Boston and many other communities.

When we don't have her, Sandy heals people through chiropractic, acupuncture, nutrition counseling, first line and massage therapy in Gloucester, Massachusetts.