Carmera Thomas-Wilhite
Carmera is the Vice President of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice, a new position at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. She will be leading equity strategies to increase diverse voices engaged in advocacy for clean water in the Bay watershed. For the past year, Carmera Thomas-Wilhite served as the Director of Urban Conservation Initiatives at The Conservation Fund where she led the Parks with Purpose program. The program focuses on developing equitable parks and greenspaces with green infrastructure through community-led visioning and implementation. Carmera worked with residents, community-based groups and partner organizations to restore urban green spaces, reducing stormwater impacts to ensure safe, resilient and healthy communities. A few of the ways she intersects social and environmental issues to address environmental injustices in communities is through storytelling, building relationships, and highlighting cultural and historic experiences. Carmera’s greatest passion is identifying ways to provide a voice for communities of color in raising awareness and environmental stewardship.
Before joining The Conservation Fund, Carmera was the Baltimore Program Manager at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, where she began her career as a member of the inaugural class of the Chesapeake Conservation Corps. Carmera Thomas-Wilhite currently serves as the Vice Chair of the board for Anne Arundel County Watershed Stewards Academy, a board member of Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore, Inc., and is a member of the Anne Arundel County Citizen Environmental Commission. Carmera earned her B.S. in Biology from North Carolina Wesleyan University.