Nearby Future connects climate, health, and the future of every community.

We fight climate helplessness and complacency at the local level by helping communities understand the health implications of climate change and providing them with individual and policy actions that lead to long term wellbeing and resilience.

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Our team

  • Matt Willis

    Matt Willis

    A California native, Dr. Matt Willis served as Marin County’s Public Health Officer from 2013-2025. Dr Willis calls on experience as a physician, an epidemiologist, and a member of this community to guide public health strategy for Marin. A champion for innovative and highly collaborative approaches, he co-founded the RxSafe Marin coalition to address the opioid epidemic locally. He has served in the US Public Health Service as Director of Primary Care on the Navajo Reservation and at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, where he conducted research and outbreak investigations in the U.S. and abroad. He holds a Medical Degree from Temple, and completed a Master’s in Public Health and Internal Medicine residency at Harvard.

  • Samuel Scarpino, PhD

    Samuel Scarpino, PhD

    Samuel V. Scarpino, PhD, is a Professor of Public Health and Health Sciences and Director of AI + Life Sciences at Northeastern University's Institute for Experiential AI, with appointments in the Network Science and Roux Institutes. Previously, he was a Vice President at The Rockefeller Foundation and an Assistant Professor at the University of Vermont. He has 15 years of experience translating research into decision-support and AI tools across public health, clinical medicine, real estate, and energy. In 2020, he co-founded Global.health, supported by Google.org, the Wellcome Trust, and The Rockefeller Foundation. He is a Fellow of the ISI Foundation and an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute.

  • Joy Sun Cooper

    Joy Sun Cooper

    Joy Sun Cooper is an independent consultant who has launched and scaled organizations solving important social problems, with expertise in behavioral health delivery and novel pharmaceutical commercialization. She served as Chief of Therapy Training and Head of Commercialization at Lykos Therapeutics (formerly MAPS PBC), and co-founded Groups Recover Together, one of the largest opioid use disorder treatment clinic networks in the U.S. She has also served as Director of Operations at the Clinton Health Access Initiative, launching field operations across Africa. A TED Fellow, her 2014 talk explored poverty alleviation through direct cash transfers. She holds a B.S. from Georgetown and an M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Larry Brilliant
“Change starts with ordinary people doing extraordinary things. The path to the extraordinary is open to anybody at any time.”
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Board of Directors

  • Suzanne Gilbert, PhD, MPH

    Suzanne Gilbert, PhD, MPH

    Dr. Suzanne Gilbert is a leading expert and respected innovator in the field of international blindness prevention and sight restoration. A public health specialist with over 30 years experience, Dr. Gilbert has spent her career co-designing and implementing eye care service delivery systems for some of the world's poorest communities in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Dr. Gilbert is a cofounder of Seva Foundation, and currently serves as its Director of The Center for Innovation in Eye Care. The Center promotes new ways to address emerging issues in community eye care and works to develop sustainable eye care services based in locally owned and operated institutions across the globe.

  • Girija Brilliant

    Girija Brilliant

    Girija Brilliant is a public health specialist and epidemiologist who holds a PhD and MPH in social epidemiology from the University of Michigan. She spent a decade in India during the 1970s as part of the World Health Organization's campaign to eradicate smallpox, work that contributed to ending one of history's deadliest diseases. In Nepal and India, her research helped identify gender and education as key factors preventing rural populations from accessing eye health services, and she served as editor of the Nepal Blindness Survey, the first nationwide survey of blindness in Asia. In 1978, she co-founded the Seva Foundation, an international eye-care organization whose programs have since restored sight to millions of people worldwide.

  • Larry Brilliant

    Larry Brilliant

    Larry Brilliant is a senior advisor at the Jeff Skoll Group and acting board chairman of the Skoll Global Threats Fund, where he was formerly president and CEO. Before that, he was vice president of Google and founding executive director of Google.org. Brilliant co-founded The Seva Foundation, an NGO whose programs and grantees give back sight to blind people, and was a UN medical officer in India, playing a key role in WHO’s smallpox eradication program. The former University of Michigan professor and founding chairman of the National Biosurveillance Advisory Subcommittee, Brilliant serves on the boards of the Skoll Foundation and Salesforce Foundation and is author of Sometimes Brilliant.