Congratulations to the Climate California team on their 2025 Regional Emmy win! This honor is a testament to the incredible work of our small but mighty team, whose passion and talent brought this series to life.
CHARLES LOI (director, writer, presenter, producer, editor) is a storyteller whose goal is to harness stories to solve complex problems. As host of Climate California, he’s grateful for the opportunity to learn from leading lights in the climate movement and spread their passionate stories to a wider audience. In the past, he’s worked on wildlife, action, animation, music, and civil society projects with some of the world's top talents and organizations (Disney, USAID, Base FX, director Lu Chuan, and many others). He studied political science at Yale University.
HANNAH LEE (co-director, co-writer, producer, editor) is a storyteller of climate change, maker of documentaries, and enthusiast of the outdoors. Her work aims to bring fresh perspectives to the most pressing environmental issues of our time and foster a deeper connection to the natural world, utilizing a strong creative style to engage viewers in an ever-changing media landscape. She has been a part of numerous award-winning media projects, from television shows to feature documentaries. She currently writes a monthly newsletter for NorCal Public Media that bridges environmental education with justice, art, culture, and community.
JEREMY JUE (co-director, co-writer, producer, editor) is a dedicated storyteller committed to amplifying the voices of underserved and underrepresented communities. He has traveled the world, collecting the stories of individuals and organizations that are working to promote positive change in their communities. His past collaborations include working with organizations such as Not In Our Town, Planned Parenthood, Kiva, My American Dreams, Soccer Without Borders, and WorldTeach in the Marshall Islands.
MIGUEL BRIERLEY (composer, editor) is a musician and creative who aims to elevate others' voices through music. He began as an intern at NorCal Public Media and joined the Climate California team as the show's composer. He is grateful to be a part of a project that shares so much insight and heartfelt storytelling around the climate crisis. He later joined NorCal as a Promotions Producer, creating promotional content for Climate California and many other projects of the station. Miguel studied at San Francisco State University and The Abbey Road Institute. He has worked in numerous recording studios across the Bay Area and honed a wide array of media skills.
DARREN LASHELLE (executive producer) is the President & CEO of Northern California Public Media and has led a concentrated media focus on environmental reporting and documentary storytelling, as well as community engagement efforts. LaShelle is an Emmy award-winning Executive Producer for the science and technology TV series "Plugged-In." He has written and produced documentaries, live and recorded TV and radio series, and breaking news coverage. LaShelle is the Executive Producer of a number of nationally-broadcast documentary programs on public television.
PAUL SWENSEN (executive producer) is the Executive Producer for Video Content and National Distribution at Northern California Public Media and serves as Executive Producer in Feature Film Production at New Regency-Los Angeles. He is an Emmy award winning Producer and has produced and directed over 400 thirty-minute programs for PBS and American Public Television such as Made in Spain with Jose Andres and Jacque Pepin’s Heart and Soul and America’s Test Kitchen.
ANNA LOI (environmental consultant), has a deep understanding of environmental issues at the levels of both practice and theory. She has a background in forestry with a BSc from Germany and a Masters in Forestry from Yale, followed by several years of working in Asia-Pacific on forest restoration issues, and is a PhD candidate at the MINT Lab at the University of Murcia, Spain. She's contributed to reports on climate impacts on forests, including for the FAO.
She now uses her knowledge of forest ecology to explore how theories of consciousness and intelligence relate beyond the individual to the community and group level in plant groups and forest ecosystems. To explore this, she uses knowledge from across many fields such as evolution, dynamic systems theory, perception, cognition and philosophy to look at specific phenomena such as mycorrhizal networks, clonality, succession and forest ecology at large.


