Air Board Members

Voting Members

Bernalillo County Representatives

Kitty Richards (Second term expires: May 22, 2026)

Kitty Richards, MPH, MS is the Founder and Policy Director of Healthy Places Consulting, LLC, where she shapes national, state and local policies by conducting assessments on the environmental health and social conditions of underserved neighborhoods. Since moving to New Mexico, Ms. Richards has brought more than $7 million in grants to New Mexico to resolve environmental injustices and health inequities; responded to the health crisis occurring among New Mexico-Mexico border residents by testifying on the need for baseline environmental monitoring and health surveillance before the New Mexico State Legislature, resulting in the creation of the New Mexico Border Health Office; informed land-use policies by providing policy makers with data on predicted health impacts of proposed land-use plans and projects; and co-founded the New Mexico Public Health Institute.

Working with communities along the US-Mexico border and elsewhere, Ms. Richards has more than 30 years’ experience managing environmental and health programs using a holistic approach inclusive of community collaboration, environmental analysis and health assessment, and policy development and implementation. Ms. Richards holds a Master’s degree in Public Health, a Master’s degree in Natural Resource Economics, and a Bachelor’s degree in Geography.

Judy Calman, Vice Chair (Second term expires: May 23, 2025)

Judy moved to New Mexico from Washington DC nearly twenty years ago. She graduated from UNM with degrees in Biology and Philosophy, and also holds a Juris Doctorate from UNM, as well as a Master’s in Environmental Policy from the Vermont Law School. For the first ten years of her career she worked as the attorney for the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, where she helped protect New Mexico’s public lands by opposing damaging projects in sensitive areas, working with agencies to improve project proposals, nominating special places for federal administrative designations, and through litigation when absolutely necessary. She was also the organization’s lobbyist and worked at the state legislature for policy change at the state level.

Since December 2019 she has been the New Mexico Policy Director for The Audubon Society, where she focuses on state policies regarding wildlife, water, and renewable energy siting, as well as protection of sensitive bird habitat in southeast New Mexico which is heavily threatened by oil and gas. When not working, she is either swimming, hiking, quilting, reading, or drinking good wine with good friends.

City of Albuquerque Representatives

Dennis Armijo, Sr. (First term expires: April 1, 2026)

Dennis Armijo, Sr. was born and raised in the state of New Mexico and has a BS in Engineering Technology and Juris Doctorate. He worked at Sandia Labs in the sounding rocket program before becoming a lawyer.  He is now retired and helps take care of seven grandchildren.  He practiced as an intellectual property attorney for the last 30 years in private practice.  He previously served as a commissioner on the Albuquerque Environmental Planning Commission.  He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering Technology from New Mexico State University and a Juris Doctorate Degree from the University of New Mexico School of Law.

Dr. Elis Eberlein (First term expires: April 1, 2024)

Elis Eberlein, PhD, is an Environmental Scientist at the Hanford Site. The site is located in WA State. Since 2017, he worked for one of the contractors supporting the Department of Energy. He retired from full-time work in 2020, and now works part time and remotely as a subcontractor. His work consists of producing permitting documents to meet the requirements of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Before being a contractor employee, he worked for about a decade for WA State Department of Ecology reviewing RCRA and Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and other environmental decision documents.

Elis grew up in Sweden and received his education at Lund University where he studied Chemical Engineering. He earned his PhD in Microbiology. He moved to California in 1986 to attend a Post-Doctoral Fellowship. He moved to Albuquerque in 2020. Elis and his wife have three grown children. Two children and the grandchildren live in the Albuquerque area. 

Dr. Joseph Galewsky, Chair (First term expires: April 1, 2026)

Dr. Joseph Galewsky is a professor of atmospheric sciences in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of New Mexico. He received his Bachelors of Science in Geophysics from Texas A&M University, his Ph.D. in Geophysics from the University of California Santa Cruz, and was a postdoctoral research scientist in the Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics at Columbia University. His research group focuses broadly on the atmospheric branch of Earth’s hydrologic cycle, its role in climate dynamics, and its links and feedbacks with the Earth’s surface. His group has developed innovative techniques for the measurement and analysis of stable isotopes in atmospheric water vapor using a suite of field, laboratory, and computational approaches and has partnered with climate and astronomical observatories to deploy cutting-edge climate monitoring equipment in some of the world’s most extreme environments.  His research has taken him from the depths of the Middle America Trench offshore Costa Rica to the summit of the Quelccaya Ice Cap in Peru, and from the arid Atacama Desert of Chile to the mountains and jungles of Papua New Guinea. He lives in Albuquerque's North Valley with his family, where he enjoys walks in the Bosque with his wife, kids and their beloved little dog, Roscoe.

Planning Commission Liaisons

The City of Albuquerque Environmental Planning Commission and the Bernalillo County Planning Commission may each appoint a non-voting member to be liaisons to the Air Board.

Commissioner Connie Chavez, Bernalillo County Planning Commission Liaison

Connie Chavez is the Executive Director of the Carrie Tingley Hospital Foundation (CTHF), a nonprofit organization whose mission is to enhance the lives of Carrie Tingly Hospital patients and special needs children and their families throughout New Mexico.  Prior to joining CTHF, Ms. Chavez was the Executive Director at the Barrett Foundation, an organization dedicated to providing services to women, children, and families experiencing homelessness.  She also served as the Executive Director for the Sawmill Community Land Trust, working on the development of affordable housing and economic opportunities on the 34-acre site located near Old Town.  Ms. Chavez has a history of community service dedicated to enhancing services and access to affordable housing for underprivileged/underserved communities on a local and national level.  

She currently serves on the Bernalillo County Planning Commission, Board of Trustees at Menaul School, and served two terms as the Chair of the National Community Land Trust Network. 

Commissioner Joseph Cruz: City of Albuquerque Environmental Planning Commission Liaison

Joseph Cruz is the operations manager for Star Paving Co. and currently serves on the City of Albuquerque Environmental Planning Commission. He has a bachelors degree from the UNM Anderson School of Management. He is married with two sons and has competed in 12 triathlons.