About Me

Early Life: Music
My identity enmeshes with music throughout my life. I'm lucky enough to have two very musical parents who invested in this skillset from a very early age, starting me in Suzuki method piano lessons at age 4. Baltimore County public schools raised me into a multi-instrumentalist and provided opportunities for leadership; I played piano in jazz band and we traveled up to Pennsylvania to record an album on which I got to sing the classic "Georgia on My Mind," by Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell. In senior year of high school, I led the marching band as Drum Major, performing songs from the classic movie "The Blues Brothers." Additionally, I performed leading roles in multiple musicals - my favorite being Lady of the Lake in Annapolis Summer Garden Theater's rendition of Spamalot! (2014). In college, I performed all four years with the Mighty Sound of Maryland, sang in the UMD Gospel Choir for a semester, and performed in StarTerp musical reviews and shows. 

Activism
In middle school, my friends and I started a recycling club in response to our concerns about our polluted environment. I studied the subject throughout my life and still dedicate myself to the cause of environmental stewardship and investment in healthy futures. Since 2018, I've attended multiple action trainings by the Sunrise Movement and participated in musical leadership roles in many actions with Sunrise and others like Climate Defiance and Extinction Rebellion DC. In April 2022, I helped lead a mass action in partnership with the Debt Collective at the Department of Education for student debt cancellation; I wrote an article about the protest which was published here. I still attend and provide musical leadership actions whenever possible and love bringing bucket drums out to liven up the crowd.

Education and Early Career
In 2015, I earned a Masters in Environmental and Energy Public Policy from UMD College Park. For about 5 years, I worked for the solar industry, first for a locally owned solar installer in Washington DC, then for the Solar Energy Industries Association, and then for another handful of project developers. I became concerned with many solar companies' habit of under-informing customers rather than share the benefits of energy production ownership. 

Between 2019-2020 I briefly worked with the John Muir Project on grassroots outreach, during which time I organized a musical disruption of a committee hearing about the Trillion Trees Bill and an online viewing of Burned - Are Trees the New Coal with more than 100 attendees. During the COVID-19 shutdown, I managed outreach for the Sonoma County Climate Action Network's online summit and took a position as a lead instructor with Girls Rock! DC, helping write curriculum for piano and voice classes and assisting with event organizing.

FAQ: What's your real name though?
My legal last name is Goldberg. I started to go by a different last name because it felt like I was letting people down every time they understandably assumed that I was Jewish; I was raised a Unitarian Universalist, so naturally a hyphenated name makes much more sense (IYKYK). "Mayne-Ashworth" comes from a combination of my grandmothers' maiden names. I was raised by two loving parents and my two grandmothers - my grandfathers weren't present in my life due to early death and assholery. Going by this name honors my ancestors fully. In different places, I'm credited as "Alice Goldberg," "Alice Ashworth," "Alice Mayne-Ashworth," "Alice M-A," and "Melting Virgo."
I like "Alice M-A" and "Melting Virgo" the most. 🫠