Energy & Climate Change Leadership Stories
This in-depth conversation with Dr. Brittani Orona (Hupa, Hoopa Valley Tribe) on the Cal Ag Roots WELL podcast digs into the concept and practice of the Landback movement in California, including the deep history of Native resistance in the state. It also explores Brittani’s background and new role at San Diego State University.Read more >
As a child José regularly visited family in Mexico, where they had abundant natural space to explore, but he was disappointed in the lack of safe parks to play in when he would return to Los Angeles. As a community organizer, he saw the value of quality greenspace to working class communities. These experiences ultimately led him to pursue a career as a landscape architect working to advance park equity.Read more >
In early March, a life-sized statue of Switzer Fellow Dr. Kimberley Miner was stationed at the Smithsonian along with more than 120 IF/THEN® Women in STEM Ambassadors. In honor of Women’s History Month, we spoke with Kimberley about her experience inspiring future leaders in STEM and what she’s been working on lately as a climate scientist at NASA.Read more >
Some climate-related projects start local and stay local – but in other cases, there may be an opportunity to expand the initiative to broader scales. Over the course of just four years, Fellow Amber Pairis brought together more than 280 organizations, agencies, and groups of people keen to address climate change adaptation.Read more >
2019 Fellow Tamara Marcus studies methane emissions from permafrost thaw with Ruth Varner, professor of Earth sciences and director of the Earth Systems Research Center in the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space at the University of New Hampshire. In addition to researching the impact of warming on carbon emissions from Arctic Lakes, Marcus is exploring how indigenous communities understand and apply weather and climate data.Read more >
Fellow Holmes Hummel is the Founding Director of Clean Energy Works , a nonprofit organization that seeks to accelerate private capital utility investments in inclusive clean energy solutions. After the Great Recession of the last decade, as government stimulus funds started to wane, utilities...Read more >
Fellow Colleen Callahan is deputy director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation , which conducts research and advises civic partners on the design and implementation of policies, plans and programs with a focus on advancing environmental sustainability. Part of Callahan’s job is to make sure...Read more >
Fellow Derek Lemoine is an Associate Professor of Economics at The University of Arizona , where his research combines economic theory and computational methods to better understand the dynamics of environmental policy and of energy systems. Although his work on electric vehicles (EV) was during...Read more >
Fellow Garrett Fitzgerald is the Strategic Collaboration Director at the Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN), where he helps the organization’s local government members advance their work in sustainability. Peer learning and collaboration represent the core of USDN, according to...Read more >
Fellow Sherry Login, the manager of electric vehicles for Consolidated Edison (Con Edison) in New York, manages all customer-facing electric vehicle (EV) programs for the company. Her special project, however, is SmartCharge New York , an off-peak charging incentive program that she created two...Read more >
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