CCG Workshop:
Confronting Environmental Racism
10 AM
Myles Lennon
Brown University Professor
Myles Lennon is an environmental anthropologist, Dean’s Assistant Professor of Environment & Society and Anthropology at Brown University, and a former sustainable energy policy practitioner. His first research project explores the intersectional dimensions of solar infrastructure in New York City, illuminating the sensorial and emotional power of renewable energy in a gentrifying skyline built on racial capitalism and threatened by climate collapse. Professor Lennon is currently conducting long-term research on young Black land stewards' complex efforts to navigate settler colonialism and redress white supremacy through agroforestry, fire ecologies, and farming in the United States.
Niyanta Nepal
SEE co-president
Niyanta Nepal is a junior at Brown University studying biomedical engineering and education studies. She has been heavily involved in organizing since arriving at Brown, as a member and now president of Students for Educational Equity. She has worked on campus pushing back against the university’s admissions policies and campaigning to redistribute wealth on Brown’s campus. Niyanta has also worked closely with youth in Providence through her role as a lead organizer at ARISE (Alliance of Rhode Island Southeast Asians for Education). She has participated in their coalition spaces Providence Alliance for Student Safety and Our Schools Providence, which aim to remove police presence from schools and implement ethnic studies in Providence Public Schools. Working with youth and community members to amplify their voices is ultimately what drives Niyanta, and her plan is to continue this work with high school-aged youth in the future.
Erin Mackey
UofT organizer
Erin Mackey is an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto, double majoring in Political Science and Environmental Studies. She is an organizer with Climate Justice UofT, where she's pressuring her university to fully dissociate from the fossil fuel industry and adopt a Fossil Free Research Policy. Erin is also the Canadian Coalition Organizer for Campus Climate Network (formerly Fossil Free Research) and is passionate about building power and mobilizing communities to fight back against Big Oil and build a better, more equitable, sustainable, and just world.
Brian Lander
Brown University Professor
Brian Lander is an assistant professor of history and environmental studies. His study focus is environmental history in China. Professor Lander is a member of Scholars at Brown for Climate Action.
CCG Workshop:
The Role of University in Driving Social Change
1:30 PM
Jayson Maurice Porter
Environmental Scholar
Jayson Porter is an environmental historian, writer, and scholar whose research focuses on environmental politics, food systems, agrochemicals, and racial ecologies in Mexico and the Americas.
Kalikoonāmaukūpuna (Kaliko) Kalāhiki
Brown Undergraduate; EJ Practitioner
Kalikoonāmaukūpuna (Kaliko) Kalāhiki is a queer and māhū Kanaka Maoli student, creative, and farmer from Kāneʻohe. Kaliko is currently a senior at Brown University studying Critical Native American and Indigenous Studies. Their work has centered around turning towards Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Lifeways, coupled with recognizing and upholding the sovereignty of Native communities, to actualize environmental justice and combat climate change. This past summer, they began a research project entitled "Queering Aloha ʻĀina," which aims to illuminate the experiences of queer and māhū Hawaiians and uplift these experiences to challenge dominant theories around kūkulu Lāhui (Hawaiian nation building).
Rep. Jennifer Stewart
Rhode Island State Representative
In addition to serving as a long-time high-school history and political science teacher, Jennifer Stewart is now a legislator. In 2022, she successfully primaried a long-time Democratic incumbent to represent her Oak Hill and Woodlawn neighbors in the Rhode Island House of Representatives (59th District, Pawtucket). Since that campaign, Jennifer has been involved in the struggle to save Morley Field, the only greenspace in Woodlawn, from becoming a parking lot for a proposed last-mile distribution center.
CCG Workshop:
On-Campus & Off-Campus Activism: Bridging the Gap
5:15 PM
Cicia Lee
fmr community organizer + Brown PhD student
Cicia Lee (they/them) is currently a PhD student in Political Science at Brown. They’ve worked for ten years as an organizer, trainer, and movement strategist. They previously trained thousands of leaders as Training & Research Director at Momentum, a movement training institute and incubator which launched groups like Sunrise Movement, IfNotNow, Dissenters, and Black Visions. They began their organizing by working on minimum wage, paid sick leave, and criminal justice reform campaigns in faith communities with the MA affiliate of Faith in Action.
Jasper Cattell
Labor/climate organizer + Brown PhD student
Jasper Cattell is a PhD student in sociology at Brown University. He is currently researching the history of alliances between labor unions and environmental organizations in the US and has previously published work on youth climate activism. He is a longtime participant in the climate movement and is currently involved in labor organizing at Brown.
Isabella Guinigundo
Comms Director at YCFA
Isabella Guinigundo is a Filipina student organizer from so-called Ohio. She is a co-founder of Ohio Youth for Climate Justice and works as the Communications Manager of the Youth Climate Finance Alliance (YCFA). Presently, Isabella is a fourth year at Ohio State University where she studies Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Geography, and Science Communication.