Identity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement

Mai Sistla is the Deputy Director of the Aspen Institute’s Tech Policy Hub. She helped lead the inaugural class of the Aspen Climate Cohort, a ten-week joint initiative between the Hub and Aspen’s Energy and Environment program that trains engineers, scientists, technologists, and business experts who already understand climate on how to better apply their ideas to policy.

The Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters is a community-built initiative by Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness in Ely, Minnesota — a gateway town to the Boundary Waters. The movement has grown into a national coalition of 400+ conservation, hunting & fishing organizations, and businesses united by the same original goal: to achieve a permanent ban on sulfide-ore copper mining in the watershed of the Boundary Waters, Voyageurs National Park, and Canada’s Quetico Park.

Judene Josephs is a Jamaican national and junior student at Howard University studying economics with a double minor in political science and mathematics. She is passionate about international development and environmental economics. Judene aspires to highlight the environmental disparities small island nations experience and work to support them through economic and sustainable development. During her Green 2.0 fellowship, she brought an intersectional perspective to her work and fused her interests of economics and the environment together, learning from their connection.

Jamileth Picavia-Salazar is a 2022 Summer Fellow at Green 2.0, and a first-generation student at George Mason University majoring in Environmental Sustainability Studies with a concentration in Business and Sustainability. To kick off Latino Conservation Week, which is July 16-24 this year, Jamileth recalls a series of moments that shaped her relationship with the environment from a young age and the importance of introducing youth to nature.

Juliana Ojeda is the Program Associate at Green 2.0 where she works to support the administrative and programmatic operations of the organization. She is a graduate of the University of Florida earning a Bachelor’s in Political Science and a minor in Anthropology. Juliana loves being outdoors and has made it a goal of theirs to visit all 63 National Parks. She began with Green 2.0 as a 2021 fall fellow. In their second blog for Green 2.0, Juliana writes about the importance of commemorating Pride Month.

Rep. Sheila Therese Babauta (D-Saipan) was born and raised on the island of Saipan in the Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory in the Pacific Ocean. She is currently serving her second term on the 22nd Northern Mariana Legislature in the House of Representatives where she is chairwoman of the House Natural Resources Committee. Rep. Babauta is also the chairwoman of the Friends of the Mariana Trench Monument, dedicated to the protection of the monument. In this Q+A for Green 2.0 to mark Asian American Pacific Islanders month, Rep. Babauta discusses her role introducing President Barack Obama at the recent 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference and how more Indigenous climate and environmental leaders should be welcomed to the table where policymaking is taking place.

Hazel (Haeseo) Choi was a 2022 Winter Fellow at Green 2.0 and graduated with a Master’s degree in Urban Planning from San José State University. She is passionate about community-driven solutions that meet economic, climate, and racial equity needs for communities of color. To mark the beginning of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Hazel writes about how the rise in Asian hate crimes affects her life and how to stand in solidarity against this injustice.

In this co-written guest blog post, Seleyn DeYarus, Founder and Executive Director of Regenerative Rising, and Reilly Thomas, Regenerative Rising’s Content Coordinator, discuss how women’s leadership is a key to bringing forward a regenerative future and how convenings like the upcoming Women Leading Regeneration Summit, May 3-5, help facilitate that process.

Alyssa Rae Garza is pursuing their master’s degree in sociology at the University of Texas in El Paso, and developed a passion for climate justice after learning about environmental injustices in their hometown. She participates and learns from local grassroots coalitions and movements while applying an intersectional and jotería-muxerist (queer-Chicana/Latina/Latinx) lens to shape community organizing practices. 

‘Āina Momona is a Native Hawaiian 501(c)(3) organization founded by Walter Ritte for the purpose of achieving environmental health and sustainability through restoring social justice and Hawaiian sovereignty. In this guest blog post for Green 2.0, research and translation specialist Julie Au discusses the origins of the organization and why Hawaiian sovereignty is so important.