The Storyteller’s Story: Cherish Dean’s Reflection on Why Telling Stories is Crucial to the Sustainability Movement Have you wondered at all about the person behind the Climate Diaries? Here’s a chance to hear directly from her during her final days at LSA. Written in about the same amount of time she would take to interview,…
Category: Climate Diaries
Brittany Pendergraft
GRAD STUDENT – Classical Studies PhD Candidate “I was born and raised in rural Appalachia, like super rural. Technically Virginia, but [at] the intersection of Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. [It was] a very poor area, coal country, an area hit hardest by the opioid crisis. And when I was there, just seeing so many people…
Evan Petrosky
GRAD STUDENT – Physics PhD Candidate & Sustainability Champion “I grew up in a small town in western Massachusetts. I went to undergrad at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. And I had no idea what I wanted to do and I tried out a lot of things. I ultimately decided on Physics [because] I really enjoyed…
Dan Rife
STAFF – Director of LSA Facilities & Operations “I came to the university as a student, in chemical engineering. After I graduated, [I went] to work for a local chemical consulting company, where they had an office of two or three people that focused on energy management. When I interviewed, I interviewed to hire in…
Meghan Duffy
FACULTY – Susan S. Kilham Collegiate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology & Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies “So I’m a professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and I ended up here because [U of M] is a really wonderful university. It has amazing students. It has amazing resources. And my research focuses on aquatic…
Jill Myers
STAFF – Biodiversity Lab Manager “When I was doing my PhD, I kind of joked with my advisor that I was never going to leave. And then I defended my PhD in summer of 2020, which was a tough time to find a job…everyone had a hiring freeze. And this was not the job that…
Sara R. Rivera
STAFF – Geomicrobiology Lab Manager “Yeah, so I’m originally from Michigan. And I came to University of Michigan as an undergrad, with every intention of transferring and leaving, because I really wanted to do oceanography and live on the coast by the ocean somewhere. Really, when I was eight, I decided I wanted to get…
Alex Bryan
STAFF – Director of Student Life Sustainability “I was a student here in my undergrad degree and [I had a] great time. [I took] English Lit as a degree with a double minor in PitE and Earth Sciences. I learned a lot and had some pretty transformative experiences. I think many of those were around…
Maddie Clough
GRAD STUDENT – 3rd Year Materials Chemistry PhD I’m now a third year PhD student in the Department of Chemistry. I grew up in rural Mid Michigan, so actually not too far from U of M, but I ended up going to Central Michigan University for my undergrad. There, I studied chemistry and I was…
Stuart Kirsch
FACULTY – Roy A. Rappaport Collegiate Professor of Anthropology I’m an environmental anthropologist, [though I wasn’t always one]. At the beginning of my career, I worked in Papua New Guinea with a group of people who lived downstream from a large copper and gold mine that was slowly destroying their environment. And, over time, I…