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…
Category: Climate Diaries
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
GRADUATE 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…
Sara Soderstrom
FACULTY – Director of Program in the Environment (PitE) “I grew up in a family of Wolverines. My parents met here. My dad was starting med school and my mom was an Undergraduate Transfer, and they were up in Bursley cafeteria as the non first year students finding each other and hanging out. So I…
Ella Mannino
STUDENT – Chair of TREES Subcommittee “I’m from Ortonville, Michigan, which is about like an hour north of here, in between Flint and Pontiac. Ortonville is kind of a rural farm town, like I lived in the woods, so that’s a big part of why I care so much about the environment. I’m an International…
Tim McKay’s Climate Diary
From Great Lakes to Great Plains: Tim McKay’s Journey by Train Have you ever wondered what it would be like to travel over 700 miles by train? Maybe not, but LSA Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education, Dr. Tim McKay, made the almost 18-hour trek by train for an astonishing carbon reduction (hint: it was around…
Caitlin Jacobs
STAFF – LSA Carbon Neutrality Program Manager “So I did grow up in a smaller town, in Kentucky. For anyone who grows up in that town, it’s cool to go downtown and see the flood wall…there are murals on the flood wall. You learn very early in your elementary education that there was this big…
Lashaun Jackson
STUDENT – SCANN, Graham Sustainability Scholar, MDining Sustainability and Community Engagement Intern, UM Sustainable Food Program, and member of the Maize & Blue Cupboard Student Advisory Council “For me, that first year in college was [during COVID]…all virtual. At the time, I was really interested in astronomy and astrophysics, actually, [but] my introduction to astronomy…
Daphne Matter
STUDENT – VIPs Fund & Graham Sustainability Scholar “So I’m from Seattle, Washington. I love my hometown. I grew up in the city, but Seattle is also a very nature oriented place in that you’ve got lots of waterways and lakes and you’ve got the Olympics to one side of you and you’ve got the…