Climate Diaries

The Year of Sustainability Climate Diaries is a collection of stories of LSA Students, Faculty, and Staff that seeks to highlight the varied and intersectional dimensions of climate change and sustainability in our college. These are personal narratives that reflect specific experiences across the breadth of our college, but are not all-encompassing. We are thankful to those who were willing to share their stories with us.

Do you have a story, project, or idea that you would like to be featured? Contact sustainable-lsa@umich.edu with any questions or submissions.

  • 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… Continue reading Sara Soderstrom
  • 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… Continue reading Ella Mannino
  • 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… Continue reading Tim McKay’s Climate Diary
  • 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… Continue reading Caitlin Jacobs
  • 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… Continue reading Lashaun Jackson
  • 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… Continue reading Daphne Matter
  • Kelsey Dyez
    STAFF – Climate Scientist in Julia Cole’s Climate Lab “I’m a climate scientist and studied geology as an undergraduate, and then paleoclimatology and paleoceanography as a grad student. I did that research for several years as a postdoc in various parts of the world and then I came to the University of Michigan to help… Continue reading Kelsey Dyez
  • Juhi Pawar
    STUDENT – Representative on TREES Subcommittee “I’m from, like, 30ish minutes away from Ann Arbor. When I was deciding where I wanted to come, I knew that I wanted a place that wouldn’t be too far away from, you know, my family and stuff like that. And then one thing that I also really liked… Continue reading Juhi Pawar
  • Anne McNeil
    FACULTY – Faculty Lead for the Year of Sustainability, Carol A. Fierke Collegiate Professor of Chemistry, & Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Chemistry. “I grew up outside of Buffalo, New York. My parents moved to Virginia when I was in high school, and then [I] went to college down there, but when I decided to… Continue reading Anne McNeil
  • Andrew van Baal
    STUDENT – Student Sustainability Coalition (SSC) + Student Carbon Neutrality Network (SCANN) “I’m a lifelong Michigander. I grew up along Lake Michigan, and that, I think, definitely formed my interest in environmentalism.  I didn’t realize it was a super huge passion until I got here and got plugged into the work that was happening here.… Continue reading Andrew van Baal
  • Nate Sanders
    FACULTY – Faculty Lead for Year of Sustainability & Chair of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. “So I grew up in Arkansas, and in the summers of high school, a friend and I would go to Colorado and backpack and fish for a couple weeks. And so I fell in love with mountains. And then it… Continue reading Nate Sanders