Cal State LA’s Campus Sustainability Committee (CSC) in the adoption of best practices, policies, projects and technologies to improve the environmental, social, and economic sustainability of the campus community.
 

Nominated for: Signatory member of Second Nature’s Climate Commitment. 
 Cal State LA’s Campus Sustainability Committee actively collaborates with the City of Los Angeles in a Campus Resilience Challenge to ensure the University’s resilience planning efforts promote and encourage innovative actions that advance physical resilience and social cohesion. Cal State LA’s Campus Sustainability Committee is committed to improving campus operations, developing its community partnerships, and expanding its cutting-edge academic programs to create a more just, sustainable and resilient world.

Sasha B Kramer, Ph.D. Ecology, Stanford University, co-founder and executive director of Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL). Nominated for: SOIL: sustainable, dignified, safely managed sanitation system, which optimizes resource recovery and is accessible to all in Haiti, transforming human waste into compost for agriculture, reforestation and climate change mitigation efforts in Haiti. Kramer uses ecological principles to address the basic human rights issues of sanitation, food, and access to a healthy environment.

Tsegaye Nega, PhD., Professor of Conservation Biology and Landscape Ecology, Carleton College. Nominated for: Spearheading the development of a microgasifier pellet stove utilizing local biomass waste in Ethiopia to reduce deforestation, contribute to environmental and economic sustainability and women’s health.

UC Conservation Genetics Consortium utilizes high-throughput genetic sequencing to assess biodiversity and community ecology to address questions in wildlife conservation. They are engaging with the public and citizen scientists through their California eDNA initiative.

 Nominated for: The Cal eDNA program, establishing an open-source database of biodiversity and community ecology for varying ecosystems throughout California. By sharing this knowledge and work with the public, they can support increasing awareness of biodiversity ecology, and how our management practices affect community ecology dynamics.



Annmarie Eldering, PhD, Environmental Engineering, CalTech, Project Scientist, NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory -3. Nominated for: NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory -3 (OCO-3), which watches the Earth breath from space by determining the sources emitting CO2 into the atmosphere and the natural processes that absorb it at the surface with precision and accuracy. Dr. Elderling plays a critical role in the implementation of these pioneering systems and is developing a new measurement system to provide more frequent coverage and retrieval of additional greenhouse gases contributing to climate change.

Lauren Bon, PhD candidate, UC Santa Cruz, Architect, Environmental Artist, LA, Founder of Metabolic Studios. Milli Macen-Moore, Certified master gardener, UC-certified Master Food Preserver, sustainable landscape expert, and a volunteer coordinator for Cooperative Extension’s Grow LA Victory Garden Initiative and Fresh from the Garden program. Specializes in bilingual workshops for children on organic, edible landscapes for self-sustainability. Has developed unique curricula for preschool, elementary and middle school students. Nominated for: Metabolic Studio, explores self-sustaining and self-diversifying systems of exchange that feed emergent properties that regenerate the life web, mitigating industrial pollution. Bon has led “Bending the River Back Into the City”, the monumental water project for Los Angeles.

Peter Kalmus, PhD Physics, Columbia University; Climate Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and an Associate Project Scientist at UCLA’s Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science & Engineering. Nominated for: Leadership in personal action to abate climate change. His research, data and models illustrate how clouds and ecosystems are changing in a hotter world. He has authored or co-authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications and is the author of the award-winning book Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution, and an organizer serving the international #FridaysForFuture movement and given over 100 lectures.