This December, the SustainUS Agents of Change program will send a delegation of 22 students and young professionals to the U.N. Climate Negotiations in Bali, Indonesia. Chosen from a highly qualified pool of applicants, our delegates represent the diversity, enthusiasm, and skill of the youth climate movement in the United States. 

Since June, the delegation has worked to educate themselves and members of their communities about the issues that will be discussed at the negotiations, develop and present policy recommendations to the UNFCCC, and coordinate with international youth. 

Read on to learn more about our Bali delegates. If you would like to assist the delegation in its policy preparation or outreach efforts, consider joining the Agents of Change Policy and Planning Committee.  

 

Erin Condit-Bergren is originally from Los Angeles and studied public policy and theenvironment at Sarah Lawrence College.  She spent a year abroad in Oxford, where she met her husband.  Erin currently work for CAFOD, aninternational development agency, where she works in the campaigns section. She was one of the founding members of SustainUS, although since moving to England she has been a little out of the loop!  She is looking forward to shaking things up in Bali and putting some real pressure onthe US government to clean up its act.

 Alex Dewar is currently a Master's student at the University of Oxford, where he is a Rhodes Scholar. His research focuses on the public discourse around climate change and on international climate policy. While completing his BA at Wheaton College in Massachusetts (Class of 2006), Alex served as President of the Student Government Association for two years. In that office he promoted an agenda of environmental sustainability, college affordability, and integration of student voices into college governance. In 2005 Alex volunteered in a Ugandan village where he taught sustainable agriculture practices and facilitated the development of the community's first nursery school, an experience that raised his awareness about the global social justice implications of climate change. Alex has been named a Udall Scholar and a Truman Scholar for his leadership in promoting environmental sustainability in college and Oregon, his native state. In addition to SustainUS, Alex has worked with the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Foundation for Sustainable Development, 1000 Friends of Oregon, and the Oregon Bus Project.

Gabriel Elsner grew up in the heart of West Los Angeles, the home of SUVs, traffic and overwhelming pollution. When he moved to Berkeley he decided to act by promoting a clean energy economy to stop global warming. Now he is interning with the Energy Action Coalition planning PowerShift 2007, the first national youth climate summit and continues to work as Vice Chair of the California Public Interest Research Group. Now he is ready to take the momentum of the American youth climate movement global.

Dominic Frongillo is the youngest elected Councilmember in the Town of Caroline, New York. A lifelong citizen of Caroline, near Ithaca NY, he works for the Program of International Nutrition at Cornell University.  Dominic graduated from Cornell's College of Human Ecology in 2005 with an independent BS in Sustainable Community Development.  A Cornell Urban Scholar, Dominic worked for the Association of Communities Organized for Reform Now (ACORN) in Brooklyn, NY, and for a community development program in rural Costa Rica. He helps lead Energy Independent Caroline, a community group dedicated to achieving local energy independence. Dominic attended CSD-14 in 2006 and looks forward to stepping it up with the SustainUs Bali delegation in 2007!

Richard Graves is the blogmaster for It's Getting Hot in Here: Dispatches from the Youth Climate Movement and the New Media Fellow for the Energy Action Coalition. He helps over a hundred youth leaders from around the world tell their stories in the fight against global warming and for a more just and sustainable world. Richard graduated from Macalester College after winning campaigns for green building, green roofing, renewable energy investment, and energy conservation. When he isn't organizing against global warming, he likes to make Italian, Mexican, and Japanese food, read books, and to sculpt.

Kelley Greenman, originally from Marathon, Florida, is a junior at Washington University in Saint Louis, majoring in environmental studies with minors in economics and writing.  Her interest in climate change stems from working with other energized youth from the Florida Keys on federal lobbying initiatives for climate change legislation to protect their local coral reefs.  Currently, she is the program leader for Verde, an environmental education program that reaches out to Saint Louis youth.  Kelley is also very interested in international water issues, specifically in India, where she has focused her research for the past year. After attending COP11 in Montreal, Kelley witnessed the power of a coalition of youth lobbying for change and is very enthusiastic about being an Agent of Change in Bali!

Whit Jones is a recent graudate of Carleton College in Northfield, MN, where he majored in International Relations and minored in Political Economy and Environmental Studies. Whit has been studying the role of the developing world in international climate change policy, and he has done internships on this subject with the World Conservation Union (IUCN) in Switzerland and The Energy & Resources Institute (TERI) in India. As the co-chair of Carleton's Environmental Advisory Committee, he worked to make his campus carbon neutral. As a youth delegate at COP12 in Nairobi and CSD-15, Whit saw how incredible youth involvement can be, so he is incredibly excited about working with everyone in Bali. 

Erin Kenzie has been involved in the Agents of Change program since CSD-13 in 2005 and was recently elected as the Chairperson of SustainUS. Originally from metro Detroit, Erin received a BA in Philosophy and Psychology from Western Michigan University. Two years ago, she moved to a small town in rural Colorado to serve as an AmeriCorps volunteer at a homeless shelter. For the past year, she has worked at a small nonprofit organization in the field of youth violence prevention and mediation. Erin is also passionate about increasing youth participation in the political process, and blogs for several progressive sites in her spare time.   

Stephanie Kwan received her B.S. in Environmental Studies and Political Science in December 2004 from Emory University. During her time at Emory, Stephanie worked for a grassroots environmental group, an environmental consulting firm, and a government environmental agency. In August 2005, Stephanie began her M.S. in Environmental Engineering with a focus on Air Quality Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research focused on the effects of air pollutant emission sources and meteorology on air quality in Shanghai, China, as well as on the implications for local and multi-jurisdictional air quality management in Shanghai and the Yangtze River Delta region. Following receipt of her M.S. in December 2006, Stephanie began working at Trinity Consultants. She was also a SustainUS delegate to the Commission on Sustainable Development last April. Stephanie aspires to pursue a career in international environmental policy, focusing on the development and implementation of environmental policy frameworks and governance programs concerning air pollution issues on local, regional, and global scales.

Hannah Lee is an undergraduate student at Columbia University. She is an earth and environmental engineering student, with a designed concentration in engineering for developing countries! She is most interested in alternative and sustainable energies, and in the future hopes to work in the field, on finding solutions to energy-related problems for developing regions. With regards to academics, her research focus is on CO2 sequestration below the deep seafloor. On campus and outside of school Hannah is passionate about  students' roles toward living sustainably, and runs Columbia University's Eco-Representatives program (RA's for the environment. Most recently, she attended CSD-15, participated in an ATHGO Youth Forum at the UN on the Environment and Climate Change, and will be traveling to Ghana for her first field-work experience!

Dominic MacCormack graduated in 2006 from the University of California, Davis with a degree in Environmental Policy and Planning. At Davis, Dominic served on various committees dedicated to educating students about environmental and political issues on campus and across the country. While participating in SustainUS's Agents of Change program for the first time in 2006, he realized how diligent we all must be in order to get sustainability issues and social responsibility into the mainstream - and he has no plan on giving up. Dominic has since returned to his native San Francisco and works as an environmental educator for Save the Bay, a non-profit dedicated to protecting, restoring, and educating the public about San Francisco Bay. In addition to playing trumpet in his spare time, Dominic is currently one of two policy coordinators for SustainUS, and served as a delegation leader at the Commission on Sustainable

Matt Maiorana recently completed his first year at College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine. Here he is working towards his B.A. in Human Ecology with a focus on Policy, Environmental Science, and Activism. He has been very involved with SustainUS in the past year and will take on the role of Maine Geocluster Co-Facilitator in the fall as well as SustainUS Policy Co-Coordinator. He has worked on multiple local, state, national, and international climate action campaigns through SustainUS, Sierra Student Coalition, Energy Action, and his own initiatives. When not going climate crazy, he likes to backpack, eat ice cream, and climb trees.

Lauren McGrath currently works with communities in Appalachia fighting the devastating effects of mountaintop mining and coal extraction on their homes, water and lives.  As a student ran successful clean energy campaigns, served as the legislative issues director for her university, and worked for the Midwest renewable energy association.  Her undergraduate thesis focused on the gendered division of labor within renewable energy; she is currently working on a digital video that highlights human rights issues associated to fossil fuel extraction in the United States. 

 

Lauren Nutter studies at College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine and is an active member of SustainUS Maine. She is also a member of a communication and PR committee for College of the Atlantic carbon neutral initiative. She is also a leadership trainer for a non-profit, the Student Leadership Training Program. Through SLTP she has spent the past several summers teaching leadership skills to high school students throughout the New England area, tackling issues of bullying, abusive relationships, and issues of hate that students deal with every day. Lauren was an Agents of Change delegate at the Commission for Social Development earlier this year, and a delegation leader at the Commission on Sustainable Development in April. Beginning in August 2007, Lauren will be the Agents of Change program coordinator.

David Solheim is a fifth year senior at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln studying economics and international studies. The student body president, David has been active in numerous campaigns emphasizing the empowerment of young people and promoting civic activism at the grassroots level. Because most of his research background involves rural economic development issues, David became interested in the development and future of alternative energy sources and their impact on rural America, particularly wind and biofuels. Internships with the Nebraska Bureau for Business Research and Nebraska Renewable Energy Systems solidified his conviction that America should be quick to embrace a cleaner, more equitable energy future because doing so promises a form of rural economic renewal which the nation currently lacks.

 

Logan Yonavjak is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she earned her B.A. degree in Geography, with a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) concentration. While still an undergraduate, she was involved with many activities on her campus and in Chapel Hill, NC, including active membership in Student Government, working at a local non-profit, serving as an undergraduate representative on several sustainability-focused committees on campus, and helping to plan a state-wide conference during the fall of 2006 for students in North Carolina to learn ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through renewable energy projects.  Currently her primary focus is applying environmentally friendly and sustainable ideas, models, and techniques to city planning and hopes to obtain a masters degree in City and Regional Planning in the next few years. Logan currently resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She enjoys learning about new and exciting ways to promote sustainability.

Unfortunately, Alex Dewar, Juan Hoffmaister and Logan Yonavjak were unable to join us in Bali.