Emma Lyu Buretta is a climate organizer from Brooklyn, New York. She began organizing climate strikes when she was twelve years old. While in high school, as Co-Director of Fridays for Future NYC, she organized six climate strikes with students from around the city and was a core organizer for the 75,000-person March to End Fossil Fuels. She furthered her work on international fossil fuel phaseout policy as the North American Delegate with the Fridays For Future International Delegation to COP28 in the United Arab Emirates and as a SustainUS delegate to COP30 in Brazil. Now at Yale, Emma is focused on the human rights impacts of the climate crisis, with a double major in Environmental Policy and U.S. History, and a focus on human rights scholarship. She is also use public scholarship for climate communications as a Partnerships Research Assistant at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and a Wallace Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies on the Climate Policy Project and Communications Teams. Emma is excited to bring the insights she’s gained from Brooklyn, Dubai, and Belém to Antalya with SustainUS. 

Ian Zane McCollum is a community organizer and participatory researcher from Brooklyn, New York. He began movement work at age 12, supporting first-time candidates running for local office. In high school, he served as the Co-Organizing Director of TREEage, New York City’s largest youth-led environmental policy organization, building student power to enact nation-leading climate legislation such as the Climate Change Superfund Act and Local Law 97. In addition to advancing climate solutions, Ian has authored policy research on municipal criminalization strategies with leading criminal legal reform organizations like the Center for Justice Innovation and The Bronx Defenders. As an Economics and Urban Studies student at Brown University, Ian conducts original research on government interventions related to environmental, carceral, and mobility issues. He’s excited to bring an intersectional approach to climate negotiations in Antalya.

Feleecia Guillen (she/her/ella) is a Xicana environmental justice organizer from rural New Mexico, organizing at the intersections of climate justice and anti-imperialism. She recently graduated summa cum laude from the University of New Mexico (Go Lobos!), where she organized for fossil fuel divestment with UNM Leaders for Environmental Action and Foresight and served on the Steering Committee of Youth United for Climate Crisis Action. Feleecia is an Organizer with New Mexico No False Solutions and a New Mexico Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, where she works alongside frontline communities to confront fossil fuel expansion, false climate solutions, and the growing militarization of the energy transition. She is also a campaigner with Movement to End Fossil Fuels and the 5F Campaign, helping build coordinated strategies to end fossil fuel extraction, challenge corporate power, and advance a just transition led by workers and frontline communities. Her work is grounded in the understanding that the climate crisis cannot be separated from colonialism, militarism, capitalism, and empire. As the granddaughter of a New Mexican family impacted as downwinders of the Trinity Test, the world’s first nuclear weapon detonation, Feleecia organizes against the ongoing legacies of nuclear colonialism, environmental racism, and extractivism. As a USCAN Delegate at COP30 in Brazil, Feleecia brought grassroots organizing from New Mexico to the international climate negotiations. She is honored to return to COP31 in Antalya with SustainUS. She is committed to ensuring that frontline movements shape global climate policy and to building international solidarity against fossil fuels, militarism, and systems of extraction. 

Sam James (she/they) is an artist and environmental communications strategist from the Deep South with roots in the Caribbean working at the intersection of climate, housing, and racial justice. They started their organizing career in 2016, when they founded a grassroots organization that focused on developing intersectional strategies to build sustainable community-led housing, food pathways, and more. Since then, Sam has used their skills as an artist and communications strategist to build narrative power for organizations like the International Rescue Committee, Women on the Rise, Sex Workers Outreach Project, Power Shift Network, Movement for Black Lives, and more. Currently, they lead social strategy for an organization dedicated to telling the stories of Indigenous frontline communities fighting for climate justice across the globe. 

Helen Mancini is a student organizer from New York City. She began organizing at age 14 with Fridays For Future NYC, where she planned climate strikes, lobbied for local climate legislation, and served as director. In 2023, she co-led the youth organizing effort for the 75,000-person March to End Fossil Fuels. At Harvard, Helen studies philosophy and social science and organizes with her campus Sunrise chapter, immigration justice coalition, and the student labor movement. She spent the past summer working for a refugee organization in Northern Greece where she conducted research, taught English, and connected with communities living in camps. At COP31 in Antalya, Helen hopes to bring a lens of migration and youth justice to climate negotiations.