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2023 Panelists

Katie Brown received her degree in Geography with a minor in Biology from the University of Kentucky in May of 2020. During her time in Lexington, she had developed an interest in the interplay of health and space, which continues to guide her work today. Currently, Katie is a Ph.D. Student in the Department of Geography, Environment, and Spatial Sciences at Michigan State University. Since joining the program in the Fall of 2021, Katie has contributed to multiple research projects, attended major conferences, and had the chance to work in the field collecting various forms of data. While still in the formative stages, Katie’s intended dissertation involves assessing how urban transformations impact residents’ mental health. She plans to look at the case of Detroit, MI, where many legacy residents may be affected by the rapid physical and social neighborhood-change occurring. Upon completing her degree, Katie hopes to stay in a university setting and contribute to research surrounding health equity.

Sean Conway is an Orthoimagery Technical Expert with NV5 Geospatial, graduating from UK Geography in 2014. Using the tools and techniques he learned during his time at UK, he advanced to his current position overseeing large scale imagery projects. On Twitter and Instagram: @geo_spatialist. 

Amanda Curry works as a Compliance & Operations Staff member in the ​Director's Office of the Energy and Environment Cabinet of Kentucky. She grew up in Kentucky in Woodford County on a family farm where her curiosity and love for the environment began. Curry originally attended UK from 2000-2002, but left to begin a family and worked in a variety of administrative capacities. In 2018, she had the opportunity to return to UK to finish her degree. She was the 2020 ENS Outstanding Senior and graduated with honors (magna cum laude) with bachelor’s degrees in both ENS and Geography, with minors in Appalachian Studies and GIS/Mapping. She currently works as an Environmental Scientist II in the Division of Enforcement with the Department for Environmental Protection at the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet and she is excited about the work I am currently doing, mostly in relation to wastewater compliance monitoring, and the projects that I will be working on soon including dam safety, environmental justice, and a variety of GIS projects.

Sam Harmon graduated UK in December 2019 with a Bachelor’s in Environmental and Sustainability Studies as well as a Bachelor’s in Political Science. In the Fall of 2020, he began law school at the J. David Rosenberg College of Law here at UK. He has also accepted a post-grad associate attorney position at Porter, Banks, Baldwin & Shaw, PLLC, right here in Lexington where he plans to continue his legal career in civil litigation with a focus on insurance defense.

Rachelanne Knoll serves as Eastern Kentucky University’s Sustainability Manager where she works to enforce their Climate Action and Resiliency Plan. She strives to engage the EKU community in a variety of her own passions including sustainable food systems, equity and environmental justice.

Ryan Lark is a sustainability professional and advocate currently serving as the University of Kentucky’s senior level Recycling/Waste Reduction Specialist. He has previously worked for the Kentucky Division of Waste Management, U.S. Geological Survey, and UK’s Center for Applied Energy Research. Ryan holds a BS in Environmental & Sustainability Studies, Biology, and Animal Sciences as well as a Graduate Certificate in Digital Mapping from UK.

Sandra Martinez (she/her) is part of the Accounts Management team at Grid Principles. She is dedicated to bringing a creative approach to problem solving. For the last 5 years, she has worked to implement systems and processes at nonprofits and startup initiatives to aid in scaling efforts. Her curiosity for learning has kept her research mind ablaze. It’s this passion that drives her to dive deep into clients’ needs and holistically understand the 'Why' behind a project’s goal helping to deliver exceptional web products. Outside the office, she stays busy exploring the trails in Kentucky. As a DACAmented individual, she strives to always advocate for her community and stays involved in community-oriented work.

Cassie Odum received her Bachelor of Arts in Geography and Environmental & Sustainability Studies from the University of Kentucky in 2018. After working in Lexington for a few years as an environmental educator with EELCorps (an Americorps State program) and as a laboratory technician at a water quality lab, she returned to her hometown of Indianapolis in 2021 in pursuit of a career in community development. She currently works with the City of Indianapolis as a Project Development Analyst, where she enforces residential building code and local zoning ordinances for commercial and residential development projects, and hopes to begin a graduate program for sustainable development/environmental planning this coming fall. 

America’s Renaming Moment: On Realizing Its Reparative Possibilities

America is in the midst of place renaming moment. Names affixed to spaces across a variety of scales-- from city streets and university campuses to national parks and military bases—are being challenged and changed because they valorize historical figures associated with racism, settler colonialism, and patriarchy. In addition to this de-commemoration, communities are using place names as tools of reparative memory-work, to recover and do justice to erased indigenous ties to the land and the neglected contributions of people of color, women, and queer communities. While this renaming moment has been criticized (and rightly so to some degree) for being a performative distraction from “real issues,” such a perspective can too easily dismiss the nation’s history of place name activism along with how some members of historically marginalized groups view commemoratively named places as important to their lived experiences, identity struggles, and political-emotional wellbeing. Dr. Alderman explores the narrative, material, and affective capacities of place naming and along with what is required—intellectually and practically—to realize the full reparative possibilities of the nation’s renaming moment. Such possibilities depend upon communities responding to the violent racialized and gendered histories behind named places, recasting place naming as a public participatory and regenerative process, and recognizing how commemorative renaming works with wider place-making discourses, practices, and locations to reproduce (or resist) social inequality.

More information for this event can be found here.

About the Presenter: 

Derek H. Alderman (Ph.D., University of Georgia) is a Professor of Geography and the Betty Lynn Hendrickson Professor of Social Sciences at the University of Tennessee, where he has also served as Head of the Department of Geography & Sustainability. His teaching, research, and public outreach focus on cultural and historical geography, with a major emphasis on the African American Freedom Struggle in the Southeast. Dr. Alderman is a past President of the American Association of Geographers (AAG) and a Fellow of the AAG. He is the (co)author of over 150 articles, essays, and book chapters—many of which have helped develop the growing interdisciplinary field of critical toponymic or place naming studies. His scholarship advances understanding of the role of named places in struggles over social justice, memory, and public space in America. Dr. Alderman is a nationally recognized authority on the topic of street naming, especially for civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. In August of 2022, he was appointed by Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland to serve on a National Advisory Committee on Reconciliation in Place Names, which is charged with identifying and recommending changes to offensive terms still in use for places throughout the U.S. as well as improving existing federal naming/renaming processes. The National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities have fund Dr. Alderman’s research and pedagogical work. Committed to publically engaged scholarship, Dr. Alderman regularly assists municipal officials, community organizations, journalists, documentarians, and DEI advocates. Print, radio and television media outlets have interviewed or quoted him numerous times, including CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, CityLab, Washington Post, USA Today, and National Public Radio.

Philanthropy-State Relations in an Age of Biodiversity Crisis

Dr. Clare Beer, UCLA

The role of philanthropy in biodiversity conservation is rapidly changing. As philanthropic foundations and wealthy donors commit massive sums to help 'save the planet,' they are fueling a growing discourse that large-scale conservation and large-scale giving are both indispensable to solving the coupled climate and biodiversity crises. But are they? What would this mean, and how would this function in practice? This talk addresses such questions through a case study of one large-scale conservation initiative in Chilean Patagonia, established through a novel public-private partnership between the Chilean state and the U.S.-based philanthropic foundations Tompkins Conservation and The Pew Charitable Trusts. Drawing on thirteen months of qualitative fieldwork, it traces the origins and trajectories of this initiative and interrogates the broader implications of leveraging philanthropy in state environmental governance. Tompkins Conservation and The Pew Charitable Trusts attracted state buy-in for the partnership by speculating on the value and investability of national parks as economic assets. Reflecting a logic of conservation-as-development, this disrupted an entrenched state logic of conservation-versus-development that had derailed previous attempts to protect the region. Yet, my research finds that the execution of conservation-as-development in Chile – largely facilitated by these philanthropic foundations – is mimicking and reproducing key dynamics of extractive-led development, raising critical doubts about the feasibility and appeal of conservation-as-development as a green transition alternative.

Eunjung Kim’s research and teaching interests include transnational feminist disability studies; theories of vulnerability and human/nonhuman boundaries; Korean cultural history of disability, gender, and sexuality and anti-violence feminist disability movements; Asian feminisms and women’s movements; critical humanitarian communications and human rights; asexuality and queer theories. She is currently working on a book-length manuscript on violence against people with disabilities and illnesses, health justice activisms, posthumous care, and the ecology of aging and dying in South Korea and beyond.

Zomm Link: TBD

A native of Puerto Rico, Yomaira was born and raised in Hoboken, NJ and is a first-generation high school and college graduate. She is Associate Professor of Global Afro-Diaspora Studies in the department of English at Michigan State University. She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in Comparative Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and her B.A. in English, Puerto Rican and Hispanic Caribbean Studies, and Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University, New Brunswick (Douglass College).

Zoom Link: TBD

Living Beyond Survival: Political ecology & mutual aid through simultaneous crises:

Speakers:

Crystal Felima - Anthropology & AAAS

Kat Smith - Kentucky Student; Environmental Coalition

Kathryn Engle - Appalachian Center & Appalachian Studies

Shaunna Scott - Sociology