SES Fall 2025 Showcase: Highlighting Student & Faculty Sustainability Leadership
About the Showcase
This hybrid, 90-minute event will highlight the student-centered impactful work happening across our sustainability initiatives by SES as well as faculty and student leaders. While student presenters and campus leaders will gather in-person, we welcome all interested faculty, students, and community members to join us virtually via Zoom! Attendees can look forward to learning firsthand about our student leaders, their projects, and calls for collaboration, support, and action. Register here and find more details below.
Showcase agenda highlights include...
🌱 The Climate Literacy Program: Presented by Roisin Kirby, SES Fellow
⭐ Student Leader Spotlights: Quick talks on high-impact campus projects by undergraduate and graduate student leaders from across the Colleges of Education, Engineering, Humanities and Fine Arts, Natural Sciences, and Social & Behavioral Sciences. More information on our student leaders and featured initiatives below.
🤝 Network engagement: Discussion with calls to connect, support, and be in network with these efforts.
How to join remotely
Register here – you'll receive the Zoom link in your confirmation email!
Featured Student Leaders include...
Presenting on: SES Climate Literacy Program
About: Roisin Kirby is a sustainability educator and PhD fellow in the College of Education. Roisin started as a student in the Stockbridge School of Agriculture at UMass Amherst and studied Sustainable Food and Farming for her undergraduate degree. She went on to study Sustainability Sciences for her Masters Degree. She hopes to be a bridge between the College of Natural Sciences and the College of Education at UMass Amherst and to make connections between climate solutions science and social justice education. Her academic interests include climate solutions education, agriculture, sustainability sciences and social justice.
Presenting on: SGA Heating Efficiency Initiative
About: I am a senior majoring in mechanical engineering with a minor in mathematics. I hope to continue my studies pursuing a masters in mechanical engineering, with a focus on thermo-fluid system design. As the secretary of sustainability I have been working with on campus HVAC systems to increase efficiency in order to reduce carbon footprint.
Presenting on: New2U: Structuring a Business on Campus
About: As a senior in Sustainable Community Development, I am passionate about developing resilience and sustainability initiatives in local communities. Last year, I worked with the Sustainability Team as a Sustainability Fellow to advance the New2U Program to develop the first-ever year-round Thrift Store on the UMass Campus. After designing the business plan, operations manual, and setting up the storefront, we opened in February 2025 with a mission to not only advance our waste diversion initiative, but to create connections with the campus community and create a circular economy.
Presenting on: New2U: Structuring a Business on Campus
About: I am majoring in Sustainable Community Development with a minor in Public Policy. My main focus with both of these areas of study is people and culture, and how to improve the overall wellbeing for different communities. This means that a lot of my projects, like New2U's social media presence, focuses on community outreach and voice.
Presenting on: Waste Reduction Initiatives at UMass
About: With a professional and academic background spanning from plant growth and production to foodstuff supply chain, and then culinary usage, Marie is equipped with a robust understanding of sustainable food systems. Majoring in agriculture, and pursuing a minor in resource economics, She is passionate about conservation, food safety and healthy living. Before deciding to pursue a university degree at UMass, Marie worked on numerous farms and completed a culinary school certification. Working alongside the campus sustainability team, She focuses her efforts on various waste reduction approaches including e-waste disposal site expansions and the on-campus thrift store inventory control.
Presenting on: Grafting as Method: Art, Repair, & the Archive
About: Bo Kim is a third-year MFA candidate in Studio Art at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, focusing on ecological memory, Korean diasporic material culture, and participatory art practices. Her research integrates archival study, drawing, and traditional Korean tools to investigate climate grief, interdependence, and forms of communal repair. As a Renaissance of the Earth Fellow, she examines early modern agrarian texts and cultivation tools to build transhistorical connections between land stewardship and sustainability. Her current projects bridge studio practice and public engagement through environmental pedagogy and collaborative artmaking.
Presenting on: Most Pernicious and Never Idle: Investigating Human–Insect Relationships Across Time
About: Aliza is a PhD candidate in the Department of Environmental Conservation, where she studies wild bees in forests. She also serves as co-chair of the UMass Bee Campus USA Committee, working to enhance pollinator habitats on campus and engage the UMass community in pollinator education and stewardship. As a Renaissance of the Earth Fellow, Aliza is documenting pollinators at the Kinney Center and exploring connections between the entomological techniques she uses today and early modern methods of observing the natural world.