![Environmental Justice](/sites/default/files/styles/hero/public/2021-03/header-ej.jpg?itok=IM3xTmTd)
Alumni
![]() | Latia Leonard, 2023-2024 Catalyst Fellow (Grad: Spring 2024)Latia Leonard is a graduate of SEAS with a Master’s in environmental justice (Grad: 2024). Latia, who is originally from Detroit, is passionate about many environmental justice issues such as water infrastructure, water affordability, and housing. Latia has worked with youth and local organizations to address climate change while advocating for a just transition, green jobs, and community led engagement. As a Catalyst Fellow with the Tishman Center, she completed an 18-month research project culminating in a municipal policy agenda for Midwestern Cities, in partnership with the Green New Deal Network. |
![]() | Japjyot Singh (ਜਪਜੋਤ ਸਿੰਘ), 2023-2024 Catalyst Fellow (Grad: Spring 2024)Japjyot Singh is a Sikh that acts in qualities of service, love, and justice, as given through Gurmat, the Sikh tradition and philosophy. He has spent more than three years working at various nonprofit organizations ranging from direct services, community engagement, fundraising efforts, and more. Through those experiences he has advanced understandings of anti-oppression, anti-racist, and decolonial work and thought systems—and they are now serving as his main inspiration for pursuing environmental justice education. Japjyot completed his fellowship with the direct installation of energy retrofits and environmental justice curriculum for the Mata Tripta Gurudwara in Plymouth Michigan. |
![]() | Tyler LaBerge, Storyteller (Grad: Spring 2024)Tyler LaBerge is a graduate in the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability specializing in Environmental Justice. She is particularly interested in the intersection of public health and environmental justice, and in building power in frontline communities. At SEAS, she works as the Strategic Projects Coordinator for the EEP and as a storyteller for the Tishman Center. Her master's project centers on building power for the EJ movement in Dallas, TX. Before graduate school, she worked as a Senior Energy Analyst for the international consulting firm, ICF. Previously, Tyler was the Sustainability Coordinator for St. Louis Composting, expanding food waste composting in the St. Louis region. She also has experience in corporate sustainability and alternative transportation. She completed her undergraduate degree in 2014, earning a B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis with double majors in Environmental Policy and Economics. She is an avid climber, cellist, hiker, and indoor plant propagator. She lives in Ann Arbor with her husband and dog. |
![]() | Pendle Marshall-Hallmark, Storyteller (Grad: Spring 2024)Pendle Marshall-Hallmark earned her master’s degree at U-M’s School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) after nearly a decade working in the field of social, economic, and environmental justice advocacy. As an undergraduate studying sociology and Latin American literature, Pendle received a fellowship to work as a legal assistant for undocumented immigrant women survivors of domestic violence on the U.S.-Mexican border, where her mother’s family is from. Her interest in understanding the drivers of migration and inequity motivated a career in human rights and environmental advocacy. Among other experiences, she has worked in refugee resettlement as an AmeriCorps VISTA Fellow, studied social entrepreneurship in Mexico as a Fulbright Garcia Robles Scholar, accompanied threatened human rights activists in conflict zones in Colombia, and organized oil and gas divestment campaigns with an organization dedicated to defending Indigenous territories in the Amazon rainforest. |
![]() | Cat Diggs, Storyteller (Grad: Spring 2024)Cat Diggs is a Dual Master’s degree student pursuing an M.S. in Environmental Justice at SEAS and a Master’s in Urban & Regional Planning at Taubman College. Cat has accrued close to a decade of grassroots community work experience during both her seven-and-a-half years away from academic study and during her time at U-M. Born and raised in Montreal, Quebec by a family of human rights advocates, Cat decided to move to Detroit in 2016 as a dual citizen to become involved with the city’s powerful Afrocentric music communities and culture of grassroots activism. Over the years, she has worked as a grassroots recycling educator, community-based storyteller and event producer, ESL teacher, and environmental justice nonprofit worker. Through her boots-on-the-ground experience as community worker and cultural organizer, Cat has grown passionate about building the capacity of climate justice movements in their ongoing efforts to address the global plastics crisis and its impacts on EJ communities locally and globally. Cat never ceases to be humbled by the incredible people and communities she has had the privilege of collaborating with over the years. She hopes to continue contributing her storytelling and community-building skills to the social and EJ movements and causes that she is striving to work in collaboration with throughout her life. |
![]() | Deanna Geelhoed, Storyteller (Grad: Spring 2024)Deanna Geelhoed was an Environmental Justice and Policy student at SEAS. She has a breadth of lived and professional experience in the Great Lakes watershed. For the past eight years in their home of Grand Rapids MI, Deanna has coordinated the Plaster Creek Stewards Initiative at Calvin University. Within this work they have led watershed education, research, and on-the-ground projects rooted in community empowerment. She is proud that because of her work her community is better informed how to care for the water and has a deeper sense of belonging to the watershed. She is proud that now the human and non human kin have thousands of more trees and native plants to enjoy. But while doing this work they encountered many injustices. This motivated Deanna to study Environmental Justice with a focus on decolonial land management and Indigenous Rights. They believe that access to land is the basis for community floursing. Thus far at SEAS Deanna has conducted work with various Anishinaabe Tribes on land tenure strategies. They look forward to aligning their skills to work toward the Tishman Center mission of undoing inequality and securing justice. |
![]() | Alexandria (Ally) Martin (Grad: Spring 2024)Alexandria (Ally) Martin graduated in August 2024 with an MS degree specializing in Environmental Justice. She has extended her degree in order to continue to work on her masters project, which involves assisting a community partner from St. Clair Township, MI in their fight against major fossil fuel corporations (Enbridge and Energy Transfer/Sunoco), both of whom are being accused of polluting the air and water in the area. The major deliverables that Ally is working on currently involves organizing the immense amount of documentation that her community partner has amassed over the years through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, as well as reaching out to local news reporters who may have an interest in writing a story on St. Clair Township, which could potentially bring much needed attention to the community. She is originally from Buffalo, NY, and graduated with a BS in Environmental Science from Allegheny College in 2021. Ally would be honored to continue working alongside communities who are experiencing energy injustices in her future career, and is hopeful that her work for the past 1.5 years, as well as over the course of summer 2024, will have a positive impact on the St. Clair Township community. |