Tishman Center for Social Justice and the Environment
Michelle Martinez, Inaugural Director of the Tishman CenterMichelle Martinez (MS ’08), a SEAS graduate, was appointed in July 2022 as the inaugural director of the Tishman Center. Martinez studied under Professor Emeritus Bunyan Bryant, and will continue to build on Bryant’s legacy of activism and involvement in grassroots movements. In her new role as inaugural director, she will be developing new courses on power building, community organizing and grassroots action, as well as spurring powerful initiatives that support students who are pursuing lifelong careers in environmental and climate justice. She will initiate a strategic planning process in her first year to envision the organization and growth of the new center. Martinez has 15 years of experience practicing environmental justice in her hometown of Detroit. Most recently, she served as executive director of the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition; she is a founding member of the Coalition and continues to serve on the board. Martinez also serves on the board of directors of We the People Michigan and is a contributing columnist to Planet Detroit, an online publication serving Detroit audiences with climate and environmental news. | |
Dr. Kyle Whyte, Faculty DirectorKyle Whyte, the George Willis Pack Professor at SEAS, is the founding faculty director of the Tishman Center. In this role he will provide overall leadership. He is the principal investigator of the Energy Equity Project, and affiliate professor of Native American Studies and Philosophy. His research addresses environmental justice, focusing on moral and political issues concerning climate policy and Indigenous peoples, the ethics of cooperative relationships between Indigenous peoples and science organizations, and problems of Indigenous justice in public and academic discussions of food sovereignty, environmental justice, and the anthropocene. He is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Whyte is also serving as a member of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council. | |
Mary Beth Jäger, Research CoordinatorMary Beth Jäger feels excited and privileged to be working with fellow Citizen Potawatomi member Dr. Whyte, Tishman Director Martinez and fellow staff and students of the Tishman Center. Jäger serves as a research coordinator and telecommutes from the Seattle area. Before starting at Tishman, Mary Beth worked as a decade long telecommuter and research analyst at the Native Nations Institute at the University of Arizona. Over the last several years, Jäger served as a co-lead for the Indigenous Foods Knowledges Network, (NSF-OPP Award#1745499), a research coordination network bringing together Indigenous individuals from the Arctic and US Southwest around food sovereignty and resilience. Currently, she serves as an experienced co-lead for the Fostering Indigenous-led Research Convergence Work Group hosted by the NSF funded Navigating the New Arctic-Community Office. One key aspect of these two projects is co-producing knowledge with fellow Indigenous collaborators. Jäger believes in advancing justice and equity through co-production and collaborating with Indigenous communities and communities marginalized to leverage research to their benefit. She looks forward to opportunities of this at the Tishman Center. Outside of work Jäger is a tamale enthusiast, food on the water admirer, sweet on pan dulce, fangirl of the Three Sisters and the list goes on. Besides being a big fan of food, Jäger believes food is medicine and central to culture. | |
Paula Astudillo, Project CoordinatorPaula Astudillo (Master in Education – U of M 2011) brings her passion for education justice and collective people empowerment, which was lastly sharpened while working in the research and evaluation office of Detroit Public School Community District and mentoring women and LGBTQ+ of color in STEMM and open science projects with diverse communities in the US. At the Tishman Center, Paula is the Project Coordinator, dedicated to fostering an empowering workplace climate, especially for our environmental justice students. Paula’s primary focus is cultivating an organizational culture centered on care, collegiality, and mutual support. |
Tishman Center Team 2023-2024
Tre'Nard Morgan, Alumni Network OrganizerTre’Nard Morgan is a second year Masters student studying Environmental Justice and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan. He’s from a small agrarian based town in South Florida known as Belle Glade affectionately nicknamed the “Muck”. Morgan received his bachelors from the University of Florida in Natural Resource Conservation before taking a learning year. Through that deferment, he began to focus more on connecting people with their environment and learning the importance of relationship building. He is a revolutionary that is looking to change the current living conditions of BIPOC communities and help stakeholders advocate for their surroundings. His goal is to create a more dynamic space for the Tishman Center by building more channels of networks for current students and alumni. With the help of the Tishman Center team, EJ students will have more abundant resources within their time at SEAS and post-grad endeavors. | |
Monique Rollins, Tishman Community Research OrganizerMonique Rollins is a first-year graduate student at SEAS specializing in environmental justice. She carries over a decade of professional experiences as a general and special educator in K-12 public education. During her time as a teacher, she was devoted to working in Title I schools that served high percentages of children from low-income families. Monique is a voice for the marginalized and a fierce advocate for educational, disability, and minority rights. A visionary, she unites people from diverse backgrounds to collaborate, strategize, and create innovative yet tangible solutions that empower others while furthering inclusion and access across academic and community settings. Monique believes in the strength of community, the grace of paying goodness forward, and the responsibility of fostering the next generation. She aspires to confront environmental and social injustices through the transformative power of education and the solidarity found in |
Climate Justice Movement Catalyst Fellows
The Climate Justice Movement Catalysts are master’s students at SEAS committed to environmental justice in the Midwest region. The students are supported for three semesters with a full-ride scholarship, and through the summer with an internship. Each Catalyst Fellow will be placed with an environmental justice organization or entity practicing EJ to enhance the field, and the skill sets of leadership, to move the needle forward on EJ. This award is supported by the Builder’s Initiative (2022-2024).
Latia LeonardLatia Leonard is a master’s student at SEAS studying environmental justice. 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.
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Naajia ShakirNaajia Shakir is a first-year graduate student at SEAS specializing in environmental justice. She is focused on working within Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities disproportionately affected by multiple issues including food insecurity, gentrification, and severe environmental pollution and contamination. She believes that by building community and the cultivation of food and land, one not only has autonomy over the food they eat but can also grow connections to the land, practicing methods that their ancestors once did to sustain themselves and coexist with the environment. This is one of many conscious acts of resistance to reclaim our narrative and fight for justice. | |
Japjyot Singh (ਜਪਜੋਤ ਸਿੰਘ)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. | |
Tara Apo-Priest, Tishman Catalyst Fellow for Indigenous RightsThis Winter 2024 we will be joined by Tara Apo who was recruited and selected as the 2024-2025 inaugural Tishman Center Catalyst Fellow for Indigenous Rights. Tara is a current 1st year student and Kanaka Maoli, Native Hawaiian, from the island of Maui, where she has deep roots in community organizing and advocating for water justice and Native Hawaiian rights. She’ll be working with the County of Maui to develop a framework for community land tenure and the prevention of ancestral land loss in Maui County, which has recently been devastated by the impacts of climate change and colonialism in Lāhainā. | |
Malu Castro, Community Research CoordinatorMalu is a second-year PhD student at SEAS. His work is broadly focused on organizational evaluation, planning, and theory. Specifically, he focuses on engendering how Indigenous communities historically, traditionally, and contemporarily understand and implement evaluation as a means of nation-building, self-determination, and land-based living. Malu's kuleana (responsibility) is to be a steward of the land and those it feeds—even beyond the shores of his ancestral homes of Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Malu assists with guiding the evaluation of the strategic plan, and connecting PhD students’ interdisciplinary work to that of the Tishman Center. | |
Tyler LaBergeTyler LaBerge is a graduate student 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 Masters 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-HallmarkPendle Marshall-Hallmark is earning 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. | |
Gayatri NayarananGaya is a dancer, community healer, and facilitator in their first year of the Environmental Justice Master's program at SEAS. Their works braids dance, gender studies, and political ecology with the goal of making visible the gendered technologies of caste oppression in India and the diaspora. As a healer and facilitator, they are deeply interested in building knowledge on culturally relevant practices of transformative justice, with a focus on somatic healing and generative conflict. | |
Amina DunnAmina Dunn is a first-year master’s student from Washington D.C. specializing in environmental justice. Her interests primarily lie in the intersections between culture, community building, and urban development. Before attending the University of Michigan, Amina worked as a survey researcher at Pew Research Center focusing on U.S. Politics. Amina holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology and theater studies from Emory University.
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Cat DiggsCat Diggs is a third-year 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 GeelhoedDeanna Geelhoed is a current second year 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. |