Who We Are

Michelle Martinez, Inaugural Director of the Tishman Center

Michelle 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 has developed courses on power building, community organizing and critical environmental justice, as well as anchoring powerful initiatives that support students who are pursuing lifelong careers in environmental and climate justice. In her first two years, she has supported research projects such as Dallas Black Clergy, expanding environmental justice programming within Faith in Texas; growing the Green New Deal Network’s Cities Program; spurring environmental justice within the Mata Tripta Gurudwara of SE Michigan; and fighting toxic pollution from fossil transit on the Great Lakes with Freshwater Futures, among others.

Martinez has 20 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. Martinez also serves on the board of directors of We the People Michigan, Great Lakes Environmental Law Center and is a contributing columnist to Planet Detroit, an online publication serving Detroit audiences with climate and environmental news. 

Dr. Kyle Whyte, Faculty Director

Kyle 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, Project Manager

Mary Beth Jäger serves as a project manager for the Tishman Center For Social Justice and the Environment. Jäger works on several research projects and advises graduate students on research methodologies and their research projects. Of the projects Mary Beth works on, she wants to highlight Pathways Alliance for Transformation and Change, which encompasses Indigenous-led research, education, economies, and Indigenous Knowledges with global Indigenous organizations to focus on climate mitigation, biodiversity, resilience, well-being, and food sovereignty. It has been a pleasure and privilege to work with her colleagues across the globe on this project.

Mary Beth earned her Master's in Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis and her bachelor’s degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages at Carroll College in Montana. Jäger is also enrolled in the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. 

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, Senior Program Manager

Paula Astudillo (Master in Education – U-M 2013) brings her passion for education justice and collective people empowerment. As a Senior Educator Program Manager, she has developed the mentoring program and curriculum for the Climate Justice Movement Cohort, a group of master's students supported by the Tishman Center. Paula has also led program evaluation, collective reflections, and the implementation of the climate justice education model, while dedicated to fostering an empowering workplace climate, supporting students in developing skills to engage in environmental justice experiential learning, and nourishing climate justice education opportunities within the Tishman Center community. Paula is also an active organizer in Detroit, where she lives, and brings more than 25 years of international experience in grassroots social justice movements. She has built her career around her passions for educational justice, gender struggles, youth empowerment, and strengthening marginalized communities' self- determination, collective care, power, and organizational capacity. 

Dr. Tony G. Reames, Associate Professor; Tishman Professor of Environmental Justice; Director SEAS Detroit Sustainability Clinic

Dr. Tony Reames is the Tishman Professor of Environmental Justice and an Associate Professor, widely recognized for his scholarship and senior government leadership in environmental and energy justice.

Dr. Reames founded the Urban Energy Justice Lab and the Energy Equity Project and currently serves as Director of the U-M SEAS Detroit Sustainability Clinic. His research centers on advancing fair and equitable access to affordable, reliable, and clean energy, and on examining the root causes and persistence of energy disparities across race, income, and geography.

Dr. Sarah Nahar

Dr. Sarah Nahar (she) graduated in May 2025 from Syracuse University in Religion with a dissertation entitled, “Fertile, Social, Dangerous, Sacred, Gift, and System: Religion, Salt City Harvest Farm, and the Future of Human Shit.” She simultaneously matriculated at the State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry and wrote an additional dissertation entitled, “Dealing with our Crap, Literally and Metaphorically: Ecological Sanitation in Context of Environmental Studies and Religion.” She recently coined the terms Excreta Infrastructure Technology (ExIT) system, defecatory justice, and excretory justice. She will teach at the University of Michigan’s Program in the Environment.

Eric Hemenway 

Eric Hemenway is an Anishnaabe/Odawa from Cross Village, Mi. He is the Humanities Manager under the Hub at the School for Environment and Sustainability. Eric's work will focus on bringing humanities to environmental justice, primarily through the histories and stories of the first people of Michigan, the Anishnaabek. Previously to joining SEAS, Eric worked for the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians in their Archives. For twenty years at LTBB Odawa, Eric promoted tribal voice and sovereignty through numerous projects and endeavors. These include exhibits, signage, curriculums, public programs, publications and extensive work under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Engagement with public schools, universities, land conservancies, museums and state/federal governments have been vital to the numerous projects across the country Eric has engaged in. When not working, Eric enjoys time with his family (which includes his two dogs) and being outdoors as much as possible (which usually includes his two dogs). 

Dr. Shahram Abbas 

Shahram is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Tishman Center for Social Justice and the Environment. His research is situated at the intersection of Environmental Humanities and Climate Justice, examining how colonial and postcolonial regimes have shaped uneven ecological worlds for communities situated at the margins of power, progress, and privilege. Against linear temporalities of development and crisis, Shahram’s work challenges dominant future-oriented narratives of climate change by attending to historically situated experiences of loss, survival, and resistance that are endured into the present. More specifically, he explores how Indigenous, land-based, and river-based communities experience time through place, and memory, particularly in lived histories whereby environmental disruption is not a distant future in collapse time but an already endured existential condition in real time, terms and materiality of things. Shahram completed his PhD from SEAS under Dr. Kyle Whyte and has an MA in Philosophy from University of North Texas. During his years as a graduate student, Shahram received numerous funding awards, including a Fulbright scholarship. He also has an extensive teaching experience as faculty member of public universities in Pakistan. His peer-reviewed research is forthcoming in Human Geography, Environmental Justice, and Environmental Ethics. 

Dr. Malu Castro 

K. Malulani Castro (European settler/kānaka ʻōiwi/Puerto Rican/diaspora) is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan's School for Environment and Sustainability where he works with Dr. Kyle Powys Whyte (Citizen Potowatomi) on Indigenous land restoration efforts more commonly known as "land back." In that capacity, Malu teaches courses on Indigenous sustainability and Indigenous rights while also researching and supporting land back initiatives. Malu's scholarly interests lie at the intersection of philosophy, history, real estate and finance as it emerges in the land back movement. Malu's dissertation researched an ʻāina (land) back initiative on the Hawaiian island of Moloka'i where he explicated the theoretical and practical implications of financing and pricing in Indigenous land restoration transactions. 

Dr. Harshit Sosan Lakra

Dr. Harshit Sosan Lakra (She/Her), from the Oraon Tribe and Lakra (Tiger) Clan, is a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Fellow at the School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, under the mentorship of Prof. Kyle Whyte. Her research focuses on understanding the impacts of co-planning, co-designing, and co-learning with Indigenous communities in India and the USA, with particular attention to housing, culture, and environmental contexts. Through her fellowship, she actively engages in co-learning and knowledge sharing across academic, policy, and community platforms.

Dr. Lakra is trained as an architect from MANIT Bhopal and holds a master’s degree in Environmental Planning from CEPT Ahmedabad and a second master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from Cornell University, supported by the International Ford Fellowship. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture and Planning at IIT Roorkee and has led and contributed to initiatives on Tribal housing, sustainable land and forest management, Indigenous knowledge integration, and Tribal well-being across several Indian states.

Adriana Nieto

Adriana is a first-generation student from Long Island, NY, holding a BS in Environmental Geoscience, with a minor in Geographic Information Systems, from SUNY Cortland. Adriana just graduated from SEAS in 2026, specializing in both Sustainability and Development (SusDev) and Geospatial Data Sciences (GDS). She is working on the data center research team, and additionally to that Adriana has done research surrounding equity in flooding infrastructure implementation for her master’s capstone project, as well as research on student professional competency development within the SEAS theme-based master’s projects. Adriana was crucial in providing mentorship to her peers as a Next-Gen Scholars Program Peer Mentor and a SusDev Track Leader. Adriana loves water and people, and looks forward to continuing to catalyze community empowerment through data visualization and meaningful engagement during her career. When Adriana is not working, you can find her hanging out with friends, watching edits of her favorite media, or attempting to learn a new dance.