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Day 1 Speakers

Imari Walker Karega

imari.walker.karega@duke.edu 

Imari Walker is a PhD Candidate at Duke University investigating the fate, occurrence, and transformation of plastic additives within freshwater environments. In particular, her dissertation work focuses on endocrine disrupting chemicals like Bisphenol A (BPA) that are of concern to human health and the environment. Before Duke, Imari completed her Bachelors in Marine Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Alongside her PhD work, Imari uses her science communication-based YouTube channel to share information about plastic pollution, microplastics, and chemicals associated with these consumer products.

Dr. Christopher Timmins

Christopher D. Timmins is a Professor in the Department of Economics at Duke University, with a secondary appointment in Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment. He holds a BSFS degree from Georgetown University and a PhD in Economics from Stanford University. Professor Timmins specializes in natural resource and environmental economics, but he also has interests in industrial organization, development, public and regional economics. He works on developing new methods for valuation of local public goods and amenities, with a particular focus on hedonic techniques and models of residential sorting. His recent research has focused on measuring the costs associated with exposure to poor air quality, the benefits associated with remediating brownfields and toxic waste under the Superfund program, the valuation of non-marginal changes in disamenities, and the causes and consequences of environmental injustice.  At Duke, Professor Timmins co-manages the Environmental Justice Lab.  Professor Timmins is a research associate in the Environmental and Energy Economics group at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and has served as a co-editor for the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, an editor for the Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, and a reviewer for numerous environmental, urban, and applied microeconomics journals. 

Dr. Miguel Rojas-Sotelo

Miguel Rojas-Sotelo is an Adjunct professor in International and Comparative Studies at the Duke Center for International and Global Studies (DUCIGS) and academic events coordinator at the Duke Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. He works at the intersection of ethnic/Indigenous studies, environmental and health humanities, critical human geography, and border cultural theory. As a scholar, filmmaker, visual artist, and media activist he studies how indigenous (settled or displaced) and natural spaces are shaped by modernity and how they mobilize to adapt and resist. He is particularly interested in how indigenous communities articulate their archival knowledge, racial and class politics, the spatiality of those processes, and how they manifest in the landscape via visual, audiovisual, oral, and textual narratives.

 

Dr. Rojas-Sotelo also serves on the board of Repurpose IT Indigenous Education NGO; is member of theEnPax (Environmental Peace Building Association), is the co-founding member of the Mingas de la Imagen working on hemispheric intercultural dialogues; and co-founding scholar of the Centro de Estudios Ecocríticos e Interculturales at Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá. Currently works and teaches at the Nicholas School of the Environment and the Center for Documentary Studies on environmental justice and communication. Miguel is the founder of the WATER TOWNS | 水乡. Environmental Film & Arts Festival. 环保电影艺术节 (China) connecting indigenous voices from South and North America with minority voices in China and South East Asia,  director of the NC Latin American Film Festival (USA). 

Day 2 Speaker

Kristy Drutman

Kristy Drutman is a Jewish-Filipina environmental media creator and founder of Brown Girl Green, a media platform exploring the intersections between media, diversity, and environmentalism. Brown Girl Green encompasses a blog as well as a podcast, in which Kristy interviews various environmental leaders about inclusive and just solutions to the climate crisis or related issues. As a sustainability communications expert, Kristy has spoken in front of thousands as well as facilitated workshops centered around environmental media and storytelling in cities across the United States. She has also worked with youth from around the world to create collaborative, intersectional online media with the goal of creating conscious, culturally relevant content to engage audiences about proactive solutions to the climate crisis. 

Environmental Alliance

Earthfest is brought to you by Duke's Environmental Alliance, an undergraduate environmental education and awareness organization dedicated to the promotion of sustainable practices on campus and the conservation of local and global ecological institutions.

Operation Climate

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A Duke University student-run podcast empowering listeners to create lasting change in the fight against climate change and all its intersections.

Duke Fashion Exchange

A campus community for students to buy, sell, and exchange clothing and accessories.

Duke Undergraduate Environmental Union (UEU)

https://ceosites.wixsite.com/dueu

The UEU, part of Duke Student Government, serves as the hub for all undergraduate environmental activity, communications, and programming at Duke. They partner with environmental clubs, community members, neighboring institutions, Duke faculty members, administrators, university staff, and the larger student body to facilitate conversations and collaboration around sustainability on campus and beyond.

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