Board Member since 2024
Company
and job title: Program Director for Health, Wellness, and Climate at D’Youville University
Location D’Youville University
Hometown West Chester, PA
What experience led you to where you are today at the land trust?
“I was talking to my neighbor who is with Land Ethic… I was telling him about some of the work I do in environmental communication… and he said you should talk to this woman I know, Joy Kuebler…So I met Joy and I was amazed by her enthusiasm and she said they would love to have an educator and communicator that’s thinking about these issues… I was brought on pretty quickly after that!”
What is your interest in the land trust? Why are you here? What do you hope to accomplish?
“As chair of development and engagement, I’m really interested in how we use the stories of these places to change the culture of Buffalo, and change the way we think about this place where we live…What I want to do is use the land trust as a way to make people think about the history and the future of this place…so really using stories to do better restoration work, and to use the restoration work as a sort of catalyst for stories, and it becomes a kind of cycle.”
What is the significance of the place you chose to meet?
“I run this program in health, wellness, and climate and I think there’s so much overlap between what I do with this program, and what I do with the land trust. Really it’s about how having a healthy planet or a healthy place, leads to healthy people…it’s interesting being able to do this work in one of the most polluted places on the planet.”
What’s your favorite part about being on this board?
“This might be silly, but I like the challenge of communicating what we do…It’s something that’s really unique, like how do you explain to people who don’t know anything about brownfields, who don’t know anything about western New York, the value of what it is we do.”
What brings you joy?
“What brings me joy is having breakfast with my daughter… we make pancakes all the time”
What is your favorite outdoor activity?
“Canoeing… I grew up on the Brandywine River so like twice a week in the summer back home we would go for floats. I’ve done a 40 mile trip on the Delaware River like five times. I’ve done 80 miles across the Adirondacks. I did a week of canoe camping in Québec… I’ve done backpacking trips before where you have to carry everything on your back, but with a canoe you can pack all kinds of stuff.”
What is your favorite season?
“My favorite season is Fall… I like that Fall is harvest time, it’s the season of bounty… great color palette.”
If you could have any superpower what would it be?
“My superpower would be to breathe underwater… I want to be able to swim really deep down and check things out.”
Any current projects you’re working on or anything else you’d like to promote?
“We’re always looking for students in the health, wellness, and climate administration masters degree so if anyone out there wants to sign up for the program feel free!…Also I am working on a new project of integrating historical survey records or Western New York and beyond with paleoecological pollen data, so a UB professor and I are working together on it…We work on reconstructing past forest composition through archival materials.”