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Lecturers
Alison Grantham, Ph.D.
Class: International Topics in Environment in the 21st Century – Corporate Sustainability Reporting (11:374:423)
Biography: Dr. Grantham is current founder of Grow Well Consulting – a food sustainability consulting firm. Before consulting, she was lead of sustainability and procurement at Blue Apron. She earned a Ph.D. in Ecology & Biogeochemistry PhD at Penn State Alison and has additional work experience in research & policy at Rodale Institute and directed the Start Farming! program at Penn State Extension.
ag2689@sebs.rutgers.edu
Ed Potosnak
Class: Careers in EPIB (11:374:280)
Biography: Ed Potosnak is currently the Executive Director of New Jersey League of Conservation Voters, Building on his experience on Capitol Hill, he applies his environmental, public policy, and government affairs expertise to advancing bold pro-conservation protections in New Jersey by passing laws and regulations to protect our environment. Ed was a high school chemistry teacher for a decade before he was awarded a highly competitive Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship to serve on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, where he crafted policies designed to improve our nation’s health and competitiveness. Ed is the Chair of the New Jersey Keep it Green Coalition and New Jersey State Lead for the Coalition for the Delaware River Watershed. He is also a member of the Rutgers Glee Club Alumni Advisory Committee, the Board of Sustainable Jersey, and serves as a local elected Council Member in Franklin Township in Somerset County where he was formerly Franklin Township Board of Education President.
edpiii@rutgers.edu
Sadaf Javed
Class: Politics of Environmental Issues (11:374:279)
Biography: Sadaf is a PhD candidate (currently in 7th year) in the Department of Geography at Rutgers University. She holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Sciences and an MPhil in Science Policy. Her research interests include climate change, agroecology, environmental governance, and bureaucracy. Drawing on a year-long ethnographic research in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, her dissertation examines how small farmers navigate the challenges and opportunities presented by state-led organic certification programs. It seeks to understand the broader socio-economic and cultural impacts of these agricultural development initiatives, which utilize new governance features such as the digitization of land and agriculture production data. Specifically, it investigates the tensions arising from the interaction of agroecology-based farming ethics—rooted in the principles of local community and their understanding of ecological well-being—with market-oriented production practices. She is also associated with the Food Systems Governance (FSG) working group under the Rutgers Climate and Energy Institute and the Human Ecology Department initiative. Before starting graduate school, she worked in the policy sector in India with organizations such as the Centre for Policy Research and the Observer Research Foundation. She has published on various topics, including state-society relations, the digital divide and COVID-19, implications of the Uniform Civil Code in India, food and farm security, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
sj673@scarletmail.rutgers.edu
Elisabeth Black
Class: Behavior and Environment (11:374:322)
Biography: Elisabeth Black is currently a 5th year PhD student (soon to be candidate) in Behavioral and Systems Neuroscience Psychology. She defended her Master’s Thesis in June “The Physiological and Behavioral Effects of Video Delivered Horticulture Educuation”. She has been the Horticulture Instructor at New Road Schools of Somerset since 2018, where she built and maintained an aquaponics system with students who have cognitive and physical disabilities. She received a grant from the NJ Autism Center of Excellence in 2020 to build a Smart Aeroponic Vertical Indoor Garden (SAVInG) using arduino and PVC also with her students at New Road. Before COVID she volunteered with Everas Community Services to bring Horticulture Activities to their day program for Adults who have Deafblindness. She graduated from Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences in 2019 with a BS in Plant Science Horticultural Therapy. Since 2012, she has been a Master Gardener with Rutgers Master Gardeners of NJ Hunterdon County and Team Leader for a school-based program teaching gardening skills to students with disabilities. Her undergrad Honors Research was presented at a Regional Conference “Effects of Harvest Date on Chemical Quality Metrics of Hops.” And prior to all of this she was a FDA Regulatory Compliance Subject Matter Expert in the Pharmaceutical Industry for a very long 15 years.
meb349@psych.rutgers.edu
Gabryella Pulsinelli
Class: Energy and Society (11:374:175)
Biography: Gabryella Pulsinelli is currently an Environmental Specialist at New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection in the Bureau of NJPDES Stormwater Permitting & Water Quality Management. She helps to run the Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) permitting program and serves as a case manager for various towns. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Planning and Public Policy at Bloustein School where she focuses on Environmental Policy and Stormwater Policy. In 2019 she received her Masters in Sustainability from Wake Forest University where she explored in her thesis the relationship between art, climate change, and empathy for nature. Her undergrad is from the University of Rochester where she double majored in Environmental Studies and Studio Art.
gmp173@scarletmail.rutgers.edu
Manasa Bollempalli, PhD
Class: Globalization, Development and Environment 11:374:305
Biography: Dr.Bollempalli is a postdoctoral researcher at Rutgers University’s Department of Human Ecology, specializing in climate mobilities. She earned her Doctorate specializing in climate related migration from the Division of Global Affairs, Rutgers University. She leads work in the Rutgers Coastal Communities Adaptation Lab, and is a research member of the NSF CoPe MACH project, designing adaptive frameworks for coastal hazards in NJ, NYC, and Philly. Her expertise includes climate, migration, and security policies. Formerly a Climate Strategist with the B Team, she led global policy efforts on climate, just transition, and nature. Dr.Bollempalli has also contributed to climate research at the UN Global Environment Facility in NYC and conducted ethnographic research on climate change impacts with the Tranquebar Initiative. You can find more of her current work here
manasa.b@rutgers.edu
Teaching Assistants
Sauvanithi Yupho
Class: TA Intro to HE recitations
Department: Geography
Research interests: flood management policies and flood protection infrastructure affect communities livelihoods and their adaptive capacities.
s.yupho@rutgers.edu
Kristi Wiedemann
Class: Intro to Human Ecology TA
Department: Bloustein School of Public Policy and Planning
Research interests: social values in the context of local textile production.
kristi.wiedemann@rutgers.edu
Gianna Dibartolo
Class: Politics of Environmental Issues
Department- Political Science
Research interests: state supreme court behavior in response to Supreme Court decisions the role played the federalism/dual legal system in periods of national retrenchment and high polarization.
gcd56@scarletmail.rutgers.edu
Frederic Traylor
Class: Politics of Environmental Issues
Home Department: Sociology
Research Interests: Fred Traylor is a Ph.D. student in Sociology at Rutgers University – New Brunswick. He primarily researches public opinion on climate change solutions, focusing on how solutions become seen as acceptable. His dissertation will explore how these solutions result from the socially mediated meanings of climate change as a problem. Among other projects, Fred is also researching the representativeness of novel survey sampling methods, the perceived moral hazard of technological solutions to climate change, the role of institutional trust in advancing support for climate policy, and how environmental attitudes affect and are affected by parenthood. He also studies how family ties and political disagreements affect religious behavior and belonging throughout the lifespan. He holds an MA in Sociology from Rutgers University, an MS in Social Data Analytics and Research from The University of Texas at Dallas, and a BA in Sociology, also from UT Dallas.
frederic.traylor@rutgers.edu
Nuzhat Fatema
Class: Introduction to Human Ecology
Home Department: Geography
Research Interests: Nuzhat Fatema is a PhD student in the Department of Geography at Rutgers University and a tenured faculty member in the Department of Development Studies at Khulna University, Bangladesh. She holds a Master’s in Development Studies and a PGD in Policy Studies from Murdoch University, Australia. Additionally, she has completed a PGD in Disaster Management from Khulna University of Engineering & Technology (KUET). Her research interests center around Ecosystem-Based Adaptation (EbA) and Nature-Based Solutions (NbS) for disaster risk reduction (DRR), climate adaptation, and sustainable community development in the coastal context. Currently, she is working with the Household Decision-Making team in the NSF-funded Megalopolitan Coastal Transformation Hub (MACH) on household decision-making related to climate change adaptation and mitigation in climate-vulnerable communities in the tri-state regions of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
nf378@scarletmail.rutgers.edu