A New School degree in Environmental Studies equips you with the knowledge and skills to tackle a wide range of challenges facing our world. Graduates find positions in the growing fields of green business, sustainable design, environmental advocacy, and government. Imagine working to promote energy conservation and green building, helping community organizations improve their neighborhoods, developing and managing new recycling programs, or helping to teach children to understand and appreciate natural resources.
As the following profiles illustrate, New School graduates are working in exciting and diverse environmental careers.
.jpg "I’ve been involved this year in creating supplemental programming for the exhibition “Starting with the Universe,” opening at the Whitney Museum.")
Matt Barron (Lang 2007)
Program Director
The Buckminster Fuller Institute
Brooklyn, New York
The Buckminster Fuller Institute serves as a hub for architects, designers, policymakers, and anyone else interested in the principles of comprehensive, anticipatory, ecologically sane design. In my role as program director, I’m charged with developing and running The Buckminster Fuller Challenge, an international sustainable design competition awarding a $100,000 cash prize. The award goes to support the development and implementation of a solution that has significant potential to solve humanity's most pressing problems in the shortest possible time, while enhancing the earth's ecological integrity.
I’ve also been involved this year in creating supplemental programming for the exhibition “Starting with the Universe,” opening at the Whitney Museum on June 26, 2008. The show is the first major retrospective of Buckminster Fuller’s life and work and charts his efforts to “make the world work for 100% of humanity.”
Philip Silva (Lang 2004, Milano 2006)
Campaign Coordinator,
Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance
Bronx, New York
I am the campaign coordinator for the Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance, a partnership of local organizations working to replace the Sheridan Expressway with affordable housing, open space, and new economic development opportunities. Upon graduating from Lang, I earned a master’s degree in public policy at Milano. Since then, I have worked as a green building consultant, economic development policy analyst, and, most recently, the coordinator of a multi-million dollar effort to create new parks, greenstreets, and bike lanes in the Hunts Point neighborhood of the South Bronx. I am also a proud member of the Prospect Heights Community Farm, where I compost my kitchen scraps and poke around in the dirt on weekends.
Eva Brill (Lang 2007)
Volunteer Staff Member
Sustainable Forestry Network and the Native Forest Council
Eugene, Oregon
I am living in Eugene, Oregon, and taking advantage of all that the state has to offer. Currently I am volunteering at a few environmental non-profits including the Sustainable Forestry Network and the Native Forest Council and working part-time. I would like to apply to graduate school for fall 2009, in either Environmental Science or Environmental Studies. Here is a picture of me on top of Olallie Mountain with the Three Sisters in the background, doing "research."
Natalie Hutchinson (Lang 2007)
Environmental Educator and Community Development Agent
Peace Corps
Morocco
As of March 2008, I will be living in Morocco serving as an environmental educator and community development agent for the Peace Corps. For the first few months, I will study Arabic and live with a host family. By June, I will be living in a small village working with the local government, non-profit organizations, and/or schools to foster community interaction with the environment.
Erik Johanson (Lang 2007)
Development Staff, Natural Resources Defense Council
New York, New York
Right after graduation I took a job with Enclave Rising, an international sustainable real estate developer. I’ve since moved on to the Major Gifts department of Development for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Things are going great.I It’s very exciting to see things from the inside of a major environmental group.
James Subudhi (Lang 2007)
Sustainability Coordinator
West Harlem Environmental Action
New York, New York
After graduating from Lang in December 2006, I worked on a small-family organic farm in Hillsdale, New York. In September 2007, I began working as the sustainability coordinator for WE ACT for Environmental Justice in Upper Manhattan. I coordinate three projects: a Food Justice Campaign, aimed at empowering residents of northern Manhattan to increase access to healthy food in their neighborhoods; a design charrette for the redevelopment of an abandoned waste transfer station in West Harlem; and the creation of events and programming for a the new park, the West Harlem Piers Park, which is opening in late spring 2008.
This really is my dream job. I learn new things everyday, think in different ways, form great connections, and work on issues I really care about.