CEEJAC Subcommittee Members
Air & Transportation | Energy & Technology | Waste | Land
Air & Transportation
Sharmin Akter
Sharmin Akter is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the environmental engineering program at the University of Connecticut. She is a graduate research assistant in the Computational Atmospheric Chemistry and Exposure (CACE) lab. Her research focuses on air pollution, air quality modeling and monitoring, and community engagement. She uses an air quality model to estimate and track major sources of atmospheric pollutant and its contributions, which can lead to adverse environmental impacts. This information will help environmental regulators to develop improved environmental management frameworks. In addition, she is working on air quality monitoring by deploying a cheap, do-it-yourself (DIY) air filter in a classroom environment. Her interests also include- but are not limited to public health, climate change, and environmental justice. She is eager to expand her work to solve environmental problems through scientific investigations.
Robert Goodrich
Robbie has guided RACCE (Radical Advocates for Cross-Cultural Education) in forging relationships, developing strategies, and infrastructure for grassroots organizing with statewide social justice organizations focused on immigrant rights, police accountability, and educational justice that have benefited Waterbury writ large. Through his independent research within the fields of philosophy, critical pedagogy, critical race and legal theories he has been able to develop and co-create legislative, policy-related, and programmatic solutions so that the conceptual gaps between racialized oppression and solutions for racial equity can be closed. Over the last four years Robbie has led RACCE staff and members in the design and deployment of organizing efforts focused on environmental and transportation justice, as well as a citizen science project on air quality monitoring in Waterbury, CT. Robbie graduated from Western Connecticut State University with a BA in History and was formally trained by the Strategic Data Project at Harvard University.
Aziz Dehkan
Aziz Dehkan is the Executive Director of the CT Roundtable on Climate and Jobs. Prior to this role, he has served in many nonprofit leadership roles at Shoreline Greenway Trail, Eighty 20 Group, New York City Community Garden Coalition. In addition, he has served in a few development and business roles at Transcycle Industries, Waste Management, Inc in Flanders, NJ, Mother Jones, STRIVE, Coalition for the Homeless in New York. He has also served a number of Advisory Committees and working groups including the New England Center for Energy and Environmental Justice Community Assistance Advisory Committee, the CT Hydrogen Task Force Policy Workforce Development Working Group, and NYC Mayor Adams’ Urban Agriculture Food Transition Team.
Ryan Boggio
Ryan Boggio is the current Community Engagement Liaison at Live Green Connecticut, Inc. and Connecticut Southwestern Area Clean Cities headquartered in Norwalk, CT at the Fodor Farmhouse. Ryan graduated from Fairfield University where he received a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science and minored in Political Science. Ryan is passionate about working in the air and transportation industry, as it allows him to address pressing environmental concerns while seeking innovative solutions that can foster economic prosperity. Balancing sustainability and economic growth within this dynamic field fuels Ryan’s sense of purpose and commitment. Ryan has participated as a volunteer for End 68 Hours of Hunger, at the chapter located in his hometown. End 68 Hours of Hunger is a nonprofit dedicated to reducing the food insecurity of children during the weekend when they don’t have access to school meals. Ryan’s hometown chapter provides school-aged children who receive “free or reduced lunch” with bags of healthy snacks and nonperishables so that they have access to this food over the weekend. Since being onboarded as Community Engagement Liaison, Ryan has been a participant in all Bridgeport Regional Energy Partnership meetings and subcommittee meetings, Electric School Bus Coalition, Drive Electric USA, and EV Club of Connecticut.
Jay Stange
Jay is the Transport Hartford Academy Coordinator at the Center for Latino Progress, based in Hartford. He holds a Master of Science in Education from St. Johns University in New York. Jay is motivated personally and professionally to transform Capital Region transportation infrastructure and travel modality to lessen air quality impacts to environmental justice (urban) communities. He specializes in policy and community engagement in the fields of clean energy, air quality education, transit-oriented development, land use, active transportation and transit. Jay has managed UCONN/CIRCA grants to provide climate resiliency to city of Hartford residents through the Center for Latino Progress' BiCi PATH program and its neighborhood air quality monitoring pilot. He has managed bi-monthly Transportation Climate Coalition calls with individuals and government representatives on policies and legislation around transportation planning, air quality, and climate agendas. He serves on the Town of West Hartford’s Sustainability Advisory Group and Vision Zero Task Force.
Energy and Technology
Jayson Velazquez
Jayson is dedicated to ensuring a Just Transition is achieved by advancing equitable climate, clean energy, and energy justice policy and programs. Procedural, distributive, retributive, and restorative justice are foundational to his theory of change and advocacy efforts. Jayson is currently Acadia Center’s Climate and Energy Justice Policy Associate, where he applies his values to his work in Connecticut across energy efficiency and building decarbonization, utility innovation and accountability, clean grid and renewable energy infrastructure, and clean transportation. He holds a Master of Environmental Science from Yale School of the Environment and a Bachelor of Science in Environment and Natural Resources from The Ohio State University. Jayson also serves on the Connecticut Energy Efficiency Board as the Environmental Representative and on the Board of Directors for the Keney Park Sustainability Project. During his time in Connecticut, he has experience with equitable green infrastructure practices, uncovering and addressing food access, urban ecology and health, and disaster resettlement.
Adrian Huq
Adrian Huq is a climate organizer serving as the co-founder of the New Haven Climate Movement's Youth Action Team (established 2019), a group of young activists who mobilize community members to learn about the climate emergency and fight for bold investments and policies by the City of New Haven to address climate change.
Adrian is a senior at Tufts University majoring in Applied Environmental Studies and minoring in Film & Media Studies. An alum of New Haven Public Schools (NHPS), Adrian collaborates directly with New Haven school district staff and teachers to coordinate the Climate Justice Schools Initiative in multiple high schools. Additionally, as Youth Coordinator of the Climate Health Education Project, they have been facilitating an internship since 2018 that provides New Haven area high school students with the tools to advance climate education in their school communities.
Adrian has worked for various environmental organizations, including as an intern for the Yale Urban Resources Initiative and a Sustainable CT Fellow at the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments and Capitol Region Council of Governments. They have spoken at over 40 climate-related events and rallies across Connecticut and serve on the Connecticut Climate Education Advisory Committee.
Waste
Marc Gonzalez
Marc is the Program Assistant for the Conservation Law Foundation’s (CLF) Connecticut office. He was born and raised here in New Haven before attending Yale University, where he majored in environmental studies. His concentration was on environmental policy, with a particular focus on clean energy policy and energy justice. While at Yale, he worked on DEI work for an agricultural non-profit called the Farmlink Project. He also worked under former DEEP Commissioner Robert Klee at the Yale Center for Business and the Environment where he was partnered with Chicago-based non-profit Elevate Energy working on the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA). His research focused on the history of the Puerto Rican Power Grid through an energy justice lens to address the current shortcomings with it. At CLF, he does advocacy work both in the Clean Energy and Climate Change (CECC) program and the Zero Waste team. He supports the attorneys on issues ranging from gas rate cases to ACC II and ACT for the CECC team. The Zero Waste team is housed within the Environmental Justice program, so they support EJ work around the state specifically through waste management solutions. This includes attending working groups and discussions about the circular economy, the closing of the MIRA plant, and work around food scraps.
Diane Lauricella
Ever since studying biology in high school and environmental science at UMass-Amherst, Diane has combined environmental systems, regulatory mechanisms, and justice. A veteran of teaching the public how to make their government, at every level, work better for them and their community, she has organized EJ neighborhoods to stop an oil tank farm, remove 100+ demolition dumpsters abutting a residential neighborhood, stop a waste hauler from renewing their permit until state and federal laws were followed, and request that a local cement block manufacturer use proper dust and noise controls in their community. Diane is a former Senior Investigator at the CT DEEP in the Hazardous Waste Management Division. She has worked for private engineering companies and is now self-employed as an environmental management professional. She assesses regulatory programs and manages projects requiring environmental site assessments and audits with an emphasis on Waste Management, Energy, Brownfields, Environmental Justice, Zoning, and other regulatory matters. She evaluates how the historical process and management of chemicals, energy, and waste from commercial, residential, and industrial use can impact the environmental health and livability of neighborhoods. She assists citizens with environmental management matters and reviews health, waste, and sustainability concerns at site remediation and real estate development projects. She formed an ad hoc group, Norwalk Zero Waste Coalition in 2019 and is a member of several county- and state-wide waste, energy. and environmental coalitions She was recently awarded the 2023 Aquarion Water Company Environmental Champion Award.
Land
Kathy Czepiel
Kathy Czepiel manages Save the Sound’s endangered lands projects in Connecticut, including the movement to create Six Lakes Park on the “Olin Powder Farm” in Hamden; the drive to save 236 acres of open space in the Oswegatchie Hills on the Niantic River from development; and the conservation of water company land statewide. Her work involves managing coalitions, developing land policies, and advocating for open space and drinking water lands. She first joined Save the Sound in February 2022 as a communications specialist supporting the work of its Lands and Legal teams. She has worked as a journalist, public relations professional, and longtime educator whose lifelong concern for the environment began when she was a child growing up on the once badly polluted Hudson River.
Aziz Dekhan
Aziz Dehkan is the Executive Director of the CT Roundtable on Climate and Jobs. Prior to this role, he has served in many nonprofit leadership roles at Shoreline Greenway Trail, Eighty 20 Group, New York City Community Garden Coalition. In addition, he has served in a few development and business roles at Transcycle Industries, Waste Management, Inc in Flanders, NJ, Mother Jones, STRIVE, Coalition for the Homeless in New York. He has also served a number of Advisory Committees and working groups including the New England Center for Energy and Environmental Justice Community Assistance Advisory Committee, the CT Hydrogen Task Force Policy Workforce Development Working Group, and NYC Mayor Adams’ Urban Agriculture Food Transition Team.
Anna Ruth Pickett
Anna Ruth Pickett is the Development and Outreach Manager at the New Haven Urban Resources Initiative, which is a community forestry nonprofit. Anna has a Masters in Environmental Science from the Yale School of the Environment and a BA in Environmental Studies from Oberlin College. Her graduate research focused on environmental health and air quality and she is passionate about the equitable distribution natural resources in New Haven. She previously worked on the Environmental Justice grants team for the Ford Foundation in 2005-2008, and has worked for other environmental and social service nonprofits as a green technologies researcher and an advocate for women with disabilities at a domestic violence shelter. She also has worked as a field organizer in a national political campaign. Anna has been a lead organizer of the Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) of her children’s local public school since 2018 and she has been co-leading the Rock to Rock Earth Day Ride, a collaboration of 20+ environmental nonprofits since 2011.
Gustavo Requena Santos
Gustavo is the Board President of the Connecticut Outdoor & Environmental Education Association (COEEA). Growing up in Brazil and inspired by nature conservation programs, Gustavo obtained his PhD in field biology and worked as researcher and higher education instructor for over 15 years. Six years ago, he moved to Connecticut and decided to shift his career to non-formal education, bridging his experience as a scientist to grassroots, community-based environmental education programs to children, their families, and community educators. In 2020, Gustavo joined the all-volunteer board of COEEA, an organization that engages, supports, and strengthens a growing collaborative network of individuals, educators, and organizations that promote outdoor education and environmental literacy for all residents of Connecticut. The COEEA Board has recently been navigating equitable ways to (i) govern, (ii) recruit, engage, and support a more diverse community of stakeholders, and (iii) make decisions to better serve these diverse communities across Connecticut. They are currently working with local partners in the greater New Haven area to listen and learn from the community on ways to expand their educational programs and better train, engage, and support public schools (particularly Title I schools) as a way to better address climate change and environmental justice through advancements of urban environmental education and cross-sector collaborations.
Reggy Saint Fortcolin
Reggy is the front and founder of Fridgeport, a series of community refrigerators around Connecticut. These 24/7 food pantries work on a take what you want leave what you can ethos. With locations around Bridgeport, New Haven and Hartford we feed about 150-200 people a day throughout the state. 100% donation based, whatever we receive goes out to the community. Since May 2021 the community has given upwards of 200 tons of food to their neighbors. Outside of his work in Food systems, he created the Bridgeport Green Space Coalition, whose mission is to protect community gardens and farms in Bridgeport and works at Aspetuck Land Trust as the Conservation Outreach Manager where he works with urban communities to uplift green literacy and access to the outdoors. Since starting he has fostered strong partnerships with local nonprofits and schools. Outside of work he is currently working with upwards in coalition with upwards of 30 BIPOC farmers, food, and land justice activists around the state to build a CT BIPOC Food Network. In spare time he writes policy. His most recent one HB6854 “AN ACT CONCERNING THE COORDINATION OF EFFORTS TO ADDRESS FOOD INSECURITY AND ESTABLISH TAX INCENTIVES FOR THE LOCATION OF GROCERY STORES IN FOOD DESERTS.“ created a new position in government and put in framework to start a tax incentive program to create grocery stores in food deserts.