I’m a graduate student pursuing a PhD in neuroscience at Stony Brook University. I work in the Wollmuth Lab studying inputs to inhibitory neurons in the visual cortex. These neurons help turn turn the brightness, color, and shape of the world into our perception of objects in space.
Most of the rest of my waking hours are spent volunteering with the Sierra Club, the largest oldest grassroots environmental organization in the country. I have served in several capacities within the Sierra Club (see resume).
For the last 7 years Long Island has been my home. Long Island is a sandy moraine attached to New York State with pine barrens, grasslands, and miles of shoreline. As an extension of the NY metropolitan area with over 5000 people per square mile, the western portion is densely developed and encroaching on the more rural east. Water quality is a great concern on Long Island, which depends on a sole source aquifer for drinking water and is surrounded by three ecologically important estuaries.
Climate change poses a tangible threat here, as sea level rise would submerge much of the island. Using the Cool Cities campaign I worked with the Long Island Group to sign multiple townships onto the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement and organized events for 350.org‘s 2007 Step it Up and 2009 International Day of Climate Action. With the help of Frank Morris, I designed Renewable Schools, an outreach campaign to public schools encouraging them to contract out efficiency and renewable energy. I also helped Linda Freilich establish the Water Sentinels on Long Island, and we now have a strong team of water testers.
More recently, I have been serving as the Conservation Chair for the Atlantic Chapter, which covers all of New York State. New York residents are preparing for a boom in gas exploration and production. Higher pressures, horizontal wells, and huge volumes of water, sand and chemicals can be used extract gas from shale reserves, and major exemptions from environmental regulations make the procedure affordable. The Atlantic Chapter has an active Gas Drilling Task Force headed by Rachel Treichler, and much of my effort as Chapter Conservation Chair has gone to support this task force. We secured a temporary moratorium on horizontal high-volume hydrofracking which was recently extended to the summer of 2011. Hydrofracturing is a national issue, so in early 2010 I established the Hydrofracking Team on the Sierra Club’s Activist Network to coordinate the work of activists across the country. I have served as the leader of the Hydrofracking Team since its inception.
I have written extensively about local and global environmental issues.
I like gardening, outdoor activities naturalism, guitar, and pets, and for a really good giggle I like reading Hyperbole and a Half.
