All | Leadership | Education | Engagement | Operations
Leadership
Dr. Peter Buck
Director for Education
Co-Director, Local Climate Action Program
Corey Gracie-Griffin
Director for Research
Director for Fullers Overlook and for the Sustainability Experience Center
Education
Ilona Ballreich
Associate Director for Experiential Learning
Program Director, Sustainable Communities Collaborative
[email protected]
(814)-865-2291
Engagement
Operations
Jack Rumery
Assistant Director for a Sustainable Workplace
Program Director, Penn State Sustainable Labs
Ash Grant
Tailgate Ambassador Coordinator
Ashley Grant (Ash) graduated from Penn State in 2024 and is an advocate for fostering community growth and inclusivity. As the Sustainability Tailgate Ambassador Coordinator, Ash leads efforts to create engaging and sustainable social experiences for both students and the broader community. In addition to her role in sustainability, they also serve as a board member for both Centre County Housing and the State College Community Land Trust DEI initiatives. Passionate about working with people, Ash brings energy, leadership, and a strong commitment to improving housing, promoting diversity, and delivering impactful community engagement.
Lara Fowler
Chief Sustainability Officer; Director, Penn State Sustainability; Senior Lecturer, Penn State Law
Lara Fowler is the Chief Sustainability Officer of Penn State University and Director of Penn State Sustainability, as well as a Senior Lecturer in Penn State Law and Affiliate Faculty of the Penn State School of International Affairs. Prior to this she served as an Assistant Director of the Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment (IEE).
Lara is an attorney and mediator who focuses on environmental, energy, and natural resource law, with a specific focus on water related issues. Her work at Penn State Law and IEE has focused on questions related to water, the Chesapeake Bay, and energy. She teaches courses on water law; energy; negotiation and dispute resolution design; and mediation of environmental and public conflicts.
Fowler is a juror for the Stockholm International Water Institute’s Junior Water Prize, a global competition for students ages 15 to 20 who have developed research projects that can help address major water challenges. During the 2019-20 academic year, she was a visiting Fulbright scholar at Uppsala University in Sweden, where her research focused on finding and understanding examples of where cooperation over managing water resources — both water quality and quantity — have played out.
Prior to joining Penn State, Lara was an attorney at Gordon Thomas Honeywell LLP in Seattle, Washington, where she focused on mediation and dispute resolution of complex natural resource issues, as well as representing clients facing regulatory hurdles in the environmental and energy fields. She has worked on issues such as who is entitled to store groundwater in the greater Los Angeles area; flooding issues in the Chehalis Basin, Washington State’s second largest river basin; and energy issues in the Pacific Northwest. Before pursuing a legal career, she was a senior water resources coordinator with the Oregon Water Resources Department. She holds a bachelor of arts degree in Asian studies from Dartmouth College while accomplishing a senior fellowship program on Native American water rights and earned her Juris Doctor from the University of Washington School of Law with a focus on environmental mediation.
Dr. Krista Bailey
Associate Director for Campus Sustainability
Krista Bailey came to Penn State with experience in teaching sustainability and leading campus and community sustainability initiatives.
Throughout their career, they have put their skills in sustainability research, writing, training, project development, implementation, and evaluation into practice. As a faculty member in the Sustainability Studies program, Bailey developed and taught courses for both undergraduate and graduate students, including graduate and undergraduate courses in Sustainable Food Systems and Leadership Strategies. Their engaging teaching style resulted in a Fellowship that recognized their innovative classroom design, research, and active learning approaches.
In addition to work in higher ed, Bailey worked as the city of South Bend, Indiana’s first Sustainability Coordinator under Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Community engagement work has included co-hosted local PBS programs, serving on a city bicycling committee, and working with the Food Access Councils.
In addition to sustainability work in South Bend, Bailey’s experience in community development and environmental education includes directing the Elkhart EnviroCorps AmeriCorps program in Elkhart, Indiana. Under Bailey’s leadership, it developed and implemented scores of environmental education, restoration, and volunteer projects in partnership with local organizations and The Nature Conservancy.
A lifelong learner, Bailey completed their Ed.D. in Instructional Systems Technology at Indiana University. Their interest in the nexus of health, wellness, and sustainability has focused their research on creating a holistic learning environment for all that will enable learners to put theory into practice.
Outside of work and school, Bailey teaches fitness classes, supports the Penn State Crew club, practices organic gardening, is an active bicyclist, and enjoys spending time with their two children and exploring and doing projects with their spouse.
Ilona Ballreich
Associate Director for Experiential Learning; Program Director, Sustainable Communities Collaborative
As the Director of the Sustainable Communities Collaborative, Ilona works closely with community partners and faculty to ensure meaningful, experiential student projects that are integrated into classroom learning and focused on the sustainability needs of the community. Student work empowers communities to make more informed decisions and often catalyzes next steps. Students gain real-world experience that encourages creative thinking and problem-solving skills.
To support faculty, Ilona founded the Community of Practice (COP) for Engaged Scholarship at Penn State which has evolved into the Provost Endorsement program, Experiential Learning and Sustainability: Curricular Engaged Scholarship for a Sustainable Future that provides in-person and online training and resources for faculty.
She is Penn State Sustainability’s representative to Penn State Global Programs and serves on the board of the international Education Partnerships in Communities organization, EPICN.
Prior to coming to Penn State, Ilona was the executive director of the non-profit organization. She has an MPS in Community and Economic Development from Penn State, a certificate in Project Management, and a BS in Industrial Technology from West Virginia State University. She studied sustainability via various online courses, including the UN Staff College Summer Academy, Columbia University, and Lund University in Sweden. She is trained in community development techniques, is a successful grant writer and administrator, and serves on numerous community organizations and boards.
Dr. Peter Boger
Director for Engagement
Based in southeastern PA, Peter is responsible for helping Penn State Sustainability articulate and implement its vision for engagement, integrating the university’s sustainability initiatives with the needs and goals of community and campus partners throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and overseeing the communications direction of SustainPSU.
Peter serves as an initial point of contact for Penn State’s Commonwealth Campuses when working with Penn State Sustainability and sits on the Faculty Senate Outreach Committee and the Outreach Division’s Sustainability Council. He also assists in catalyzing community-focused sustainability programs, such as a new Sustainability Coordinator Non-Credit Certificate program with Penn State’s Continuing Education program and a K-12 Sustainability Summit and Community of Practice that both launched in fall 2024.
Peter also supervises SustainPSU’s public programming, including the Green Gov Council Sustainability webinar series and Sustainability Week in partnership with the Pennsylvania Green Gov Council; the Colloquium on the Environment in partnership with the Institutes of Energy and the Environment; Sustainability Showcases; and the Intersections film program he created that has drawn nearly 7,000 attendees over five years–working in partnership with WPSU, the Center for Global Workers’ Rights, and Penn State’s Water Council.
Peter holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a focus on environmental media and history. He also earned an M.S. in Environmental Studies focused on environmental education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as well as a B.A. in History focused on environmental history from Princeton University. He was a Doris Duke Conservation Fellow and previously served as director of Tales from Planet Earth, then the largest free-admission environmental film festival in the U.S. He has also worked as special assistant to New Jersey’s Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection. In his spare time, he enjoys hiking with his dog (or, more accurately, stopping and staring at rabbits and squirrels).
Peter Buck
Director for Education & Co-Director of the Local Climate Action Program
Dr. Peter Buck believes everyone who comes into contact with Penn State can become literate and competent in sustainability. To achieve that goal, he instigates our faculty, staff, students, and the public to imaginatively integrate sustainability into all we do. Whether working one-on-one with instructors, interns, or government leaders, teaching courses, serving the public, or communicating in the media, Peter’s goal is to support rich exposures, experiences, and expertise development for a just and sustainable world.
Peter catalyzes, communicates, and connects people for sustainability. Currently, he serves as a primary resource to assist two structural endeavors: the creation of a Program for Sustainability in the Interdisciplinary Schools (to open in Fall 2025) and the development of Penn State’s Sustainability Learning Outcomes. Peter supports these institutional goals through the Roe Fund for a Just and Sustainable Future, the Penn’s Woods Workshops, as well as consulting and teaching in first-year seminars, advanced climate dynamics, sustainable architecture, and beyond.
Since 2022, Peter has co-directed the Local Climate Action Program with Brandi Robinson (Associate Teaching Professor, Energy and Mineral Engineering). In partnership with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, ICLEI, and Centre Region Planning Agency, the Local Climate Action Program (LCAP) is built on a simple idea: cooperation and collaboration can make Pennsylvania’s communities draw down carbon emissions and support the places we call home. The LCAP brings Penn State students, faculty, local governments, and experts from different fields together to attain the Paris Agreement’s goals to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by supporting a thriving and prosperous future for all Pennsylvanians.
Peter also manages EnvironMentors, a college access program for underrepresented and underserved high school students. Created by the Global Council for Science and the Environment (GCSE), EnvironMentors provides high school students from underrepresented and underserved communities with rich experiences in structured environmental Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) projects. Their projects support equity and community-building while facing some of the world’s most entrenched and wicked socio-environmental challenges.
Through his endeavors, Peter celebrates his diverse students, interns, and peers. Over the last several years, his interns have done so much. They have organized Penn State’s Student Sustainability Summit and hosted the Colloquium on the Environment with Dr. Robert Bullard. They have attended the climate talks at COP 28, interned in the City of Milwaukee’s Environmental Collaboration Office, and led the student chapter of Black Lawyers Association at the University of Cincinnati Law School. Today, they are designing systems at solar, green architecture, water resources, and biorenewable firms, coordinating programming at the Urban Institute and Brennan Center, serving in federal, state, and local government, and teaching in publicly funded schools.
Peter communicates extensively on sustainability and life in the Anthropocene. His scholarship has appeared in Springer’s Educating the Sustainability Leaders of the Future and Universities and Sustainable Communities: Meeting the Goals of the Agenda 2030, Routledge’s Teaching Climate Change in the United States, The Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, and more. He has also appeared in The Washington Post, on Democracy Works and Citizen’s Climate Radio, and spoke at TEDxPSU in 2018 with his talk “What’s the Future Hold? Ask a Metalhead.”
Leadership in professional, governmental, and civic organizations is important to Peter. Currently, Peter serves on the Pennsylvania Climate Change Mitigation and Resilience Network and the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay’s Local Government Advisory Committee. Locally, her serves on the State College Area School District’s School Board, the Centre Region’s Climate Action and Adaptation Plan Technical Advisory Group, and the Centre County Intergovernmental Solar Power Purchase Agreement Working Group.
Peter holds a Ph.D. in Educational Theory and Policy and an M.A. and a B.A. in Music with a minor in Creative Writing. He lives in State College with his wife Hilary and son Sacha. He enjoys single speed mountain biking, playing his electric guitar, eating inordinately spicy food, and writing fiction and creative non-fiction.
Sierra Keller
Communications Director
As Penn State Sustainability’s Communications Director, Sierra Keller enjoys the privilege of crafting an engaging multimedia outreach strategy that connects sustainability messaging to our many different constituencies. Since her graduation from The Pennsylvania State University, with a degree in Media Studies, Keller’s professional aspirations and personal interests have serendipitously collided through her work with local nonprofits and small businesses, having
previously worked for ClearWater Conservancy, where she continues to serve on the board, and the Centre Foundation. She has been a State College resident for 10 years where she lives with her husband, two rambunctious sons, and a menagerie of adopted animals. When she happens upon a rare moment of quiet, it is usually spent exploring local forestlands, pottering around the garden, or reading a good novel.
Katie Chriest
Associate Director for Strategic Communication
Based in northwestern Pennsylvania, Katie is the Associate Director for Strategic Communication for Penn State Sustainability (SustainPSU), while serving as SustainPSU’s liaison for campuses in western PA. She also serves as SustainPSU’s representative on Penn State’s Age-Friendly University Task Force. She initially joined the organization as part of the Sustainable Food Systems Program, spending six years leading an energized team of interns at Penn State Behrend in partnering with local entities who work to increase food access, literacy and justice throughout the region, while managing an expanding campus garden and operating an on-campus CSA. She is especially interested in the way diverse communities hear messages of sustainability, particularly those with less access to the types of personal choices being encouraged by sustainability advocates. She also works to incorporate understanding of disordered eating and other complicated relationships to food into broader conversations about the food system. In her free time, Katie is a freelance writer, editor and musician, and a compulsive cyclist, traveler, reader and gardener who can’t seem to stop planting fruit trees.
Corey Gracie-Griffin
Director for Research
Corey Gracie-Griffin is the new Director for Research at Penn State Sustainability, as well as a Professor of Architecture. His own research focuses on how to make new and existing buildings healthier, more productive, and resilient while simultaneously reducing their environmental impact with a recent emphasis on carbon-storing structural materials including mass timber and hempcrete. With over thirty peer reviewed publications, Gracie-Griffin has secured over $1.5M in external funding from a wide range of sources including federal and state governments, national and local foundations, and industry partners. His teaching has been nationally recognized as a model for advancing sustainability in higher education and architectural practice by AIA, ACSA and Architecture 2030.
Dr. Meghan Hoskins
Director for Sustainable Operations
Dr. Meghan Hoskins is working with Penn State operations staff, faculty, and students to improve the sustainability of Penn State’s operations. She is doing this by leading the ‘Operations Team’ within Penn State Sustainability that includes Krista Bailey, Jack Rumery, Rob Cooper, Ash Grant, and a number of highly talented student interns. Meghan co-chairs the Sustainable Operations Council (SOC), works to coordinate carbon emissions reduction efforts, support waste reduction activities, and supports operational units in meeting their sustainability goals.
Meghan earned her engineering degrees here at Penn State and worked for 10 years as a Research and Development Engineer at the Applied Research Laboratory. Outside the office, Meghan can be found outside in nature, tending to her honeybees with her husband, and hanging out with her two boys, several chickens, and dog.
Macy Miskiewicz
Student Engagement Coordinator
Leslie Pillen
Associate Director, Farm and Food Systems
Leslie coordinates Penn State’s sustainable food systems minor and a student-centered experiential learning farm at Penn State, working with diverse stakeholders, including students, faculty, staff, community members, and alumni to advance both initiatives. She is very excited about developing new opportunities for Penn Staters to learn about sustainable food and agriculture.
She received her MS in Rural Sociology from Penn State in December 2013. Her thesis assessed opportunities and barriers for beginning farmer land access through land link programs in the Northeast US. Her BS is in Horticulture from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Prior to graduate school, Leslie managed a beginning farmer training program and incubator farm at a non-profit in Lincoln, Nebraska. There, she developed farm production and business curricula for beginning farmers, managed a multi-farmer CSA, oversaw farm site development and maintenance, and grew the program through community partnerships and financial development.
Grant Rowe
Public Programming Coordinator
Grant Rowe serves as a Sustainability Programming Coordinator for Penn State Sustainability. In this role, he advances sustainability programming, working with event attendees to further their exposure to, experiences with, and expertise in sustainability. Among the many programs in his portfolio, he helps lead the Intersections Film Series and Sustainability Showcase Series. Bringing his passion for sustainability to these events, Grant seeks to foster an environment where individuals can come together to educate themselves and develop the skills necessary to work toward creating a more equitable and sustainable future for all.
Prior to his time at Penn State, Grant served as a leader in sustainability at Susquehanna University, heading a variety of programs, including Earth Day events, climate change marches, single-use waste reduction campaigns, recycling initiatives, and electric vehicle charging infrastructure projects. Alongside this, he also served as a 2022-2023 fellow for the Rachel Carson Council, developing a podcast titled “Big World, Small Bites” that centered around ways everyday people could get involved in climate action.
Grant holds two undergraduate degrees from Susquehanna University, including a B.A. in Environmental Studies and a B.A. in Political Science.
Jack Rumery
Assistant Director for a Sustainable Workplace
Jack is an enthusiastic advocate for sustainability and environmental education, and his passion is evident in his work at Penn State Sustainability. At SustainPSU, his primary focus is to foster education and collaboration among staff across PSU campuses, ensuring that sustainability resources are accessible and utilized effectively. He is particularly dedicated to nurturing existing programs like Green Teams and Green Paws, recognizing their significance as essential starting points for a greener future on campus at PSU and beyond.
More recently, Jack pursued further academic enrichment, earning his M.Ed focused on Science Education from the University of Washington. This included a transformative year with Island Wood’s Education for Community and Environment graduate program, where he further honed his teaching and leadership skills.
Ashley Currey
Sustainability Engagement Intern
Olivia DiPrinzio
Climate Science and Education Intern
Olivia is a fourth-year Schreyer honors student double majoring in energy engineering and earth science & policy with a focus on energy at University Park. Extremely interested in climate change, the SDGs, and energy policy and tech, Olivia joined Penn State Sustainability as Dr. Peter Buck’s intern in the summer of 2023. As a Climate Science and Education intern for Penn State Sustainability, she has participated in research on the role of community engagement in climate action plans and its influence on plan success. Currently, she is working on the development of sustainability learning outcomes for Penn State’s curriculum in conjunction with the Faculty Senate in pursuit of developing a sustainability attribute for all Penn State courses. Another project she is involved in is the development of the new school of sustainability at Penn State, which consists of designing majors, program tracks, and more! Finally, she is part of a research team partnering with the University of Auckland to explore climate action plans, development methods, and cultural differences. At Penn State, Olivia is a member of the Student Sustainability Network Framework, the co-founder and Vice President of the United Nations Association at Penn State, a brother in Phi Sigma Pi national honors fraternity, and a member of the Penn State Peace Meal Planning Commission. In her free time, Olivia really enjoys reading, bouldering, baking, and traveling!
Elizabeth Smith
Sustainability and Climate Education Intern
Elizabeth is a first-year graduate student pursuing a Master of International Affairs degree with a concentration in Environment and Resources. She is currently working as a Sustainability and Climate Education Intern and is thrilled to participate in all of the ways that academic institutions are furthering sustainable goals. Her longtime passion for sustainability and the environment flourished during her service year as an AmeriCorps VISTA at the Oxford Community Market in Oxford, Mississippi. Here, she worked in the field of food security, viewed through the lens of the social determinants of health. She thoroughly enjoyed becoming deeply involved with Mississippi agriculture and food systems. Prior to her service in AmeriCorps, Elizabeth graduated from the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) with majors in Economics and Chinese and Minors in Russian and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages.
Outside of work and school, Elizabeth loves to hike, read, and play bass guitar. She is always open to practicing Mandarin and discussing philosophy!
Jake Hohner
Public Programming Intern
Jake is a a rising junior majoring in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, with a minor in Chemistry. He has been passionate about sustainability since he was introduced to it in his sophomore year of high school and has been an active member of Penn State’s EcoReps student sustainability ambassadors program since coming to Penn State. In EcoReps, he is the Athletics Relations Assistant Programming Coordinator, where he works to further the Zero Waste Initiative in the President’s box during football games as well as expand the initiative into other sporting events. As the Public Programming Intern at Penn State Sustainability, Jake helps to select films and speakers for public events and coordinate the logistics and promotion of Penn State’s public programming. Outside of EcoReps, he works in a lab conducting research on cancer treatments and spends most of his free time rock climbing indoors and outdoors.
Sophia Marsh
Sustainability Experience Intern
Sophia (Sophie) Marsh is a fourth-year undergraduate student majoring in Plant Sciences. She has been one of the leaders of EcoReps, a student organization affiliated with Penn State Sustainability, with a mission to serve as sustainability ambassadors who educate new students on how to live sustainably on campus. She hopes to use her degree, experience with Penn State Sustainability, and position with EcoReps to advance sustainable change throughout her life and career. She loves cats, plants, and living sustainably.
From December 2021-August 2023, Sophie was the Community Engagement Intern for Penn State Sustainability, responsible for planning and managing the Intersections program–including film curation, promotions, and event management. For the last year, she has helped with special projects related to the Sustainability Experience Center.
Carmichael Sherwood
Eco Author
Carmichael Sherwood is a fourth-year student double majoring in Economics and Political Science at University Park. She is involved in several organizations on campus including EcoReps, Her Campus, and Women in Economics Society. She is also a Resident Assistant at Penn State and has a passion for working with other students. She also has an interest in data analytics, running, and photography.
Sherwood has been the Eco-Author intern for Penn State Sustainability since February 2024. She is responsible for helping write content, SDG Snapshots, and Mainstream newsletters for Penn State Sustainability.
Michael Spinelli
Waste Reduction Intern
Michael Spinelli is a 4th-year student studying Community, Environment, and Development with minors in Sustainability Leadership and Politics and Public Policy. He is working with Ayodeji Oluwalana as a Waste Reduction Intern. In this position, he will collect data to help create a more streamlined waste system to improve recycling and waste diversion efforts on campus and at Beaver Stadium.
Michael is deeply passionate about sustainability and the preservation of nature. He has been devoted to fostering a better understanding of our natural world and advocating for meaningful change.
His experience as a Learning Coordinator for the Environmental Science Course, BISC 3, has taught him the importance of community efforts and collective action when advocating for change. Michael is passionate about creating this community at Penn State to help make an impact on our campus.
Taylor Smith
Communications Social Media & Design Intern
Sustainability in the Workplace Intern
Jaida Copeland is a third- year undergraduate student at Penn State University, studying Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship with a minor in Sustainable Leadership. She is currently working as a Sustainable Lab Consultant and a Sustainability in the Workplace Intern with Penn State Sustainability, where she is learning about staff engagement and the new initiatives coming into PSU, while also assisting with creating green labs around campus. She is involved in a variety of clubs including Net Impact (sustainability consulting) and the Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship Society, where she hopes to gain experience in all of the fields that interest her.
Her passion for sustainability began in her freshman year of college after researching climate change for an entire semester to create deliverables for a professor she had, and her love for the environment has blossomed ever since! Her study abroad experience in New Zealand and Australia for business and sustainability helped guide her professional desires, and she hopes to eventually enter a consulting firm to foster sustainability initiatives internationally.
Sustainability Data Intern
Diana Deleon is a 3rd year student majoring in Civil Engineering with a minor in Engineering Leadership Development. Ever since she stepped on campus, she has been involved with sustainability-oriented activities, such as EcoReps, the Wind Energy Club, and now Penn State Sustainability as a Data Analyst. In this position, she has helped develop energy and water auditing tools for the novel Sustainable Labs program and is now working on analyzing Penn State Emissions data. She is passionate about implementing sustainable changes at the organizational level and hopes to use her data-oriented skillset to help Penn State Sustainability meet its sustainability goals.
