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Tiana Birrell is a multimedia artist and curator from Massachusetts. She received her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her MS in Environmental Humanities from the University of Utah. She currently resides in Salt Lake City where she investigates the copious amount of water and energy used by data centers in Salt Lake and Utah Valley. She uses photography, video, projections, installations, and performative lectures to consider these questions as well as bring these invisible structures into visibility.

Dr. Rachel Mason Dentinger is recently appointed faculty in the Department of History and she is the current Environmental Humanities Research Professor for the 2021-2022 term. Her research is in the history of science, in particular co-evolutionary studies, and how we study the relationships between insects and plants.

LaUra (she/her), a 2012 Environmental Humanities graduate, is a truth-seeker, community-builder, cultural critic, and grief worker. She is also the granddaughter of a holocaust survivor. Inspiration finds her in natural landscapes and honest, open-hearted dialogue. She is the founding director of the Good Grief Network and has been studying and cultivating personal and collective resilience strategies for nearly a decade. She is trained in nonviolent civil disobedience and is a Climate Reality Leadership Corps member & mentor.

Doug Sam is a second-year EH student and a Mellon Community Fellow. The Mellon Community Fellowship in the EH Program is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Fellows form reciprocal partnerships with a community organization and develop a project that addresses local environmental justice issues. Doug has partnered with the Summit Land Conservancy for his fellowship, merging both his interests in environmental education and Indigenous history. Summit Land Conservancy is a nonprofit dedicated to saving open spaces of Park City and the Wasatch Back.

Join the Environmental Humanities Graduate Program for a presentation from the Mellon Community Fellows on their work to further environmental justice. Doug Sam and Riley Sayers will discuss their local community partnerships and the ways they use humanities tools to further environmental justice. This fellowship and our program's efforts to further environmental justice is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.