Open Academy
Professionals in Sustainability Speaker Series
A regular speaker series featuring professionals working in the field of sustainability. The presentation will showcase their backgrounds, career trajectories, current initiatives, and lessons learned. Presenters reflect a diversity of sustainability professions in various organizations, including for-profit, not-for-profit, public, and private.
Friday | March 22 | 1 p.m. ET
Delaney Demro, M.S.
Program Manager,
Center for Sustainable Materials Management
Delaney is a Program Manager with the Center for Sustainable Materials Management (CSMM) housed at ESF. She leads CSMM’s zero waste partnership program with TRUE, providing guidance to six businesses across NYS to earn their TRUE Certification for zero waste. These businesses range from a major sports arena to a sustainable furniture company. As part of her responsibilities, Delaney also oversees CSMM’s reuse initiatives, including a food service reuse pilot program and a community reuse grant program.
In her previous role with ESF’s Office of Sustainability as the Sustainability Planning and Institutional Alignment Manager, she led the development of ESF’s Sustainability Action Plan. She was also responsible for aligning the College’s efforts with national and global sustainability programs like AASHE STARS, Nature Positive Universities, and the Sustainable Development Goals.
Delaney earned an M.S. in Environmental Science from ESF for her study, the CREEQ Project. She graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a B.S. in Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences and a minor in Environmental Economics and Law. She has past experience studying citizen-science, water quality monitoring, anaerobic digestion of food waste, phytoremediation, and biochemical drivers for the spread of invasive plant species.
Friday | April 5 | 1 p.m. ET
Twiggy Mendenhall,
Policy Associate, CleanCapital
ESF Alum ’22, Sustainability Management
Twiggy Mendenhall is a Policy Associate for CleanCapital, a diversified clean energy investment platform focused on the middle-market solar and storage industry and one of the largest commercial solar asset owners in the U.S. In her role at CleanCapital, Twiggy advances the distributed solar + storage market through policy/advocacy efforts, including engaging key stakeholders, local elected officials, community leaders, trade associations, working groups, and community organizations.
Prior to joining CleanCapital, Twiggy was a Policy Manager for Ecogy Energy, a Brooklyn-based developer, financier, and owner-operator of distributed generation projects across nine states, D.C., and the Caribbean focused on rooftop, parking lot canopy, and brownfield development projects. Her journey to the clean energy sector started as a Future Energy Jobs Act (FEJA) Solar Pipeline Trainee, delivered by Elevate Energy in partnership with Millennium Solar Electric Training Academy (MSETA), and the City Colleges of Chicago. As part of Cohort III, Twiggy actively participated in solar installer training and contributed to advocacy efforts during an Illinois Lobby Day. Furthermore, Twiggy acquired OSHA 10 certification and received thorough hand tools training through the National Center for Construction Education and Research (NCCER) Introductory Craft Skills program, in addition to completing the NCCER Core Curriculum. Twiggy is a New York native and holds a B.S. in Sustainability Management from SUNY ESF. In her free time, Twiggy enjoys traveling to state and national parks, playing basketball, and spending time with family.
Webinar Archive
An archive of previous webinars from the Professionals in Sustainability series is available on our Professionals in Sustainability playlist.