Rethinking Resilience: Hosted by the Food Law Student Leadership Summit & New Directions in Environmental Law

Policy Simulation participants should get breakfast and head to Burke Auditorium in the 3rd Floor of Kroon Hall for the final block of the Policy Simulation.

Breakfast will be served at the Yale School of the Environment, Kroon Hall, 3rd Floor between 8:00-10:30am.

Our Special Lecturers are Mayor Elicker and Director Latha Swamy.

Mayor Elicker is currently in his second term as the 51st elected Mayor of New Haven. He received a BA from Middlebury College followed by an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a Master of Environmental Management from the Yale School of the Environment. Mayor Elicker previously served as a foreign service officer for economic and environmental policies in the U.S. Department of State and as the executive director of a local environmental nonprofit that focused on community stewardship. Mayor Elicker's primary goal is to ensure each resident of the city of New Haven has the opportunity to thrive, and he is dedicated to creating a healthy and accessible environment for his constituents. As Mayor, he reinvigorated New Haven's first Office of Climate and Sustainability that is dedicated to developing and implementing equitable sustainability initiatives while simultaneously addressing issues like affordable housing and employment opportunities. Mayor Elicker's experiences have given him unique insight into the realities of implementing environmental initiatives at the ground level, and what it means to do so in an equitable manner.

Latha Swamy is the City of New Haven's Director of Food System Policy. She holds a B.S. in Cellular Biology from the University of Georgia, pursued an MD and PhD in systems neuroscience at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and received a Master of Environmental Management from the Yale School of the Environment. In her current role, she seeks to manifest community visions of a sustainable and just food system by dismantling municipal and systemic barriers and authentically collaborating with community members and local, state and federal actors. Latha has previously worked as Senior Advisor to the Chair of the Rockefeller Foundation Economic Council on Planetary Health where she focused on local-to-global policies at the nexus between environmental degradation and human health. She has also worked in Haiti, India, Nepal and Indonesia to identify and evaluate solutions for environmental issues relating to the relationship between health and agricultural systems. The City of New Haven Food System Policy Division's current portfolio includes initiatives that focus on, among others, Urban Agricultural Growth & Development, Equitable Food-Oriented Development, Food Systems Mapping and Data, and Regional, National, and International Engagement.

Final remarks for the Conference.

Take a tour of the Yale Farm after the conference finishes. A volunteer will guide participants through the Yale Farm. The Yale Farm is a short walk from Kroon Hall.

Continental Breakfast will be served in the Dining Hall between 8-10am. Please bring your own reusable coffee mug.

If you are a Policy Simulation participant, please get food and head to Room 120 for the working block.

Policy Simulation participants should get breakfast in the Dining Hall and head to Room 120 for a working block.

All conference participants must stop by registration to check-in and get their name tag. Registration will be open on Saturday from 8-10am. If you registered on Friday, you do not need to come to registration on Saturday.

Saturday's opening remarks.

Note: No food or drinks are allowed in the auditorium.

Our second Keynote speaker is Commissioner Katie Dykes.

Katie Dykes is the Commissioner of Connecticut's Department of Energy & Environmental Protection (DEEP). She has served since 2019, when she was first nominated by Governor Ned Lamont, and was re-confirmed in February 2023 to serve in Governor Lamont's second term. Katie previously served as Chair of the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) from 2015-2018, and as Deputy Commissioner for Energy at Connecticut DEEP from 2012-2015. Katie also serves as the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, Inc. (RGGI). Katie joined CT DEEP in March 2012 after prior service in the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the U.S. Department of Energy. She is a graduate of Yale College and the Yale Law School.

Note: No food or drinks are allowed in the auditorium.

Moderator: Trevor Findley
Panelists: Smita Narula, Baylen Linnekin, Uché Ewelukwa

Please see the "Speakers" tab on the app or on the website for the full speaker bios.

Note: No food or drinks are allowed in the auditorium.

Moderator: Steve Roady
Panelists: Alegna Malave, Jackie Rolleri, Hiroko Muraki Gottlieb

Please see the "Speakers" tab on the app or on the website for the full speaker bios.

Lunch will be served in the Sterling Law Building Dining Hall from 1:00 - 2:15pm.

Moderator: Gerald Torres
Panelists: Quetza Ramirez, Aja DeCoteau

Please see the "Speakers" tab on the app or on the website for the full speaker bios.

Note: No food and drinks are allowed in the auditorium.

Coffee Break will be served in the Sterling Law Building Dining Hall. Please bring your own reusable coffee cups.

Moderator: Daina Bray
Panelists: Andrea Rogers, Alexandra St. Pierre, Maria Antonia Tigre, Thomas Poston

Please see the "Speakers" tab on the app or on the website for the full speaker bios.

Note: No food or drinks are allowed in the auditorium.

Moderator: Achinthi Vithanage
Panelists: Nathan de Arriba-Sellier, Jesse Glickstein, Monika Ehrman

Please see the "Speakers" tab on the app or on the website for the full speaker bios.

Moderator: Lee Miller
Panelists: Emma Scott, Jonathan Iwaskiw, Kelli Case, Dãnia Davy

Please see the "Speakers" tab on the app or on the website for the full speaker bios.

Note: No food or drinks are allowed in the auditorium.

Updates and announcements.

All attendees, speakers and moderators are invited to an evening reception in the Dining Hall. Wine and snacks will be served.

All conference participants must stop by registration to check-in and get their name tag. Registration will be open from 3:30-5:15pm on Friday. For those who are unable to attend registration on Friday, registration will also be open on Saturday from 8-10am.

The conference will begin with introductory remarks from the organizing team.

Note: No food or drinks are allowed in the auditorium.

The first Keynote speaker is Clifford Villa.

Cliff Villa currently advises the U.S. EPA Office of Land and Emergency Management, helping to carry out priorities of the Biden Administration including environmental justice and climate change. At EPA, Cliff helps ensure that new federal funding for recycling and cleanup of contaminated sites reaches communities that have been historically underserved. Cliff is also currently a Visiting Professor at Columbia Law School, where he is teaching a seminar this spring on Environmental Justice. Previously, Cliff served as tenured faculty at the University of New Mexico School of Law, where he teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional rights, environmental law, and environmental justice. Before joining the UNM law faculty in 2015, Cliff spent more than 20 years as an EPA attorney in Washington, D.C.; Denver, Colorado; and Seattle, Washington. Among other publications, Cliff is the lead author of Environmental Justice: Law, Policy & Regulation (3rd ed. 2020), and author of continuing legal scholarship on environmental justice including Remaking Environmental Justice, 66 Loyola L. Rev. 469 (2020); and Don't Blame the Flint River, 52 Envtl. L. 341 (2022). Cliff was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with local roots tracing back over three hundred years.

Note: No food or drinks are allowed in the auditorium.