2025 Midwest Carbon Leadership Project

Tanya Rodriguez – Senior Cultural Anthropologist, Hormel Foods Corporation’s multidimensional Brand Fuel team

Many profess that food is a love language, but love can be a volatile affair. While consumers may tout the merits of environmentally friendly food production, they often do not, or cannot, vote their dollars accordingly at shelf. Terms like sustainable packaging, reduced GHG emissions, water stewardship, regenerative agriculture and upcycling are simultaneously desired and maligned by consumers who want the benefits, but not the perceived price tag. Food systems, from large-scale manufacturers to food pantries, are pivotal to bridging the say/do gap by providing education, transparency and climate leadership to consumers.

Tanya Rodriguez is a cultural anthropologist with Hormel Foods Corporation’s multidimensional Brand Fuel team. She uses cultural intelligence to drive insights and innovation, predict the future of food and showcase diverse consumer voices. An advocate for food equity and sovereignty, Tanya champions efforts to ensure access to high quality, nutritionally dense and culturally relevant food for all. As a South Texas native, she is passionate about her own Tex-Mex culinary diaspora. She holds a B.A. in anthropology and sociology from the University of Notre Dame, an M.S.W. from Our Lady of the Lake University, and a doctorate in cultural anthropology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Nick Jordan – Professor of Agronomy & Plant Genetics at the University of Minnesota

Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is a very important decarbonization pathway for the air transport sector.  SAF can be produced by a wide range of technologies, with varying sustainability attributes. To realize the benefits of SAF, it will be important to develop it via responsible innovation and scaling.

Nick Jordan is a Professor of Agronomy & Plant Genetics, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, where he conducts research on agricultural diversification and agricultural ecology. His teaching is focused on agricultural systems, aiming to help students address complex challenges and opportunities in agriculture and its interconnections with food, energy, and water systems. He co-directs the Forever Green Initiative at the University of Minnesota, which is developing and commercializing a set of new crops that advance continuous living cover of farmland, with living crop plants present all year around.

Maya Swope – Climate Project Manager at The Nature Conservancy of Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

Peatlands in the upper Midwest are complex wetland ecosystems that can be resilient carbon sinks, but drainage and other management decisions have left them degraded, becoming large sources of carbon emissions. The Nature Conservancy in Minnesota has worked with partners to map peatlands and conducted field studies to understand carbon and methane fluxes associated with peatland restoration, and compiled literature reviews of existing research. However, scientists and land managers lack critical knowledge and resources for specific and feasible ways to manage peatlands for climate impacts.

Maya Swope (they/them pronouns) is a Climate Project Manager at The Nature Conservancy of Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. In their work, they focus on bringing partners together to discuss science and policy surrounding peatland restoration in Minnesota. They are part of a team working to quantify, communicate, and promote peatland restoration and protection as a natural climate solution. Maya graduated from Macalester College in 2018 with a BA in Environmental Studies and Geography, and has a background in environmental education and outreach.

Sam Reed – IonE Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Minnesota

In the fight against climate change we’ve adopted a mindset that treats emissions as discrete units – interchangeable and additive, regardless of their source or location. Therefore, in the context of another global sustainability crisis like biodiversity loss, our first inclination may be to apply this climate mitigation mindset to the challenge. However, biodiversity conservation demands a deeper understanding, one that allows for nuance and systems-thinking. Improving nature-based carbon sequestration, ecological resilience, or public health through biodiversity restoration requires embracing this complexity. This talk will explore biodiversity’s intricate nature and how this ecological nuance creates both knowledge gaps and opportunities.

Sam Reed is an IonE Postdoctoral Fellow with expertise in forest climate adaptation, biodiversity conservation, and ecological disturbance (fire, tree disease, deer herbivory, etc.). He is dedicated to identifying practical, science-based solutions to best meet individual’s and organization’s climate adaptation and biodiversity goals – even in the face of increasing ecological turbulence and uncertainty.

Susanna Gibbons – Managing Director, David S. Kidwell Funds Enterprise, Carlson School, University of Minnesota

“All great art contains at its center contemplation, a dynamic contemplation”- Susan Sontag, essayist, novelist and intellectual.

At the IonE annual meeting, Susanna talked about the lack of common understanding around the term “climate finance”. For people in the public policy world, finance is simply funding for climate-related initiatives, either adaptation or mitigation. In the business world, finance is a system for allocating scarce resources. It is a process. It is a system for comparing one choice to another. As we confront the reality of climate change and the impacts that it has had, and will continue to have, on our world, we need a system that helps us contemplate the path forward. Finance is one such system – but the solutions it provides are only as good as the inputs we use.

Susanna Gibbons, CFA, is director of the Funds Enterprise at the Carlson School. She has more than 30 years of industry experience across multiple asset classes and is currently exploring the integration of ESG principles into decision making.

Kyle X. Hill, PhD, MPH – Assistant Professor, Division of Environmental Health Sciences, University of Minnesota School of Public Health

As we confront the intersecting crises of climate change and public health, it is critical that we find ways to meaningfully incorporate Indigenous knowledge and perspectives. And yet this process is full of challenges, as the underlying values and principles of Indigenous knowledge systems often clash with capitalist, profit-driven models of Western science. In this lightning talk, Dr. Hill will explore the ethical and practical considerations of braiding Indigenous and Western approaches, drawing on lessons from past failed efforts and emphasizing the need for respect, reciprocity, and recognition of sovereignty when engaging with Indigenous communities. Dr. Hill will invite MWCLP participants to grapple with the knowledge gaps in this space, highlighting the unique insights Indigenous knowledge can offer in understanding and addressing the human health impacts of climate change. By embracing the complementary strengths of diverse knowledge systems, we can forge more holistic, equitable, and effective solutions to our pressing climate-health challenges.

Kyle X. Hill is Ojibwe (Turtle Mountain Band; Enrolled Citizen), Dakota (Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe), Lakota (Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe), and is active in community-based participatory research with American Indian and First Nations communities in the US and Canada. His research focuses across social, behavioral, and environmental health, and specifically considers the social, political, and ecological determinants of Indigenous health, as well as the intersection of climate justice and Land-based healing within Indigenous communities. He has co-authored several manuscripts and book chapters on the impacts of climate change on Indigenous health, particularly mental health. He currently lives on his Dakota and Anishinaabe traditional homelands in St. Paul, MN.

Kurt Kimber – Co-owner of Kimber Contours family farm

The world’s population is forecast to increase by 1.5 billion people by 2050, while crop yields are expected to decline due to climate change. Fresh water scarcity, already bad, will become worse. In effect, civilization is “three meals deep.” In this talk, Kurt Kimber will consider these threats and just solutions, informed by his experience as a farmer, landholder, and his work in climate justice.

Kurt Kimber has been running his family’s farming operation since 2014, certifying it organic in 2017. Located about 30 miles south of Minneapolis, the farm covers 240 acres, 200 of which is tillable. Demons (such as lack of action, injustice, and looming suffering) hound Kurt, forcing him to think about the existential threats to the biosphere. He is interested in exploring sustainable, plant-forward agricultural systems that can help feed a growing global population as climate change impacts crop yields – and he is particularly interested in developing new models to engage value-aligned non-operating farmland owners. Kurt sees opportunities to train a new generation of farmers and create value-added processing businesses to support these alternative agricultural approaches.

Sean Jarvie – Chief Technology Officer at Flow Environmental Systems

Heating buildings account for a substantial share of global energy use. Buildings consume about 40% of all energy, and around 70% of that energy is related to heating. As we strive to eliminate carbon emissions, rethinking how we heat our buildings is essential. By embracing innovative approaches, such as low-GWP (Global Warming Potential) refrigerants, advanced cold-climate heat pumps capable of high-temperature output, and workforce development, we can create solutions that are both sustainable and economically advantageous. When we adopt a holistic, collaborative mindset, transformative ideas often emerge.

Sean Jarvie, Chief Technology Officer at Flow Environmental Systems, is passionate about clean environmentally responsible technology and building a better future for the next generation. With 20+ years of experience across companies large and small, Sean brings a hands-on approach and a deep understanding of HVAC and refrigeration. An engineer at heart, he’s worked everywhere from the lab to the field, always championing innovation, efficiency, and sustainability. Sean’s commitment to practical solutions and environmental stewardship makes him a trusted leader in the industry and a driving force for positive change.

Jessica Hellmann – Executive Director and Ecolab Chair in Environmental Leadership for IonE

It’s often said that climate change is the greatest challenge facing humanity, but a twin crisis is the decline of species and ecosystems caused by various forms of human activity. Climate change and biodiversity loss are often treated separately in science, policy, and corporate ESG reporting and sustainability plans, but the issues have surprising co-benefits and challenges that emerge when considered synergistically. This talk will highlight those synergies and associated knowledge gaps, drawing on the on-going – and first-ever – national Biodiversity and Climate Change Assessment (BCCA).

Dr. Jessica Hellmann is the Executive Director and Ecolab Chair in Environmental Leadership for the Institute on the Environment and a Distinguished McKnight University Professor at the University of Minnesota. She studies climate change and greenhouse gases in natural and built environments; she leads the Midwest Climate Adaptation Science Center; and she co-founded Geofinancial Analytics, a private venture that tracks methane emissions. She serves on boards of several non-profits, including the National Audubon Society, the Science Museum of Minnesota, and the Nature Conservancy of MN, SD, and ND, and she is widely consulted by governments and the media globally for her climate expertise.