Keynote presenter Sarah Jacquette Ray addresses the audience while on stage with Ben Ingman.

Sep 26

Annual Meeting 2025

The Institute on the Environment’s Annual Meeting is a gathering of the IonE community that takes place on the last Friday in September – a kick-off to the new academic year.

By Invitation

In-Person

Date Sep 26, 2025

Time 10:00 am - 04:15 pm

location Coffman Memorial Union

organizer

Institute on the Environment

What is the Annual Meeting?

The IonE Annual Meeting is a great place to:

Learn about and celebrate high-impact sustainability work happening across the University of Minnesota;
Build or strengthen connections with peers and potential future collaborators;
Deepen your understanding of the Institute’s strategy and vision.

All are welcome: affiliates, staff, students, grant team members, partners, supporters, and guests. Help grow the IonE community: invite a colleague or friend!

Keynote presentation – Dr. Sarah Jaquette Ray

Dr. Sarah Jaquette Ray is a professor and chair of Environmental Studies at Cal Poly Humboldt. An environmental humanist, she is a leading expert on climate emotions and social justice, particularly among youth activists and in higher education. She is the author of two books, “The Ecological Other: Environmental Exclusion in American Culture” and “A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety: How to Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet.” Most recently, she co-edited The Existential Toolkit for Climate Justice Educators: How to Teach in a Burning World (UC Press, 2024). Dr. Ray is a scientific advisor for the Climate Mental Health Network and a certified mindfulness teacher, focusing on providing tools for mental resilience and healing to support the climate movement.

Breakout Sessions 2:30-3:15 p.m.

We invite you to choose whichever breakout sessions sound most exciting to you.

Finding What Matters: Students as Visionaries for a More Sustainable Future

Location: Room 323

What matters for sustainability and climate action education? What do students need? How can we help? Share your insights.

This session is for anyone interested in students’ effectiveness in creating a better future: whether you are new to this area, you have deep expertise and are looking to connect with others, or you are a student with ideas you want to share. We hope to model sharing across student, instructor, & staff perspectives in our facilitation team and discussion.

Hosts:

Mary Hannemann co-leads Sustainability Education programming at IonE and supports student engagement for Extension’s Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships.

Aisha Hersi is a senior at the University of Minnesota studying Political Science, with interests in climate literacy and tax policy.

Audaciously Ideating for Sustainable Food Systems

Location: Mississippi Room

Engage in audacious ideation around the just, equitable, and sustainable transformation of our food systems.

Host:

Jennifer Schmitt (she/her) is a Senior Research Scientist in Sustainable Food Systems at the Institute on the Environment. She seeks to work together with scientists, artists, professionals, community organizers, and others to ask audacious questions of our food systems and envision new ways to address our food systems challenges through research and creative works.

Power Systems Journey: Questions and Stories for the Energy Transition

Location: Room 325

Join energy leaders, featured in a video documentary, to discuss questions for the energy transition: Robert Blake, Massoud Amin, Kathryn Milun, Shane Stennes, Aaron Hanson, and more.

Hosts:

IonE Affiliates Jonee Kulman Brigham and Paul Imbertson co-led the Grand Challenge course, ‘Power Systems Journey’ and received an IonE mini-grant for an interdisciplinary video documentary about the course and the energy leaders it engaged. Jonee is a Senior Research Fellow at Minnesota Design Center in the College of Design. Paul is a retired Teaching Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering in the College of Science and Engineering.

Philanthropy at the U of M: Practical Information and Strategies to Diversify Your Funding Streams

Location: Room 326

Join fundraisers from across IonE-affiliated units to learn about philanthropy at UMN, and how interdisciplinary teams can effectively partner with fundraisers to explore and secure non-governmental support.

Host:

Marin Byrne is IonE’s Director of Donor Relations & Advancement Operations. She brings a unique perspective not just as a fundraiser with more than 20 years of experience, but also as a former sustainability researcher (and CFANS alum). She’ll be joined by fundraisers from across IonE-affiliated units.

Impact Goals Funded Projects: Impacts, Outcomes and Opportunities

Community Talks

Breakout Sessions 3:30-4:15 p.m.

Healthy Rural Communities: The Mni Sota Center for Weather and Health

Location: President’s Room

This presentation will provide an overview of the newly-formed Mni Sota Center for Weather and Health. The center aims to understand the intersection of health, wellness, and climate change in rural and Indigenous communities, with an emphasis on populations that are vulnerable to extreme weather and climate change in the Upper Midwest. We will explore the center’s approach to foster climate-resilient health systems which is rooted in interdisciplinary discovery and community engagement. We will also highlight the importance of drawing on a wide range of expertise when pursuing work on climate, including public health, natural resources and ecosystem science, medicine, and climate modeling.

Hosts:

Jessica Hellmann is co-director of the Mni Sota Center for Weather and Health (MCWH) and Executive Director of IonE, providing strategic leadership to advance climate and sustainability solutions benefiting both people and the planet.

Bruce Alexander is co-director of MCWH, an IonE Affiliate, and a Professor and Division Head in the School of Public Health, specializing in occupational and environmental epidemiology with research interests in cancer, respiratory disease, injury prevention, and the health of agricultural populations.

Jesse Berman is the Research Project Director of MCWH, an IonE Affiliate, and an Associate Professor in the School of Public Health, focusing on the relationship between human health and complex environmental exposures.

Collaborations in Sustainability: RSDP and IonE

Location: Room 324

IonE and RSDP present examples of a unique collaboration centered around building community-University partnerships and discuss emerging opportunities for collaborations and partnerships to address sustainability.

Hosts:

Anne Dybsetter is Executive Director of the Southwest Regional Sustainable Development Partnership (RSDP) and RSDP’s liaison to IonE.

Andi Sutton is the Executive Director of Southeast Regional Sustainable Development Partnership (RSDP) and serves as a connector between University research teams and community partners, including for several IonE Impact Goals grants.

“You Can’t Ignore the Fact that Harm was Done”: A Photovoice Collaboration With Our Streets MN Exploring the Effects of I-94 on Communities

Location: Room 325

In collaboration with Our Streets this photovoice research engages three communities along I-94 about how the highway impacts them. This presentation will highlight the partnership, findings, and recommendations.

Hosts:

Dr. Susi Keefe is a medical anthropologist and the new Associate Director of Community-Engaged Scholarship in the Center for Community-Engaged Learning

Yasmin Hirsi is the Advocacy Manager at Our Streets, where she is deeply committed to working on racial and climate justice initiatives primarily through empowering residents to fight freeways and build resilient communities.

Designing for Uncertainty: A Framework for Resilient Infrastructure Decision-Making in Architectural Practice

Crowdsourcing a Course Simulation on the Global Politics of Climate Change