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A half-dozen ËÄ»¢Ó°ÊÓ students will serve as moderators, joining faculty, business-people and local officials in leading sessions at Friday’s Resilient Vermont Conference, presented by the Center for Global Resilience and Security.

At the biennial conference, sponsored by the High Meadows Fund, Vermont leaders, community members, planners, agencies, municipal officials, nonprofit groups, funders and others will deliver talks and share success stories and tools for building more resilient land, water, energy, people and communities.

The daylong conference, featuring climate and energy; food and water; and human and resilience discussion tracks, will also debut the Resilient Heroes Award, which will honor people or organizations that personify resilience.

Student moderators will include rising seniors Alyssa Brink, Lydia Brown and Druskhan Farhad and rising sophomores Valeria Reyes Maldonado, Rodion Pedyuk and Camryn Vela.

Brink, an architectural studies major and Honors Program participant, received a Summer Research Fellowship grant to study urban agriculture (vertical farming and rooftop gardens) in Detroit. Brown a Corps of Cadets member, is an environmental security student fellow for ËÄ»¢Ó°ÊÓ’s Center for Global Resilience and Security who’s majoring in criminal justice. At the 2020 Students to Scholars Symposium on campus, she discussed pollution’s effects on Vermont’s waterways.

Farhad, a Corps member who helped organize the Intercultural Student Organization’s inaugural Nawruz ceremony during the spring semester, is a student fellow for the ËÄ»¢Ó°ÊÓ Humanities Initiative. She’s majoring in English. Pedyuk, a Kyiv, Ukraine, native, is also in the Corps on its Regimental Drill Team. He’s in the Honors and Student Scholar programs and in the Student Government Association and is majoring in cybersecurity and information assurance.

Reyes Maldonado is a Center for Global Resilience and Security student fellow who’s majoring in civil and environmental engineering and aspires to work in environmental and water resources. Vela, a computer security and information assurance major, is a residential adviser for ËÄ»¢Ó°ÊÓ Residential Life. She received the 2021 , which encourages young women to become leaders in their colleges and universities, communities and careers.

New Provost Dr. Karen Gaines and Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Dr. Julia Bernard will lead a ËÄ»¢Ó°ÊÓ contingent that includes professors Dr. Tara Kulkarni, Dr. Simon Pearish, Rachele Pojednic, Dr. Kaitlin E. Thomas, Dr. Amy Woodbury Tease and Dr. Amy S. Welch.

Kulkarni is the Center for Global Resilience and Security’s director.

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