Name: Gabriella Hilsenrad

Social Justice Group: 2021-2022, Water Pollution and Climate Change

Date of Fieldwork: January 31, 2022

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Sofia Zuberbuhler-Yafar

Type of Fieldwork: Interview

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork?[:: :

My teammates and I interviewed Sofia Zuberbuhler-Yafar. She is Program Director for the Sustainable Infrastructure Unit with the New York City Department of Design and Construction. She manages design contracts and ensures the on-time delivery of NYC’s Department of Environmental Protection’s various multi-million-dollar city-wide green infrastructure contracts.

Something interesting that we learned is that when there is a lot of rain, more pollution builds up. Water pollution is not all caused by man-made objects, but also natural occurrences. Also, the more resources you use to combat pollution, the more you’re contributing to climate change, so we need to put more work into both to solve this circle of issues