Environmental Careers Panel

Sydney Barnwell is a strategic communications leader, consultant, and community advocate working at the intersection of environmental justice, policy, storytelling, and community power. As Managing Partner and Principal at Integrity Acts, she draws on her experience leading statewide advocacy campaigns and coalition communications to help mission-driven organizations strengthen their narratives, mobilize communities, and advance meaningful change.

Julie Castillo is a graduate of UConn’s MEEM (Master’s of Energy & Environmental Management) program and a senior analyst supporting commercial renewable energy incentive programs at Eversource. Julie took a less conventional path, earning a B.A. in Political Science from ECSU in 2007, and working in Corporate Real Estate for 13 years until changing industries and starting the MEEM program.

Zoya Dhakam – Energy Policy specialist, currently at CT Dept of Energy and Environment Protection, with over four years of experience in energy, climate, and sustainability at the U.S. federal level in Washington, D.C., and internationally in Pakistan, India, and Saudi Arabia. MPA from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (2023) and a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from the University of Connecticut (2018).

Dave Dickson is a senior Cooperative Extension educator, the director of the UConn Center for Land Use Education and Research (CLEAR), and the co-director of the CT NEMO program. CLEAR seeks to provide communities with tools, research, and support to make land use decisions that balance natural resource protection with community growth.

Moderator: Professor Clarissa Ceglio – As a U.S. cultural historian trained in the interdisciplinary field of American Studies, Clarissa Ceglio works at the intersections of museum studies, public history, and digital humanities. Much of her research focuses on the affective and rhetorical roles that artifacts—material, visual, and digital—play in constructing national and social imaginaries within the context of museum work.