Columbia University

Liv Yoon

Liv Yoon, Principal Investigator
Dr. Liv Yoon's research is at the intersection of climate change, social inequities, and health, with a focus on community engagement work. Her research is focused on taking climate change as an opportunity to challenge the status quo and promote structural changes that alleviate social inequities that both led to, and are exacerbated by, the climate crisis. She is a Fellow with the New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC), and a member of Columbia's Environmental Justice and Climate Just Cities (EJCJC) Network. She is currently a policy analyst at Health Canada's Climate Change Innovation Bureau (CCIB). Starting in January 2023, she will be an Assistant Professor in the School of Kinesiology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

Christian Braneon

Christian Braneon, Co-Investigator
Dr. Christian Braneon is a climate scientist at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Co-Director of the Environmental Justice and Climate Just Cities (EJCJC) Network at the Earth Institute. He previously served as Co-Director of USEPA's inaugural Environmental Justice Academy for community leaders. Dr. Braneon is particularly known for integrating satellite data and climate science into urban planning and civil engineering practice. In 2013, he developed an approach for integrating climate change projections into the City of Dallas Long Range Water Supply Plan. Recently, he advised New York City Council's Data Operations Unit on their data science strategy as they integrated Landsat 8 satellite imagery into their temperature mapping initiatives. Dr. Braneon received an AXA Award for Climate Science in 2021. He holds degrees in applied physics and civil engineering from Morehouse College and the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Jolie Villegas

Jolie Villegas, Research Assistant
Jolie Villegas is in the inaugural class of Columbia University's Climate School pursuing an M.A. in Climate and Society. As a 2022 Environmental Defense Fund Climate Corps Fellow, she is helping the Harris County Office of Sustainability develop their first ever Climate Justice Action Plan. Jolie is currently a Graduate Research Assistant working with Dr. Liv Yoon and Dr. Christian Braneon on addressing the urban heat island effect through an equity lens in Northern Manhattan and the South Bronx. She has previously researched environmentally-just wildfire mitigation strategies in her home state of California, Acropora coral resilience in Belize, and Polygonum plant phenotypic plasticity. A member of the MeshEd Collective, Jolie develops curricula for their Climate Action, Sustainable Fashion, and Food Justice programs. She received her Bachelor's in Environmental Studies and Biology from Wesleyan University.

Kemuning Adiputri

Kemuning Adiputri, Student Consultant
Kemuning Adiputri is an architecture graduate and a master's student at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, Columbia University, pursuing an M.S. in Historic Preservation. She contributed to research on environmental injustice in Harlem, New York, during her participation in the Historic Preservation Studio II course, instructed by Professor Erica Avrami and Professor Morgan O'Hara, focusing her findings on the temperature injustice in this neighborhood conducting a heat prostration research based on historical newspapers. Her previous studies focused on community-driven tangible and intangible heritage preservation, and she worked as a junior architect at a cultural tourism architecture consultancy.

South Bronx Unite

Melissa Barber

Melissa Barber, Founding Member and Advisory Board Member
Dr. Melissa Barber is the author of "Thirty Days of Thanks: A Journey Towards Healing and Deliverance" and the CEO of the consulting company, Thirty Days of Thanks. She completed her medical training at the Latin American School of Medicine (LASM) or La Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina (ELAM) in Havana, Cuba, which focuses on community and social medicine. She is currently one of the Principal Investigators of the COVID-19 Community Pesquisa Project, which seeks to investigate the impacts of COVID-19 on South Bronx communities. She is a co-founder of South Bronx Unite and a founding Executive Board Member of the Mott Haven-Port Morris Community Land Stewards, the first ever community land trust in The Bronx. She also serves on the Community Advisory Board of Columbia University's NIEHS Center for Environmental Health in Northern Manhattan. Dr. Barber is an ambassador and advocate for the international maternal-infant organization, the Birthing Project USA: the Underground Railroad for New Life, where she promotes health and wellness, and fights for the lives of women and babies of color. Dr. Barber is a member and co-organizer for the Bronx Parents Autism Support Circle, which educates, provides resources, and supports families with loved ones on the autism spectrum. Dr. Barber oversees 6am Morning Glory Prayer, a ministry of Jesus Juice. Her passion for youth of color led Dr. Barber to work as Program Coordinator for the ELAM Medical School scholarship program for ten years, facilitating the gifting of free medical education scholarships to over 300 BIPOC students. Dr. Barber is a single mother to an amazingly gifted autistic daughter and currently resides where she was born, in the best place on this planet, the South Bronx. Her dreams include creating a one-stop shop, social medicine clinic/wellness center that will bring holistic healing to her community. She would also love to use her book to heal and deliver people from health and social inequities.

Ashley Fontilla

Ashley Fontilla, Project Coordinator
Ashley is a first-generation college graduate - in May 2021, she received her B.A. in urban studies and a certificate in human rights from Hunter College, CUNY. During college, to gain experience with advocacy, she interned with South Bronx Unite and the New York Public Interest Research Group. In February 2020, she joined SBU as a project coordinator, becoming its first staff person. In this role, she supports the organization with a variety of activities, ranging from being the in-house Salsa CRM expert to outreach and administrative duties. Ashley is a member of Havemeyer Community Garden in Castle Hill, The Bronx, where she grows food and works with other gardeners to provide fresh garden produce to her community. She is also the doting mother of two very lively and vocal birds, Georgie, a quaker parrot and Penny, a pineapple conure. Showering Georgie with kisses is one of her favorite pastimes. Currently, she is reading "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson, which provides a simplified explanation of the harms caused by toxins that humans use to control the environment.

Mychal Johnson

Mychal Johnson, Founding Member and Advisory Board Member
Mychal is a community-based advocate for environmental, economic and social justice in the South Bronx. He is a co-founder of South Bronx Unite and a founding member of the Mott Haven-Port Morris Community Land Stewards, where is also a board member. He serves on the board of directors of the NYC Community Land Initiative (NYCCLI), the Bronx Council for Environmental Quality, and the Community Advisory Board of Columbia University’s NIEHS Center for Environmental Health in Northern Manhattan. Mychal was also appointed as a civil society voting member of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Open Space Committee. He has been a member of Bronx Community Board 1 and was notably selected by the United Nations to serve as one of 38 global civil society appointees to the historic UN Climate Summit in 2014. He is a long-time activist organizing for greater access to open green space, truly affordable housing, a healthier quality of life, and community-focused development that supports rather than displaces neighborhood residents.

Arif Ullah

Arif Ullah, Executive Director
Arif is a social and environmental justice advocate, grassroots urban planner, and community activist with more than 15 years of experience in designing and managing community development programs, establishing diverse alliances, and co-creating campaign strategies around local, state, and national issues. Prior to joining South Bronx Unite, Arif was Director of Programs at Citizens Committee for New York City where he and his team supported hundreds of grassroots groups every year in their self-determined efforts to improve the quality of life in under-resourced neighborhoods across NYC. Before that, he worked as an immigrants’ rights advocate with American Friends Service Committee where he helped establish a local alliance of immigrant advocates, contributed to a national campaign for immigration reform, and designed and led workshops on community organizing. He is a co-founder of Bangladeshi Americans for Political Progress and a core member of Queens Climate Project and Malcolm X Community Garden. He has been on the boards of ioby, Farm School NYC, and NY Immigration Coalition. In his free time, Arif grows food and keeps honeybees at his community garden. Arif believes in the power of frontline communities, and he is committed to building systems that support their health, creativity, wisdom, leadership, and resilience.

Web Developers

Jason Biegel

Jason Biegel, Software Engineer
Jason Biegel is a software engineer with a passion for environmental and social justice. He helped organize the 2021 HeatWatch campaign in Jersey City, Newark, and Elizabeth. Jason strives to utilize his computer programming skills to raise awareness and educate others on the causes and effects of urban heat islands. Jason has a strong connection with nature and works to promote healthy ecosystems where they are needed the most, urban areas. Jason is a member of the Jersey City Shade Tree Committee which is an advisory board for the street trees. Jason is also an avid urban farmer and is a board member at Riverview Community Garden. Jason has a bachelor's degree in computer science from Stevens Institute of Technology, a certificate in urban forestry from NJ DEP and is working towards a horticulture certificate at NY Botanical Garden.

Tom Zinckgraf

Tom Zinckgraf, Software Engineer
Tom Zinckgraf is a professional software engineer by day, and a volunteer software engineer by night. He spent time volunteering with Sustainable Jersey City. At SJC, he enhanced and maintained a custom version of OpenTreeMap to help volunteers collect tree inventory data. He is always looking for additional ways to use his software skills to help environmental and social justice.