In 2022, WE ACT for Environmental Justice launched the Cecil Corbin-Mark Fellowship for Environmental Justice Leadership as a unique opportunity for young people to continue to follow in our late Deputy Director Cecil’s footsteps, launching them on a career path to become the next generation of environmental justice leaders.
Cecil Corbin-Mark was the Deputy Director and Director of Policy Initiatives at WE ACT for Environmental Justice when he passed away on October 15, 2020 at the age of 51. He helped develop and pass numerous environmental health related bills in New York City and New York State, provided overall policy guidance to WE ACT’s New York program staff, managed WE ACT’s Federal Policy Office in Washington, DC, and served as an informal mentor to aspiring environmental justice advocates across the country – a legacy which is celebrated today by the Cecil Corbin-Mark Fellowship program.
Cecil was 25 years-old when he joined WE ACT, becoming the first paid staff person hired by the Harlem-based volunteer group when it became a formal nonprofit organization. Over the following 26 years, Cecil grew to be one of the leading figures in the environmental justice movement – both well-known and highly-respected. He was also a life-long resident of Hamilton Heights in Harlem, New York, where his family has lived for six decades.
During this year-long fellowship, participants worked on WE ACT campaigns alongside seasoned environmental justice leaders. Fellows gained leadership experience in areas including environmental health, environmental justice policy, and community organizing. Fellows also received learning opportunities to strengthen their professional skills and deepen their understanding of the operations of a community-based advocacy organization.
Since you helped us launch this program, we’ve had four cohorts of Cecil Corbin-Mark fellows, a total of eight fellows over four years. You can read about what the fellows have accomplished here on our blog.
We are currently seeking our next fellow! If you or someone you know is interested in this opportunity, please view our posting here. Will you honor Cecil’s legacy and help us build the next generation of environmental justice leaders by supporting the fellowship?
Meet Our Current Cecil Corbin-Mark Fellows
As a National Organizing Cecil Corbin-Mark Fellow, Prasiddhi Thapaliya (she/her) supports our National Organizing Director with the Environmental Justice Leadership Forum (EJLF). She maintains internal tracking of participation, what projects/initiatives members are doing, and what their support needs are. Prasiddhi organizes the Data Center Working Group within the Forum, and co-organizes the Air Quality Monitoring Working Group. She assists in planning the annual EJLF Convening by planning out the agenda, organizing panelists, and planning travel logistics. She collaborated with the Data Center Working Group to create the Data Centers Issue Brief.
Prasiddhi’s work on data centers and warehouses has solidified her desire to pursue a career in sustainable development. She’s heard from multiple EJLF members from across the country about the harmful impacts from these facilities. Hearing their stories reinforced her belief that sustainable and equitable development requires putting communities first and uplifting frontline voices.
Prasiddhi Thapaliya
“Through this fellowship, I’ve learned the importance of – and how to – build and maintain relationships to strengthen organizing power. I’ve gotten to connect with people from all across the country and learned just how vast the scope of environmental justice work is: from legal expertise, to door-to-door canvassing, to hard-hitting journalism, there is a place for all types of skills in the environmental justice world.
Tuesday Jenkins (she/her) is a WE ACT for Environmental Justice Cecil Corbin-Mark Federal Policy Fellow in Washington, DC. Her early work in social justice as an intern at the former Harlem Community Justice Center shaped her youthful passion for community and activism. Hearing cases of her peers of truancy, theft, and destruction of property, she honed in on restorative justice practices issuing youth alternative sanctions to detention centers (e.g., community service or letter(s) of apology to the harmed individual or community) to prevent them from acquiring a juvenile record. From this role she learned the interplay between law, community, and activism.
Tuesday’s foundational work in social and restorative justice sparked her dedication to addressing systemic disparities. Leveraging her upbringing and experiences to explore wider issues impacting vulnerable communities, she pursued Public Health at Syracuse University, conferring a Bachelor of Science in Public Health with a minor in addiction studies from the David B. Falk School of Sports and Human Dynamics.
She remains dedicated to community engagement and youth initiatives in New York City currently serving as a Youth Council Member at the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health.
Tuesday Jenkins
“This opportunity enlightened me to a movement that predates me, one rarely taught in K-12 schools, yet is pivotal to the overall health, wellbeing, and future of low-income and communities of color. Since beginning my time here, I have had the pleasure of attending conferences, including the Center for Engagement Environmental Justice and Health Equity 11th Symposium. There, I listened to the leaders such as Sacoby Wilson, Robert Bullard, Vernice Miller-Travis, and other trailblazers of the environmental justice movement speak about the trials they encountered, why this movement is important now more than ever, and what they envision for the future of the movement. Ultimately, this fellowship has bridged a fundamental understanding of why the work I want to do, whether through social justice, maternal, infant and child health, or education, is so foundational to low-income communities and communities of color. This experience has transformed environmental justice from an unfamiliar concept into the one of many core lenses through which I view community organizing and the policies impacting vulnerable populations. I have come to realize it’s no longer a war on hate, but a war on morality, with capitalism being weaponized to continue to perpetuate disenfranchisement of vulnerable people. If we, as people of all different races, income levels, and creeds, do not band together and fight against what may seem like minor injustices, and if we fail to support communities that lack a voice or understanding of how to use it, we will continue a cycle of succumbing to menial progress.”
Past Cecil Corbin-Mark Fellows
Rose Vollaro ‘24 (they/them) was the Cecil Corbin-Mark Communications Fellow at WE ACT for Environmental Justice. They managed and improved WE ACT’s social media and other digital advocacy work. Previously, Rose worked under the Honorable Judge Wang in the Southern District of New York, worked on-site in rural Panama developing sustainable growth for small business owners, and with RES Company doing advocacy for the New York State Traumatic Brain Injury community.
Rose graduated from Macaulay Honors College CUNY Baruch with a B.S. in Business and Sustainability. Their studies focus on the intersection of social entrepreneurship and building resilient social sustainability systems. Outside of environmental justice, Rose is passionate about getting non-male and LGBT+ communities involved in sports and fitness. On the weekends they enjoy playing soccer or enjoying New York City’s parks.
Now a Community Organizer at WE ACT for Environmental Justice, Mariclaire Joseph ‘24 (she/her) was previously the Cecil Corbin-Mark Civic Engagement & Organizing Fellow. Mariclaire’s desire to advocate for environmental stewardship and justice began at an early age, having grown up in a heavily industrialized section of New Jersey alongside chemical manufacturing facilities, oil refineries, and Superfund sites. While she began an academic trajectory focusing on marine science and conservation policy inspired by her coastal roots, she felt the desire to forge a pathway that prioritized the human element in the issues she studied, as she found successful fieldwork was best achieved when science and policy dovetailed consistent and abundant community involvement.
In a recent return to academia, Mariclaire sought to gain a more robust understanding of law, governance, and climate systems to bolster her passion for advocacy in the realms of environmental and climate justice. Her passion for community engagement stems from the desire to spark dialogue and rally commonality around social, political, and environmental issues where division and polarization have worked against the pursuit of equitable solutions, protections, and actionable change. Mariclaire holds a Bachelor of the Arts in Sustainable Development conferred by Columbia University’s Climate School.
Caleb Smith ‘22 (they/them) is the New York City Policy Manager at WE ACT for Environmental Justice. They are a lead facilitator of the Extreme Heat Coalition launched as an extension of the Heat, Health, and Equity Initiative. The Coalition seeks to protect urban residents from heat stress through policy, adaptation, and mitigation strategies by integrating nature-based solutions, green infrastructure, social resilience planning, as well as renewable and affordable energy programs. Caleb received a Bachelor of Arts in Politics at the University of San Francisco and Master of Public Administration in Environmental Science and Policy at Columbia University. Previously they served as a Special Assistant to the Mayor in Oakland, where they worked to address illegal dumping and helped implement community-led projects to serve local environmental justice communities as part of the Better Neighborhoods, Same Neighbors Initiative.
As a Cecil Corbin-Mark Fellow, Caleb’s scope of work revolved around resiliency, climate change, and energy research and advocacy. This included facilitating community outreach for the Long-term Energy Plan (Power Up NYC!) and utility debt workshops, providing research and testimony at city hearings and a Con Edison rate case, and supporting the Better Buildings New York coalition, which focuses on policies to transition the State off gas. While still serving as a fellow, Caleb urged a majority co-sponsorship of Local Law 032 of 2023, phasing down the use of fuel oil number 4 by 2027 instead of 2030. They also launched our statewide Extreme Heat Coalition, advancing the goals of the Heat, Health, and Equity campaign by building a movement toward resilience, adaptation, and mitigation against extreme heat grounded in the disproportionate burden placed on urban disadvantaged communities.
Cameron Clarke ‘23 (he/him) was the NY HEAT Campaign Coordinator at WE ACT for Environmental Justice. He previously worked as a policy researcher at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and as a special assistant to the commissioner of the Baltimore City Health Department, where he developed the health department’s environmental justice outreach strategy. Originally from Jersey City, Cameron studied biology and community health education at Howard University, earned master’s degrees in social and public policy from the University of Oxford, and is currently completing his M.D. at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons. His work at WE ACT focuses on environmental health policy, toxic exposures, and disparities in asthma and respiratory diseases.
As the Cecil Corbin Mark Fellow in 2023, Cameron worked with the Environmental Health team on research and education projects that impact residents of Northern Manhattan and the rest of New York State. His background is in medicine (he is currently taking a research year from medical school at Columbia University), so his main focus has been researching asthma, but he has also helped support the work of the Climate Justice Working Group, including the Climate Ready Uptown Plan campaign, which provides extreme heat and disaster preparedness workshops to communities across Northern Manhattan, and the Our Homes Under Our Control campaign, which aims to keep New York affordable for tenants by advocating for universal rent stabilization and ending subsidies to natural gas utilities, reinvesting the savings into community renewable energy projects and capping the costs of utilities for New Yorkers.
Tali Natter ‘23 (she/her) is the Research Coordinator at WE ACT for Environmental Justice, having previously served as the Cecil Corbin-Mark Environmental Justice Research Fellow. She works on research, mapping, and data analysis to support WE ACT’s Federal Policy Office in its efforts towards equitable and just environmental practices and legislation. Prior to joining WE ACT, Tali held environmental education internships at the National Geographic Society and the CityParks Foundation. Originally from Morningside Heights, she recently graduated from Williams College with a BA in American studies and a concentration in environmental studies. Tali’s other research interests include environmental storytelling, participatory community research and organizing, and education.
Tali’s other accomplishments include creating Justice40rward storymaps to recap the community tours from last year, contributing to various research and analysis on emerging energy policies, specifically false solutions like hydrogen and liquefied natural gas, and supporting analysis of proposed federal laws, rules, and tools to prioritize environmental justice communities in legislation. Tali’s long-term goal for this fellowship is to continue contributing to research that advances community advocacy and supports implementation of equitable policy.
Elizabeth “Liz” Reyes ‘22 (she/her) is the Toxics Policy Campaigns Coordinator at WE ACT for Environmental Justice. Born in the Dominican Republic and raised in Northern Manhattan and the Bronx, she graduated from Middlebury College where she majored in environmental justice. Liz was a Community Connected Learning Project Assistant at Middlebury, where she supported students working with community-based organizations on their civic skills, leadership, and community engagement. She also worked with a local frontline community that faced a disproportionate risk of flooding, creating an ethical storytelling project that gave residents a voice in decisions being made in their community. Liz learned about WE ACT during her senior year of high school, which set her on course for a career in environmental justice.
Elizabeth Reyes was a CCM Fellow in 2022. She supported the policy team, helping advance our policy work on toxic chemicals as well as engaging members on these issues. This included strengthening state and city legislation to prevent childhood lead poisoning, a cause which Cecil was particularly passionate about. During her time as a fellow, Liz was able to accomplish everything she wanted to and more. She got to testify at various City Council oversight hearings, speak with State legislators about bills we were advancing, and connect with many WE ACT members and Northern Manhattan residents about their different experiences with toxics. She even had the opportunity to travel halfway across the world to help with our Climate Justice Pavilion at COP27 in Egypt!
Rachel Wissner is the Individual Giving Manager at WE ACT for Environmental Justice.