Zander De Jesus

Zander De Jesus (he/him) recently graduated as a Master’s of Environmental Management student at the Yale School of the Environment. He grew up in the Boston metro area, and living on the coast made him highly fascinated in marine ecology, and the impact of industrialized pollution on local environments and communities. He graduated from Yale College with a B.S. in Environmental Studies and American Studies. Through this double major, Zander synthesized Environmental Health, Political Ecology, and the History of Decolonization Movements to form a multidisciplinary Environmental Justice lens.

 

In his undergraduate thesis research, Zander worked in the lab of Professor Krystal Pollitt to analyze the effectiveness of air pollution monitors on reading indoor and outdoor NO2 pollution within homes in Springfield, Massachusetts. Working with the community health workers of the Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts, the lab was able use this dataset to provide free health recommendations for families with severe asthma. He has now completed the People, Equity, and the Environment Specialization, and is interested in further researching theories of Environmental Justice, and how community organizing strategies translate into effective and participatory policy frameworks. Before YCEJ, Zander was involved in the Yale Student Environmental Coalition (YSEC), serving as a Co-President from 2019-2020, as well as the Teaching Peace Initiative.

 

As part of the YCEJ Summer Fellowship, Zander is participating in a research internship at Neighborhood Housing Services of New Haven, a nonprofit community organization which provides consultation and connection to home energy retrofitting services for households across CT. He is performing data analysis and writing educational content for the "I Heart My Home CT" program. This initiative connects low-income families to eligible government assistance funds, and negotiates the lowest possible contracts for families to receive home weatherization and deep retrofitting of their fossil-fuel based heating and water systems with energy efficient heat pumps and alternative clean energy technologies. This is done with the mission to decarbonize residential buildings, improve energy security of household infrastructure, and improve healthy indoor air quality.