Rachel Smiley

Rachel was a junior studying Natural Resources and the Environment with a concentration in Wildlife and Fisheries Conservation at the time of COP21. She is the treasurer of UConn’s chapter of the Wildlife Society and Vice President of UConn Whitewater. Rachael loves the outdoors and everything that lives there! Particularly, she is interested in minimizing negative anthropogenic impacts on the Earth’s ecosystems and preserving biodiversity, which is why she wanted to attend COP21. Going forward, Rachael would like to see UConn take big steps in lessening its carbon footprint and UConn students becoming more aware of their personal environmental impact. Her project following the climate summit involved helping UConn campuses adopt more sustainable landscaping practices using native, carbon-sequestering vegetation instead of farmed turf grass. Rachael thinks it is important for UConn to show the community direct ways in which we can actively lessen our impact on the climate.