2026 Pitt Sustainability Awardees

Meet the 2026 Pitt Sustainability Awards winners! Each year, these awards recognize students, faculty, staff, and groups making meaningful contributions to campus sustainability as defined by the Pitt Sustainability Plan. From individual actions to academic research to group efforts, this year's winners demonstrate how sustainability takes shape across our campus and region. With new categories added this year, including regional campus and innovation awards, even more of that work is getting the recognition it deserves.

2026 Pitt Sustainability Awardees

Erika Ninos Student Leadership Award

Rachel Garcia, Environmental Studies and Political Science

Rachel Garcia has been deeply involved in campus sustainability since her first year at Pitt, with work spanning nearly every corner of the University's sustainability ecosystem. She has served as an EcoRep, SGB Liaison, Provost Academy mentor, and Teaching Assistant for Sustainability Project Management, and helped create both the Eco Artisan Exhibit and SGB's Single-Use Plastics Ad Hoc Committee, which evolved into the Zero Waste Working Group she now co-chairs. Rachel currently serves as Managing Student Director of the Student Office of Sustainability, where colleagues and nominators alike describe her as someone who lifts others up as she rises. She is graduating this year and heading to the Vermont Law and Graduate School to pursue an environmental law degree, and Pitt is proud to recognize her four years of work with the Erika Ninos Student Leadership Award.

Faculty Awardee

Dr. Stephanie Maximous, Department of Medicine

Dr. Maximous is an Assistant Professor of Medicine and a founding member of Clinicians for Climate Action, a group of medical professionals committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from healthcare systems. Her work focuses on embedding sustainability and climate health into medical education, and her approach has become a model for interdisciplinary teaching that connects clinical expertise with climate health. As one nominator put it, she is preparing the physicians who will care for patients in a changing climate while advocating for the systemic changes needed to protect both human and planetary health.

Faculty Awardee

Dr. Ian Nettleship, Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science

Dr. Nettleship is an Associate Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science whose research and service learning over the last 15 years has centered on ceramic water filters. Through travel and hands-on education, he has trained communities in multiple countries on how to use and maintain their filters to combat waterborne disease. His work bridges grassroots and high-tech solutions, and his integration of teaching, advising, and research creates collaboration across students, faculty, industry partners, and the global community.

Student Awardee

Nathan Schneider, PhD Candidate

Nathan is a PhD candidate in the Center for Neuroscience Program. In their time at Pitt, Nathan has worked tirelessly to incorporate sustainability into the School of Medicine. They worked with the School of Medicine’s student organization to create a student sustainability position and make their latest projects zero landfill waste. Nathan integrated sustainability lectures into their program, led a popular Planetary Health Journal Club, and is training labs throughout their building to use more sustainable practices. Nathan is an early adopter of Pitt Sustainability’s Clear Drop pilot program, which diverts soft plastic by making it into recyclable bricks. Nathan exemplifies sustainability education and leadership in action.

Student Awardee

Cassidy Laffey, Environmental Engineering

Cassidy is an Environmental Engineering major and Chief Managing Officer for the Rural Pennsylvania Solar Project, where she leads a team of eight researchers, manages data analysis and project management, and examines regulatory challenges affecting renewable energy deployment. Outside the lab, she contributes to sustainable engineering competition projects through the American Society of Engineers and the Society of Environmental Engineers and Scientists, and regularly volunteers with PittServes. During a trip to Brazil with Pitt's Exploration of Energy and Electrification program, she pivoted from academic work to humanitarian efforts when the trip was disrupted by a devastating flood.

Student Awardee

Mare McGrory, Environmental Science

Mare is an Environmental Science major, the SOOS-Student Government Board Liaison, and former Lead EcoRep, bringing a consistent focus on student sustainability education and campus policy to everything they do. As SGB's sustainability representative, Mare works across a diverse group of board members to develop campus policies and bridge the gap between students, staff, and administrators, while also helping coordinate events ranging from a Water Town Hall to the Student Sustainability Showcase. Mare has also received the prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, one of the most competitive awards in STEM, and will be pursuing a PhD in Ecology and Evolution at the University of Illinois Chicago, where their research will focus on urban plant ecology and climate resilience strategies.

Staff Awardee

Debbie Harrington, Senior Research Coordinator for RNEL

Debbie is the Senior Research Coordinator for the Rehab Neural Engineering Lab, where she has made sustainability a core part of how the lab operates. From composting food and coffee waste to consolidating to a single trash can for 115 people to eliminate unnecessary bin liners, her zero waste initiatives are practical, creative, and effective. Debbie is a Pitt Green Lab ambassador and is actively working to expand sustainable lab practices to additional floors in Mercy Pavilion.

Staff Awardee

Adam Wilson, Surplus Inventory Lead

Adam is the Surplus Inventory Lead for Pitt Logistics and has worked at the University's Surplus Store since 2011, ensuring that over 13,500 items including desks, chairs, vehicles, and complex laboratory equipment have found their next life serving students, nonprofits, and community members instead of becoming waste. His knowledge of diverting lab equipment in particular has been instrumental to the success of Pitt Surplus and keeps materials out of the hazardous waste stream. Adam's work is a reminder that sustainability leadership sometimes looks like showing up every day and quietly applying your expertise to build a more circular economy.

Group Awardee

PLA Injection Molding Club

The PLA Injection Molding Club, led by President Ethan Bell and Vice President Miles Rosas, became an official student organization in Spring 2025 with a simple but impactful mission: collect, recycle, and reuse PLA, a bio-based plastic used in 3D printing that is typically discarded as waste. In just one year, the club has grown to over 30 active members and diverted more than 100 pounds of PLA from landfills, with makerspaces and offices across campus regularly routing their PLA waste to the club for reuse. This year, the pins for Pitt's Sustainability Champions and Certificate and Distinction earners were made by the club using PLA rescued from Pitt's own waste stream.

Regional Campus Awardee

Dr. Manisha Nigam, Professor, Chemistry

Dr. Nigam is a Professor of Chemistry at Pitt's Johnstown campus whose work in green chemistry spans teaching, research, and institutional change. She was instrumental in leading Pitt-Johnstown to sign Beyond Benign's Green Chemistry Commitment, establishing UPJ's formal commitment to embedding green chemistry principles across the campus. Her curriculum includes multiple lab experiments that replace hazardous reagents, minimize waste, and emphasize safer chemical design, modernizing the undergraduate organic chemistry program while demonstrating that sustainability and academic excellence are not mutually exclusive.

Regional Campus Awardee

Dr. Silvina Orsatti, Assistant Professor, Spanish

Dr. Orsatti is an Assistant Professor of Spanish at Pitt's Greensburg campus who has made sustainability a thread running through her language and culture courses by incorporating the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals across her curriculum. She has published a book chapter and article on sustainable development goals in the Spanish classroom, which she integrates directly into her courses at Pitt-Greensburg. As a Pitt Green Ambassador and holder of Pitt's Sustainability Professional Certificate, she leads by example as both an educator and a learner.

Regional Campus Awardee

Dr. Matt Kropf, Associate Professor, Engineering Technology and Director of the Energy Institute at Pitt-Bradford

Dr. Kropf has been a member of the University-wide Chancellor's Advisory Council on Sustainability since its inception, contributing to the original 2018 Pitt Sustainability Plan. As chair of the Pitt-Bradford Sustainability Committee and Director of the Energy Institute, he has worked to center student voices in the campus's sustainability efforts, including its nearly complete Sustainability Plan. He has been a key driver of Pitt-Bradford's solar expansion, using existing and future installations as living laboratory opportunities and ensuring every building is considered for future rooftop solar. Dr. Kropf is known for bringing people into sustainability work and making them feel heard.

Sustainable Innovation Award

Public Health Resource Hub Project

Jody Mich-Basso and Kim Renziehausen created the Public Health Building Resource Hub out of a simple goal: divert more materials from landfill in a building with limited space. Jody transformed a room on the building's bottom floor into a centralized collection space for everything from KCups and office supplies to pipette tip boxes and expired lab supplies, supported by building-wide education through posters, flyers, and digital displays. When plastic film recycling became an option, Jody made both the physical space and personal time to partner with Pitt Sustainability on the pilot. Their Resource Hub is a sustainable materials management model that Pitt hopes to see replicated across campus.