Columbus, Ohio USA
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OSU alumnus Hudson McFann gives voice to youth
at United Nations conference

July 2011 Issue

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Former Short North resident and Ohio State University graduate Hudson McFann paid a visit to New York City recently to serve as an advocate for sustainable solutions at the 19th United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development.

McFann attended with 12 other youth delegates through SustainUS, a youth network that empowers young people to contribute voices to policymaking at grassroots and international levels.

McFann was selected from applicants across the country to represent the youth delegation. The talks focused on sustainability in transport, chemicals, waste management, and mining. McFann is particularly interested in the role of waste management in environmental and social justice.

“Internationally, waste continues to disproportionately impact communities lacking sufficient political power to have their concerns heard and acted upon,” he said. “I was eager to join other youth from around the world in advocating for these communities and for more equitable waste management.”

At OSU, McFann served as president of Students for a Sustainable Campus, founded an educational forum called Green Beans: Ecology & Coffee, and served on the President’s Council on Sustainability Advisory Group. A LEED AP, he also worked as director at Greenovate, a green building supply company in the Short North, and was hired as a freelance environmental consultant by Abercrombie & Fitch. During his two years of honors thesis research, McFann studied the sociopolitics of landfills and waste imports in Appalachian Ohio, focusing specifically on connections between mining and waste disposal. He earned a bachelor’s degree in geography from Ohio State University in 2010.

As a current Fulbright Fellow at the University of Toronto in Canada, McFann is now researching Toronto’s waste exports to the U.S. and southwest Ontario, and has presented the results of these projects in Las Vegas and Washington, D.C., as well as in Canada, Brazil, and France.

This fall, he will begin graduate study at New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and Beinecke Scholar and plans to continue his research on the politics of waste, while also exploring connections between geography and art.

More information about the delegation, including Agent of Change profiles and contact information, can be found on the Internet at http://www.sustainus.org/agents. Find regular updates on SustainUS and the Commission at http://www.sustainus.org/blog.

© 2011 Short North Gazette, Columbus, Ohio. All rights reserved.

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