Meet The Team

Giovanna, a second-year master’s student, graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2015 with Bachelor of Arts degrees in Communication and Environmental Studies. As a member of the UCSB Honors Program, she graduated in the top 75 of her class and received College Honors, Highest Honors, and Academic Achievement awards. During her undergraduate studies, Giovanna volunteered as a lead instructor for the nonprofit Sprout Up where she provided environmental education to elementary school students in Santa Barbara. Following graduation, Giovanna gained extensive experience in event planning, management, marketing, and intercultural communication in her work as a European tour guide based in Florence, Italy. She furthered this experience in her position as the house manager at a nonprofit theatre in Santa Barbara. In this role, she planned and organized a variety of nonprofit events that brought the community together over important issues. At the Bren School, she plans to specialize in Corporate Environmental Management with a focus in Strategic Environmental Communication and Media. Her goal is to use her communication skills and environmental knowledge to act as a link between science and the public. She is primarily interested in using persuasive messages to educate individuals and companies within the food, apparel and/or medical industries about the value and importance of becoming more sustainable.

gdavila@bren.uscb.edu

Derek Hunter, a second-year master’s student, graduated magna cum laude from the University of Connecticut in 2013 with a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering. Upon graduation, Derek was drawn to Unilever by their ambitious Sustainable Living Plan. He spent the next five years there in their Research and Development division, holding positions as both a formulation chemist and process engineer, where he supported the development of over a hundred unique personal care products in lab, pilot plant and production settings. He made regular trips to manufacturing sites to conduct experimental trials for innovative products. He also served as the portfolio manager and R&D regulatory affairs liaison for over the counter drug products and coordinated a system transition to a new product lifecycle development tool. In addition to his product development responsibilities, Derek led several green initiatives, including optimizing process efficiencies, minimizing surfactant inclusion levels and avoiding waste in production. He realized these projects were his passion and has come to the Bren School with the intention of making sustainability the focus of his career. He plans to specialize in Corporate Environmental Management to develop the skills to more effectively implement sustainable solutions. 

derekhunter@bren.ucsb.edu

Camille Herrera, a second-year master’s student, brings over 10 years of experience accross the printing, publishing, and waste management industries. After graduating cum laude in 2004 from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo with a B.S. in Graphic Communication, she began her career in educational publishing. Camille joined Pearson Education’s volunteer sustainability team in 2014, where she experienced the organizational and financial challenges to pursuing sustainable procurement policies for both product manufacturing and internal operations. Challenges like low customer interest in product sustainability, quantifying the benefits of sustainability in the face of increased financial or staff labor costs, or getting stakeholder buy-in. Inspired to support the shift to transparent sustainability as a default operating standard in business, Camille switched career paths. She used her project management and communications experience to step into consulting on waste management in 2014. Seeing the difficulty in recycling certain materials and the various trends further fueled her interest in leveraging purchasing power for closed-loop systems and sustainable materials management. Camille is specializing in Corporate Environmental Management with an emphasis on Eco-Entrepreneurship. Her post-graduate goal is to work in corporate social responsibility, with a focus on innovative sourcing and supply chain management.

cherrera@bren.ucsb.edu

Caitlin Martin, a second-year master’s student, graduated summa cum laude from University of Southern California (USC) in 2016 with a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Studies. During her undergraduate career, Caitlin co-founded a new branch of the Undergraduate Student Government promoting environmental awareness on campus. She also wrote grants for the USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies, securing funding for her initiative adding rain barrels to USC’s Catalina Island campus. Upon graduation, Caitlin returned to her hometown of San Francisco to address sustainability in the business sector. As a Climate Action Fellow with the Business Council on Climate Change (BC3), she collaborated with large businesses such as Google, Autodesk, and Genentech to identify how the business community can help San Francisco meet its local climate goals. After BC3, Caitlin helped small businesses reduce their environmental impact as a Green Business Associate with the San Francisco Department of the Environment. Looking forward, Caitlin wants to help businesses build strategic plans that include sustainability as a key element, and encourage the business community to consider the costs and benefits of climate action. At the Bren School, Caitlin specializes in Corporate Environmental Management with a focus in Eco-Entrepreneurship.

cmartin@bren.ucsb.edu

Bri Winkler, a second-year master’s student, graduated from the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at University of Miami, Florida with a Bachelor of Science in meteorology and minors in mathematics and communication. Bri’s interest in climate change and weather started very young as her father, an air quality engineer, taught her the impact of greenhouse gases. She chose to pursue meteorology after interning in the air quality division of the Department of Environmental Protection in Massachusetts. While in college Bri worked as a research assistant and studied landfalling hurricanes under Dr. Bruce Albrecht.  After experiencing the recurrent breakdown of communication between the science field and public, Bri redirected her attention to broadcast media. Her career on TV began in Texas, where her storm-chasing clips made national news. Two years later, she jumped to the second largest media market in Los Angeles as a meteorologist, feature reporter, and the spokesperson for the station’s largest charitable campaigns. Though Bri still loves forecasting, her time in local news showed her that this medium would not allow her to tell the real story of climate change. Combining her media insight with a focus in Strategic Environmental Communication and specialization of Energy and Climate at Bren, Bri plans on sharing impactful stories about the rapidly changing planet.

bwinkler@bren.ucsb.edu