A USDA Multicultural Fellow, Nathaly Agosto Filión completed her Ecological Planning Master's project defense in August 2010. Raised in New York City, Nathaly is a 2005 UVM graduate with a B.S. in Natural Resources (self-designed major in "Outdoor Education") and a B.M. in Vocal Music Performance (mezzo-soprano). As an undergraduate, Nathaly was active in the leadership of Alianza Latina and several diversity and leadership initiatives around campus.
Upon graduation, she worked as school teacher and environmental educator using New York City's parks and green spaces to encourage a love of conservation in Black and brown youth. Realizing that her passion was really for personal behavior change, activism, and civic engagement, she returned to academia and joined UVM's Ecological Planning program in order to work alongside fellow change-makers.
Nathaly's graduate project, entitled "Preparing and Adapting to Climate Change in Rural Dominican Republic: An Assessment of Community Preparedness for Lake Enriquillo Flooding," enabled her to return to her birth country to work at the community-level with various stakeholders on climate change and disaster preparedness. Through this journey, she developed a deep appreciation for community-based adaptation to climate change and is striving to break into that career field in Latin America or the Caribbean.
Nathaly is an avid 350.org volunteer and is passionate about practicing sustainability through environmental and social justice activism, personal behavior change, community organizing and civic engagement. She currently works as a Program Officer on the U.S. Climate and Environment program team at the Institute for Sustainable Communities in Montpelier, Vermont. In her current role, she helps to develop, design and deliver national and regional Sustainable Communities Leadership Academies, including the U.S. program team’s flagship program, the Climate Leadership Academy as well as the Urban Sustainability Leadership Academy and the Gulf Coast Sustainable Economies Leadership Academy.
