Claire Brosnihan
Director, Global Field Operations at One Acre Fund, Rwanda
Claire Brosnihan, a 2011 graduate of the University of Notre Dame, is the director of global field operations at One Acre Fund, a nonprofit dedicated to providing over one million smallholder farmers with everything they need to know to grow bigger harvests and earn more money, leading to healthier families and richer soil.
Brosnihan supports One Acre Fund's field operations across nine Eastern and Southern African countries including Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Nigeria, Zambia, and Ethiopia. Over her eight years of field work, Brosnihan has seen the effects of climate change on these smallholder farmers firsthand. One Acre Fund invests in their farmers and their families through agricultural science research, training such as composting and preventing erosion, and crop insurance to ensure they are more equipped to deal with increasingly volatile and devastating weather patterns. One Acre Fund has also distributed over 100 million trees to smallholder farmers as a climate change mitigation strategy.
“Agriculture lies at the intersection of a lot of fault lines that will be important for sustainability in the future. Our farmers already understand that sustainability is key to keeping soil rich, crop yield high, and longevity in their land. We need to understand that those who contribute the least to climate change are being affected the most. We are already seeing those effects on agriculture and the local economy in the countries we are working in.The rains are changing, the floods are worse, the droughts are longer, and our farmers are more uncertain than ever as to when to plant. This increasing uncertainty is worrying. Our farmers do not have the same crop insurance as they do in the US. When a farmer here loses their seed, they’ve lost their biggest investment of the year, maybe everything, and it has a huge effect on their family’s finances. ”
Maria Paula Bertran
Associate Professor at the University of São Paulo, Ribeirao Preto, Law School, Brazil
Maria Paula Bertran is an associate professor at the University of São Paulo Ribeirão Preto Law School (Brazil). She is a former Distinguished Brazilian Fulbright Chair at the Kellogg Institute. After her experience at Notre Dame, she was a visiting associate professor at Stanford Law School. Her research interests focus on banking regulation and its outcomes for households, the increase of inequality and sustainable economic growth. Recently, Maria Paula has published the article “The Amazon Forest Needs You, and Here are Some of the Reasons Why” at the authoritative magazine International Banker.
"For me, sustainability is a new economic and political order. It is likely to impact social life as very few other moments in history did. It is impossible to predict development, plan equality, or bid the price of our future without considering sustainability. The Industrial Revolution once shaped our perceptions about labor, wealthiness, and the environment. The Green Revolution pushes us to reshape ideas and attitudes in a very drastic and equally fast way. I am still a learner in the research agenda of sustainability, but I am sure that this is one of the most important topics to be prepared for."
Sisi Meng
Assistant Teaching Professor, Economics and Technology for Development, University of Notre Dame, South Bend
Sisi Meng was born and raised in Beijing, China, where she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Economics. She moved to the U.S. for her master's study in Economics at the University of Illinois of Urbana Champaign and she ended up doing her Ph.D. in Economics at the Florida International University, where she was able to work as a research assistant at its International Hurricane Research Center. During her doctoral program at FIU, Meng specialized in environmental and natural resources economics and engaged in various projects, including property damages caused by hurricanes, assessing coastal vulnerability, and public risk perceptions towards sea level rise.
After joining Notre Dame in 2018, she met new collaborators through the Keough School of Global Affairs and the environmental change initiative. As a teaching faculty at the Keough school, Meng is fully committed to teaching sustainability, raising climate change awareness among students and providing them with different views and skills in the hope that they will eventually increase the demand for action from our policymakers and become part of the change.
“According to the new IPCC report, we are already at the global climate tipping point - a “code red for humanity.” Humanity and nature are inextricably coupled, so we must see them as one to fix the climate change issues and learn how to respect the limits of natural resources. We need actions, we also need more scientific research and a better understanding of societal impact, so I will continue my research passion in natural hazards, climate change, and sustainability, and hope to improve climate-related decisions and consequently improve social well-being.”
Ailbhe Darcy
Irish poet, a critic, and Senior Lecturer at Cardiff University, Wales
Ailbhe Darcy is a poet, critic and senior lecturer at Cardiff University, where she teaches creative writing, contemporary Irish poetry, and literature. Originally from Dublin, she did her undergraduate degree in English and French at University College Dublin. Darcy came to Notre Dame in 2008 to do a PhD in English with an Irish Studies minor, alongside an MFA in Creative Writing.
After her time at Notre Dame she spent a few years in Germany, teaching at the University of Muenster, before taking up a permanent position at Cardiff University teaching creative writing and English literature. Darcy teaches a course called Activist Poetry: Protest, Dissent, Resistance, which explores how poets have engaged with activism through their work.
Sofía del Valle
Engagement Manager, World Benchmarking Alliance, Netherlands
Sofía del Valle works as Engagement Manager at the World Benchmarking Alliance, a global non-profit that assesses the world’s most influential companies on how they contribute (or hinder) progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement. In her role, she manages partnerships, outreach and strategic stakeholder engagement for WBA's corporate benchmarks on issues such as human rights, gender, living wages and just transition. Her work is driven by the strong conviction that people must be at the heart of the transition towards a more sustainable future.
Originally from Santiago de Chile, del Valle was part of the inaugural MGA class of 2019 at the Keough School of Global Affairs, as part of the Sustainable Development track. After graduation, she was awarded the first Raymond C. Offenheiser Fellowship for Active Citizenship to fund her work with Oxfam that focused on corporate accountability on gender, land and climate issues. She is currently based in Haarlem, the Netherlands.
"Sustainability is a way of understanding the world, recognizing the role each one of us plays in it as a part of an interconnected and complex web of societies, economies, and ecosystems. I think it is a beautiful image to think we are not just part of this web, we are actually being held by it. At the same time, that comes with a duty of care towards our planet and its people. I like working on sustainability because it keeps me grounded and connected to these truths in my personal life; and also because it enables me to support, as well as hold accountable, some of the most influential actors that can change that web for better or for worse."
Produced by Notre Dame International
Writers: Margaret Arriola (Dublin), Joanna Byrne (London), Costanza Montanari (Rome), Colleen Wilcox (South Bend)
Contributors: Eimear Clowry (Dublin), Thais Pires (São Paulo), Esteban Montes (Santiago)
Creative: Matt Esau (South Bend)