2024 Award Recipients
NEW! Sustainable Facilities Dennis K. Elliot
Winner: Penny Sandman
Nominated by Kylee Singh, Penny works in Facilities Capital Planning and Projects as a Project Manager and has been instrumental in supporting new building projects to earn LEED certification. Most recently she served as PM in the early phases of the Kennedy Library renovation where she pushed hard for the building to be renovated with sustainability as a key outcome. Despite major budget constraints the library project once complete is anticipated to be LEED certified gold and will use less energy once complete despite adding air conditioning.
Penny was also innovative in her approach to building demolition waste. She worked closely with the Zero Waste team to put together two free furniture events for the community. At both events most furniture was cleared out within hours of the starting time, allowing furniture to be given a second life rather than ending up in the landfill. Penny is also one of the first project managers on campus to earn LEED Green Associate accreditation and is aiming to earn LEED Associated Professional soon. In a time when Cal Poly is building more capital projects than ever before and at the same time working to become carbon neutral, Penny serves as a huge asset to the Facilities team in helping meet those goals.
Sustainability Organization
Winner: Cal Poly Food Pantry
Since last July, the Cal Poly Food Pantry has rescued over 65,000 pounds of food that would have otherwise gone into landfill. Sources include grocery stores, campus markets, housing (campus move out collection) and their partnership with the San Luis Coastal Unified School District. The Food Pantry also composts any spoiled produce to keep it out of the landfill. These rescues have a huge and direct impact on our campus to help students experiencing food insecurity.
Additionally, the Food Pantry has a sustainability initiative where students are eligible to enter for a monthly drawing when they have used a reusable bag or beverage mug at least 10 times when they shopped/used the Coffee Bar. These programs and partnerships are a win for sustainability and a win for our students!
Staff Sustainability Champion
Winner: Kaitlin Gibbons
Nominated by Americorp VIP Maya Sandhofer, Kaitlin Gibbons serves as the Campus Dining Sustainability Coordinator and Registered Dietician. During her 6 years at Cal Poly Kaitlin has shown a strong dedication to advancing sustainability initiatives on campus. Over the past year, she has collaborated closely with the operators of the local anaerobic digester to introduce compostable containers and utensils to Vista Grande dining hall, a strong step towards waste reduction efforts. With the launch of the new dining facility, 1901 Marketplace, Kaitlin partnered with Reuse Pass, a tech-enabled reusable container company, to implement reusable container options at specific locations within the dining hall.
Going above and beyond, Kaitlin engages with various campus organizations such as Green Campus and the Zero Waste Ambassadors -- supporting their respective initiatives and leveraging their interests to promote sustainable practices within dining. For example, Kaitlin has offered dishwashing services at VG for student groups involved in initiatives like the reusable water bottle rescue program and reusable utensil program. Thank you Kaitlin!
Student Sustainability Champion
Winners: Emma Meyer
City and Regional Planning student, Emma Meyer, nominated by Professor Adrienne Greve for her work as the president of the Cal Poly Urbanists club (CPU) and efforts across the College of Architecture and Environmental Design. Along with other CRP students, Emma helped found CPU in the spring of 2023 to create a new club offering for students interested in urbanism. In just under a year, the club has grown into an impressive team, hosting weekly meetings with 20-40 students from across multiple majors.
Emma is a driving force in each meeting, presenting topics on bike infrastructure, inviting in special guest speakers, and rallying club members to take on real-world projects. Some of these projects have analyzed poorly designed spaces near campus. The club will study the space during a site visit, brainstorm interventions to protect pedestrians and bicyclists, and write up a proposal to send to relevant stakeholders. Emma's ability to rally the club around these impactful projects is truly inspiring as a leader for change-making in the CAED college. Outside of her work with CPU, Emma also holds leadership roles in the student club Associated Students in Planning, with the CRP department DEI committee, and as an RA in University Housing. With so many roles, Emma's dedication to making sustainable transportation changes around campus is even more impressive.
Faculty Sustainability Champion
Winner: Anurag Pande
Nominated by Marlene Cramer, Dr. Anurag Pande, a Professor of Civil Engineering, supports sustainability through his work in the areas of travel demand modeling, pedestrian and bicycle safety, simulation of transportation systems, and climate resilience and adaptation. His first MS thesis student estimated Carbon and NOx emissions due to commuter traffic at Cal Poly using a microsimulation model. As an e-bike commuter, he is now making a personal contribution towards reducing these emissions.
In 2016 Dr. Pande edited the Traffic Engineering Handbook (TEH) 7th Edition, a document widely referenced by practitioners. As Editor, his leadership in steering the Handbook toward a more sustainable multimodal approach from the automobile-centric approach of the first six editions was remarkable given the challenges of shifting established paradigms in the field.
He teaches several courses in multimodal transportation engineering and planning that address Cal Poly’s Sustainability Learning Objectives. He has made roadway safety audits a regular part of his courses to accommodate cyclists and pedestrians on campus roads and elementary schools making active travel safer for Cal Poly and area K-12 students. As Provost’s designee to the Campus PTAC, he provides his technical expertise to help PTAC move forward on sustainability goals. Dr. Pande has also led Cal Poly’s community-based learning program and has worked with close to 50 faculty members in redesigning courses with projects of interest to local non-profits and public agencies. Dr. Pande’s work shows service above and beyond his duties to support campus sustainability and why he is very deserving of this award.