Congrats to Hema Velappan on winning the 2024 Husky Sustainability Award!

Hema has a history of creating, executing, and leading sustainability efforts on the UW Seattle campus. She co-founded the Institutional Climate Action (ICA) student group, along with five other students, which has been heavily involved in fossil fuel divestment and decarbonization efforts.

She was instrumental in ICA’s efforts to ask the Board of Regents to approve divestment from fossil fuel companies and was one of the principal authors of the Graduate and Professional Student Senate’s resolution calling for 95% emission reduction by 2035. Further, Hema has also served on nine sustainability-oriented committees and task forces centered on activism, advocacy, lobbying, education, communication, and community building, including the Campus Sustainability Fund committee and the Environmental Stewardship Committee.

Her involvement in the Urban Forestry Symposium committee and her contributions to a recent campus biodiversity monitoring event have also been well-received. Read more about Hema and other recipients of the 2024 Husky Sustainability Award.