Rochelle Daniels is a junior Environmental Engineering major with a minor in Environmental Policy. This semester, she is off to Denmark for study abroad, and we are so excited to hear about her experience. Here at Clarkson’s Potsdam campus, she’s the president of the Women’s Club Basketball club, is a Tau Beta Pi (Engineering Honor Society) member, and in her free time loves to hike, read, listen to music, and hammock. In the sustainability realm, she’s led and participated in a lot of amazing initiatives!
During the Fall 2023 semester, Daniels participated in the Adirondack Semester and worked as part of a team on the LEED for Communities Recertification Project for the New York Olympic Region (NYOR). NYOR includes the Town of North Elba, the Village of Lake Placid, Lake Placid Central School District, and the Olympic Regional Development Authority. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) for Communities “is a sustainable holistic planning system that rates the consumption habits of an entire community,” shared Daniels. Some categories included in the system are water usage, energy and greenhouse gas emissions, waste, and transportation habits. The natural character of the land and overall quality of life of people living in the region are also taken into account.
Daniels and the other students participating in the Fall 2023 ADK Semester completed “detailed technical write-ups for credits that fall into the different categories of the system. The credits have point values associated with them and a rating system for the total number of points a community earns,” wrote Daniels. In the Spring 2024 and Fall 2024 semesters, Daniels and Clarkson student Maria Suffredini continued working on the project and won Clarkson’s Research and Project Showcase in Spring 2024.
The project was submitted to the US Green Building Council in October 2024. The project is in review, with updated certification for the community hopefully in early 2025. Daniels is now working on conducting interviews with NYOR stakeholders and writing her Honors Capstone paper about student experiences and impacts from participating in this project. Her paper will then act as a guide for other communities seeking LEED certification, particularly those that wish to collaborate with students.
Beyond this amazing work, Daniels also helped revive the New York Water Environment Association (NYWEA) & American Water Works Association (AWWA) chapter here at Clarkson. Through this student chapter, members have access to scholarships, networking opportunities, professional experiences, and can gain exposure to water and wastewater technologies. During the Fall 2024 semester, the Clarkson chapter took a tour of the Potsdam and Lake Ontario wastewater treatment plants, hosted a trivia night, and hosted a speaker from DN Tanks, a company that makes concrete storage tanks for the water and wastewater industries.
This February, students will be attending the NYWEA conference in New York City. The chapter is always looking for new students to join and get involved! You can follow them on Instagram @cu_nywea. Stay tuned for more events this semester!
See this full article with photos on the ISE LinkedIn page, https://www.linkedin.com/in/institute-for-a-sustainable-environment-clarkson-university-a7258b329/.
The Institute for a Sustainable Environment is working to feature sustainability initiatives, like Rochelle’s efforts, taking place on campus. At Clarkson, we are committed to including sustainability in everything we do. If you have a project, story, or other sustainability work you’d like to share, please email Evelyn (laferrep@clarkson.edu).