Local Panel
Hindsight 202One in West Lafayette – Sustainability Edition
Panel Topic
Join us to learn about the history of sustainability efforts in West Lafayette, West Lafayette’s efforts to adapt to the many events of 2020 - including the coronavirus pandemic, social injustices, environmental crises - and to think collectively about steps to be more sustainable in 2021 and beyond.
6:00-7:00 PM Local Panelist Discussion
7:00-7:30 PM Interactive Q&A Breakout Rooms with local panelists, moderated by other sustainability leaders
Panelists
A thirty-five-year resident of West Lafayette, Peter Bunder represents West Lafayette’s near campus second district on the West Lafayette City Council. He has served on the West Lafayette City Council since 2008 and has served as President of the council since 2016. In 2008 Peter proposed legislation to create an environmental commission (Go Greener) for the City of West Lafayette. Go Greener was instrumental in crafting the 2018 Climate Action Plan for the city. In 2020 Councilman Bunder sponsored a resolution (#14-20) to create a climate change resilient city of West Lafayette. In 2021 he offered Resolution #2-21 which saw West Lafayette declare a climate emergency. A retired Episcopal priest, Peter is married to Katy O’Malley-Bunder, the Executive Director of Food Finders Food Bank. They are the proud parents of two grown daughters.
Mayor Dennis was born in Japan and moved to West Lafayette with his family as a young child, where he was raised and educated. He graduated from Indiana State University and worked for a period of time in California, where he met his wife Mary. The couple then relocated to Ireland, where they resided for two years, and their daughter Michelle was born. Mayor Dennis, upon his return to West Lafayette, joined the Lafayette Police Department, staying with LPD for 23 years, retiring as Deputy Chief of Police.
Lindsey is the Chair of the West Lafayette Go Greener Commission, the Director of Service-Learning at Purdue University, and teaches a service-learning course in Environmental and Ecological Engineering. Her research sits at the intersection of sustainability, teaching and learning, and engagement focusing on transdisciplinary decision-making in community-based design. She is the recipient of multiple teaching awards, and is the former Chair of the Teaching Academy. She has a B.A in Biological Sciences from DePauw University and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Ecological Sciences and Engineering from Purdue University. She has also worked professionally in the non-profit and secondary education sectors, and currently serves on multiple community-based environmental boards, including the Greater Lafayette Climate Action Plan Leadership Committee.
Annabel Prokopy is a junior in high school. She has been a climate activist for two years now and has worked with West Lafayette Climate Strikes and the Confront the Climate Crisis campaign to achieve tangible local and statewide climate action achievements!Q&A Moderators
As a civically engaged Hoosier and a scholar in environmental science, Iris O’Donnell Bellisario’s pursuit of sharing the effects of climate change with her peers and the community is becoming a reality. As an intern with the Purdue Climate Change Research Center, O’Donnell Bellisario worked with scientists and environmental impact groups throughout Indiana. Her philosophy is to breathe the message of climate change preparedness and response into everything she does. She is a vegan, advocates for animals and animal rights, and strives for daily behavioral changes that can help the planet. O’Donnell Bellisario has also worked on several climate resolution's for the City of West Lafayette. She successfully advocated for the City to conduct a greenhouse gas inventory, and she is advocating for the development of a plan for the community to achieve carbon neutrality by the date decided upon in the resolution, 2038. O’Donnell Bellisario works directly with the mayor of West Lafayette and city council to help West Lafayette become resilient. Recently, she was recognized as a Hoosier Resilience Hero.
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