Meet the 2026 Climate Action Fellows

The Climate Action Fellowship, launched by Green Umbrella in 2024 and modeled after Indiana University’s Resilience Cohort, helps local governments create and carry out climate action plans The Fellowship pairs students and professionals with Green Umbrella members to develop practical plans and solutions for a changing climate. Communities get training, personalized support, and host a summer fellow who works on projects that deliver real climate progress.

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Dwayne Carter II – City of Cincinnati, Innovation Team

Dwayne Carter II is a recent graduate from the University of Cincinnati with a B.S in Architecture and a minor in Construction Management. His background experience is in the technical side of the built environment and he is interested in community-based spaces and sustainability. 

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Andrew Conover – City of Covington

Andrew Conover is a sustainability-focused student leader with global research experience in community engagement to combat the ecological crisis. He is a proud Cincinnati native, now studying Environmental Policy at Loyola University Chicago. His involvement on campus is broad, serving as an executive member of two sustainability-focused student organizations. Andrew has experience in scientific research on primary microplastics and is eager to further this body of work in collaboration with his faculty mentor. Andrew is proud to be named one of the brightest 25 seniors, as a member of Loyola’s Maroon & Gold Society.

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Sam Gielink – Hamilton County

Sam Gielink is thrilled to be joining the 2026 Climate Action Fellow cohort. He graduated from Xavier University in 2026 with a double major in Economics and Philosophy, Politics, and the Public and a minor in Environmental Studies. Through Xavier, Sam studied abroad in the Netherlands as a Brueggeman Fellow and served as the president of Xavier Singers, a performing arts collective on campus. His previous work in greenspace research with the City of Cincinnati sparked his passion for environmental policy, and he is excited to take the next step in his sustainability career.

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Amanda Kporwofa – Green Umbrella, Green & Healthy Schools

Amanda is a Ph.D. student in Communication at the University of Cincinnati, working on game-based behavior change in low-income communities. She designs scalable behavioral policy tools using culturally adaptive game systems across the Global South. Recently, she developed Ghana’s first sustainability board and mobile games addressing deforestation, illegal mining, and air pollution. Through her work, she conducts research to test the effectiveness of games in increasing knowledge awareness and influencing pro-environmental behaviors.

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Mahnoor Qadir – Anderson Township

Mahnoor recently moved to Cincinnati from Cambridge, UK, where she worked as an environmental and sustainability consultant at Mott MacDonald. Her work focused on stakeholder engagement and environmental policy, and she is particularly interested in advancing climate action at the local level. Having lived in Kenya and Pakistan, she’s seen firsthand the impacts of the climate crisis on frontline communities, which has shaped her goal to support and collaborate with local communities in meaningful ways.

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EllieAna Shanklin – Green Umbrella, Greenspace Alliance

EllieAna graduated from Ohio University last May with a degree in Environmental Studies. She works for the City of Cincinnati’s Office of Environment and Sustainability as a summer fellow. She is excited to get back into the Cincinnati climate space this summer and continue serving the city and its residents. 

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Anna Wabler – Village of Mariemont

Anna is a fourth year at the Ohio State University as an Environmental Policy and Decision Making major. She’s interested in working with people to encourage sustainable behaviors; her senior research project is about how best to engage religious communities in environmental efforts according to their strongly-held values.

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Roseline Yoni – Hamilton County

Roseline is a graduate student in Environmental Engineering at the University of Cincinnati. She holds a master’s degree in Environment and Water Treatment from her home country of Burkina Faso, West Africa, which has enabled her to contribute to impactful projects, including the environmental assessment of a solar power plant implementation in Mali. She cares deeply about environmental science, climate change, and community engagement.