About Us
The Environmental Film Festival at Yale (EFFY) has become the premier student-run festival for environmental films. The 5th annual EFFY showcases the arts through incisive, cutting edge films that raise awareness of environmental and related social issues. We aim to facilitate meaningful discourse and spark action and innovation throughout the Yale community and beyond.
All films and events are free and open to the public.
The EFFY Team
Kendall Barbery
Co-Director. Kendall Barbery is a second-year Master's of Environmental Science graduate student at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.
Lauren Graham
Co-Director. Lauren is a second-year Master of Environmental Management student at Yale F&ES. She is interested in the intersection of water, energy and agriculture, and is focusing on water policy and environmental conflict resolution. Before arriving at Yale, Lauren worked as a green building consultant, mediator, and researcher on the impacts of natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale in her native New York. She is a graduate of Stanford University, receiving a BA in International Relations and a MA in Sociology.
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Richard Miron
Director of Programming. Richard recently graduated from Yale with a B.A. in Art, with a focus on documentary film, animation, and environmental studies. He has worked professionally on numerous documentaries, including projects with Marshall Curry, Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman, and Mark Becker. He has also worked in the documentary programming department of the Tribeca Film Institute. Richard has been involved with EFFY since its inaugural year in 2009, and is committed to making EFFY 2013 the best EFFY yet.
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Kathryn Wright
Director of Finance. Kathryn is a second-year Master of Environmental Management candidate at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. She proudly hails from sunny Atlanta, Georgia. Kathryn completed her undergraduate work at the University of Pittsburgh where she earned a BSBA in Marketing and a BA in Environmental Studies. Outside of school, she is an active dancer and violinist, and is thrilled at the opportunity to combine her background in marketing with her love for the arts and the environment.
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Phil Santiago
Phil is a second-year Master's student from New Jersey. He spent the past decade in Boston studying biology at Harvard, researching cancer in a lab at MIT and making a brief foray into the music industry. At F&ES, Phil is interested in responses to climate change. He has a total man-crush on David Attenborough.
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Paul Thomson
Advisor. Paul’s interests lie in wildlife conservation and working to popularize conservation through media. He is a Master of Environmental Science student at Yale and a director of the Ewaso Lion Project, a lion research and conservation project in northern Kenya. Paul holds a BSc in Wildlife Ecology and Management from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Paul currently serves as an advisor to the Kinship Conservation Fellows program. In 2007, Paul was selected for the Emerging Wildlife Conservation Leaders program by U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and Defenders of Wildlife.
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Emily Schosid
Advisor. Emily hails from Boulder, Colorado, where she got her B.A. in Environmental Policy. She is an alum of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, and has focused her research on the ways the arts can be used as a tool for environmental education and communication. She likes to spend the time in between classwork and watching environmental movies with writing poetry, reading excellent fiction, riding her bike, and practicing yoga.
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Tse Yang Lim
Tse Yang Lin is a Master of Environmental Management student at Yale F&ES. He has an obsession with large-scale interactions and linkages, particularly between environment and development and between science and policy. He has previously worked at the Marine Conservation Institute in Washington, DC; the Center for Governance and Sustainability in Boston; and the Permanent Mission of Afghanistan to the United Nations. Tse Yang hails from Singapore, and graduated from Yale with a B.S. in Biology.
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Adedana Ashebir
Adedana (Addy) is a second year Masters of Environmental Management student at Yale F&ES. She is proud that EFFY plays a role in sharing stories not often told with the New Haven community. Prior to her Masters, Adedana spent a year in Beijing writing for a magazine and studying Mandarin. She later worked at a newspaper in Addis Ababa and as a teacher in Seoul. When she’s not in class, you can find her at a concert, not in the United States, or at a milonga dancing tango.
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Elizabeth Babalola
Elizabeth is a first year Masters of environmental management student at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Elizabeth is passionate about environmental education, and youth involvement in environmental issues ranging from tropical reforestation to municipal waste management. Before coming to Yale, she was involved in mangrove reclamation in Nigeria where she also worked with high school boys as a peer educator. Her favorite hobbies include salsa, swimming (which she hardly ever gets to do) and watching movies
Hank Seltzer
Hank Seltzer is a second-year Master of Environmental management student at Yale F&ES. Hank spent the past decade in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he worked on renewable energy projects and walked to late night showings at the Vinegar Hill Theater.
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Samantha Ostrowski
Samantha Ostrowski is a second year Master’s of Environmental Science student at Yale F&ES. Her research focuses on the social impacts and land use decisions of unconventional shale drilling in the Pennsylvania.
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Lin Shi
Lin Shi is a first-year Master of Environmental Management student at Yale F&ES. Grew up in Chengdu, China, she has developed strong love for tea, spicy food, and mountains. She completed her undergraduate degree in Environmental Studies and Mathematics at Knox College. At F&ES, she is focusing on studying the nexus of energy and the environment.
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Rebeka Ryvola
Rebeka is a Master of Environmental Management student at Yale F&ES. She is interested in many things, focusing for the moment on climate change disaster preparedness and climate justice. She loves stories, being outside, and using crayons.
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Taylor Rees
Taylor is a first year Master's Student at Yale F&ES. Throughout her climate change studies in Greenland, the desert Southwest, and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, she has developed a passion for story telling and film. Her love for rock climbing and mountains has strengthened her pursuit of sustainable solutions for climate change adaptation. She also loves bugs.
Gina Blankenship
Gina is a first year Masters student at Yale F&ES. She thinks the world would be a better place if we all spent more time outside.
Lexi Tuddenham
Lexi is a first year Master's student who is interested in writing, environmental justice, the ways in which communities manage and steward their resources, and anything outdoors. During three years spent living in China and Nepal, she worked in sustainable community development and developed a deep love for dumplings of all sorts. Originally from California, she lived in Southwestern Colorado for four years, where she played and taught outside a lot, and was involved with the Telluride Mountainfilm Festival. She thinks trees and rocks are not only for hugging, but also for climbing and occasionally swinging.
Jeffrey Chang
Jeffrey is a 2nd year MBA student at the Yale School of Management and leader of the school's Media & Entertainment Club. A born and bred New Jerseyan, he graduated from the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor with a dual degrees in Economics and Asian studies, then moved to Taiwan for six years before finding greater purpose in media, technology and taking pictures of food.
Omar Malik
Omar is a second-year master’s student at the Yale School of Forestry, where he studies global environmental governance. He also pursues environmental media production. He thinks EFFY is a great way to engage the public with modern issues of science and policy.
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The EFFY Team
- Kendall Barbery (Co-Director)
- Lauren Graham (Co-Director)
- Richard Miron (Director of Programming)
- Kathryn Wright (Director of Finance)
- Phil Santiago
- Paul Thomson
- Emily Schosid
- Tse Yang Lim
- Adedana Ashebir
- Elizabeth Babalola
- Hank Seltzer
- Samantha Ostrowski
- Lin Shi
- Rebeka Ryvola
Advisory Board
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Eric Desatnik, - Founder
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Tamar Cooper, - Co-Founder
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Chandra Simon, - Senior Advisor, Former Executive Director
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Mary Fischer, - Advisor
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Gordon Geballe, - Associate Dean of Alumni and External Affairs, Lecturer in Urban Ecology, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies