A Portland State graduate student whose work focuses on the inequities in urban tree canopies and urban heat in Portland has been awarded the prestigious Bullitt Environmental Prize for 2022.
Axcelle Campana is a master's student in geography who entered the Earth, Environment and Society doctoral program this fall. They work in associate professor Jola Ajibade's Political Ecology and Resilience Lab and serve as the program coordinator for the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP)-Institute for Sustainable Solutions Climate Resilience Internship Program.
The prize, which comes with a $100,000 grant for continued research, is awarded to individuals who have overcome adversity and demonstrated the ability to become powerful environmental leaders.
For Campana, who grew up queer in a turbulent household in the South, nature became a place of solace and inspiration. They are passionate about ensuring that future generations can flourish through a connective and reciprocal relationship with the natural world.
They are currently working with a team of researchers trying to understand the processes that are driving contemporary inequities in urban tree canopy and urban heat.
"What is unique about this project is that it is looking at the urban landscape as a whole and how humans and trees interact within it," they said. "In my research, I am interested in understanding and interrupting underlying processes that perpetuate environmental inequality and ecological degradation through community-driven research and action."
The Bullitt funding will help them advance a participatory, community-based research project focused on how low-income communities of color living in the historically underserved east Portland are mobilizing to improve environmental health, steward urban tree canopy, and mitigate urban heat.
"Axcelle has distinguished themselves as a creative thinker, a selfless organizer, and an inspiring team member of the Smart Tree Collaboratory," Ajibade said. "Their sense of humility and eagerness to learn from others while also sharing their knowledge is infectious. Axcelle’s work in the tree-equity space is timely and crucial and will inspire the next generation of BIPOC scholars."
Denis Hayes, CEO Of the Seattle-based Bullitt Foundation said Campana's work on ways that race, income and education predict the distribution of tree canopy in cities across the U.S. especially impressed the judges.
"Axcelle is a healer, born to bring people together to tackle long-standing injustices," he said.