Please join us for our monthly meeting on Thursday, December 1st at 7pm at Sandy Creek Nature Center. The meeting will feature a talk by Taylor Maddalene of the UGA Circularity Informatics Lab. Please see details below.
(Photos by: Taylor Maddalene)
During her talk, Taylor will introduce the challenges and opportunities surrounding plastic pollution and the circular economy from around the world. Through her work at the Circularity Informatics Lab at UGA (circularityinformatics.org), Taylor and her team have studied waste management, plastic pollution, and related topics in nearly 40 cities in 10 countries. She has been affiliated with researchers and projects that have quantified plastic pollution at the top of the world, the bottom of the ocean, and everywhere in between. In this presentation, Taylor will also bring the topic home and will share research that has been conducted here in Georgia, opportunities for locals to get involved, and potential solutions to reduce plastic pollution in our own backyard.
Taylor Maddalene is a PhD Student in the Jambeck Research Group in the College of Engineering at the University of Georgia (UGA). She also serves as the Director of the Circularity Assessment Protocol at the Circularity Informatics Lab at UGA. Taylor received her Bachelors in Environmental Science from the University of Virginia and her Masters in Marine Biodiversity and Conservation from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. Her background is in marine ecology, conservation, and science communication, working on projects around the globe with organizations such as National Geographic, NOAA, and Rare. Before starting her PhD, she served as the Director of the Plastics Initiative at National Geographic and organized their largest female-led expedition on the Ganges River to study plastic pollution. Her current research focuses on the impacts of plastic pollution on coastal ecosystem health and tying human behavior and waste management infrastructure on land with that we find in the ocean.