SIP Graduates: Where are they now?

Olivia Tussey – UK Recycling Intern 2020-2021

My journey in the world of sustainability has been a winding one – when I first accepted my spot as an incoming freshman at UK for the fall 2019 semester, I originally planned to major in Biology. However, I had always been passionate about environmental and social issues, and deep down I felt like doing work in those realms seemed like it would be more fulfilling. I changed my major to Environmental and Sustainability Studies before my first fall semester even started, and never looked back! 

I got as involved as I could in the world of sustainability on UK’s campus as fast as I could; I joined the Student Sustainability Council as a freshman, and at the end of freshman year was offered a position as a Waste Reduction Intern with UK Recycling through the Sustainability Internship Program. Here, I got to lean into my interests for reducing waste and educating others on why that is so important. I even wrote several pieces for WholeSum about waste reduction, and co-created the first Waste Reduction Week at UK during spring of 2021, complete with a documentary screening, giveaways, and a free secondhand ‘thrift shop’ on campus. 

(Talking to the local news on the day of the free thrift shop for students during 2021’s Waste Reduction Week)

By my third and final year at UK, I was continuing to do what I love, but now in positions of leadership; I served as the Director of Sustainability for SGA (where I organized a Local Sustainable Business Fair and worked on getting a carbon offset program for UK’s study abroad programs, amongst other initiatives), Director of Outreach for the Student Sustainability Council, and continued working as an UK Recycling intern leading the residence hall EcoReps program. 

Earlier in my college career, I was primarily focused on going into environmental policy after graduation. However, I eventually realized that work in that realm is often done on larger scales (usually at the federal, or even international, level). I decided I felt drawn to doing work at more local levels, where I could get to know a community and offer solutions that may be more impactful (and come together more quickly) than sweeping federal legislation. After some soul-searching during the summer leading into my last year at UK, I stumbled across the field of urban planning, and was immediately intrigued. 

Urban planning is essentially what designs and develops our cities and towns – the way they function, look, feel, and how they support the people within them. I signed up for an Introduction to Urban Planning course with the incredible Dr. Lynn Phillips my final fall semester and immediately felt that this was the direction I wanted to go in. After another class with Dr. Phillips my last semester at UK, I headed to the University of Cincinnati to pursue a Masters in Community Planning— a 2-year program that I completed in April of this year. 

During my time at UC, my passion for sustainability and social issues led me to a more specific area of planning called transportation planning. Unfortunately, this field can have a bad reputation for working with transportation engineering to perpetuate the continuous (and ineffective) widening of highways and usage of government funding for car-dependent infrastructure that younger generations in particular are beginning to despise. However, there are more and more planners and planning organizations focusing on active and alternative transportation, which is what I fell in love with. In this field, the question of how to create an urban fabric that is less dependent on cars, and more accessible for folks via other means of transportation, is incredibly important to me. Last summer I worked as an intern with an organization called Health By Design in Indianapolis, which works to support communities across Indiana as they implement infrastructure and programs to make walking, biking, and transit more accessible.

Since I graduated in April, I recently began working full-time as the new Transit Planner at the Transit Authority of Northern Kentucky (TANK), a position I actually began part-time last winter. TANK focuses on being a resource for folks in Northern Kentucky who rely on using transit to access jobs, errands, appointments, and other tasks in their daily lives. 

(My poster for my final capstone research project on enhancing pedestrian and transit mobility — through the lens of gender-inclusive urban design — in Cincinnati neighborhoods. Read more at the project website here.)

As I said, my journey to (and through) the world of sustainability has been a winding one, but one that I wouldn’t change for the world. Getting involved in sustainability at UK brought me to urban planning, which brought me to Cincinnati, which brought me to the field of transportation planning. I am forever grateful that I decided to change my major right before my freshman year started, or else I very well may have ended up on a completely different path than the one I am on now — the one I am so passionate about. 

If you’re interested in learning more about urban planning/transportation planning, here are some books, podcasts, and other resources to look into!

If you have any questions or want to learn more about urban planning/the masters program Olivia completed feel free to reach out to Otussey@tankbus.org !