Mini Episode: Daniela Cortes
The Brightline Podcast: Season 2, Episode 2
In this mini-episode, we highlight the work of Brightline’s very own Climate Data and Policy Analyst, Daniela Cortes. You’ll hear about pursuing a career in environmental justice after college, the ways that environment and health intersect on the ground, and building resilience.
Transcript:
AUBREY: This is The Brightline Podcast from Brightline Defense. We explore environmental justice issues, or EJ issues, in the Bay Area and California, highlighting the work of community-based organizations, including our own. My name’s Aubrey. Today, we have a special kind of episode for you guys. Between some of our long-form episodes, we bring you bonus content featuring the story of a single community organizer. I’m so excited to share my conversation about building a career in
environmental justice with one of Brightline’s very own.
DANIELA: My name is Daniela Cortes and I’m Brightline’s Climate Data and
policy analyst.
AUBREY: Daniela’s path to Brightline began far away from the Bay Area.
DANIELA: When I think back on my journey, I often think that it started in
Switzerland, when I was studying abroad in Geneva. And I spent a lot of time back and forth on the train from class, looking out over the water, and just pondering what it was that I felt passionate about, or felt drawn to, and at the time it ended up being forced migration. So I wrote my thesis on forced migration, climate change, and policy and after that I just, I really wanted to stay in that space, which is how I found Brightline and it kind of started it all for me.
AUBREY: Daniela applied to Brightline’s policy fellowship as a senior in international and legal studies at the University of San Francisco. She arrived right as Brightline was applying to fund our air quality monitoring program.
DANIELA: That just ended up lining up perfectly where Brightline was
approved for the project when I graduated. So Eddie offered me the full time position to take on the Air Quality Project and the Workforce Development Project and I started in January 2020. And of course, COVID, like the original COVID lockdown happened in March 2020.
AUBREY: Under these new circumstances, she quickly learned how to roll with the punches.
DANIELA: So the Air Quality Project, their original deployment ended up being an emergency deployment where we had spent some summer months planning the sites for the sensors and getting community input like through a survey map. But we ended up basically just going out there, Eddie and I, to install these sensors when the first big wildfire for the 2020 season started. You kind of just had to think on your feet. Like I had a to-do list and I would check things off my list, but everyday was a little bit
different.
AUBREY: Working on the ground with Brightline inspired Daniela to explore a new path within the environmental field.
DANIELA: Air Quality Monitoring Project was a perfect example of public
health and environmental health and policy like that whole intersection. I mean, the stakes are kind of high because you’re working with community groups and, you know, people’s health is on the line, especially with air quality. But it was a really good learning experience about how to manage a lot of different relationships with different audiences and different stakeholders. So I was basically working in it before I had really
been trained in it, and I realized that there were technical skills that I needed to do my job better.
AUBREY: Equipped with an on-the-ground understanding of public health, Daniela applied to a graduate program at Columbia University to fill in those technical gaps.
DANIELA: I feel like what I’m gaining right now in graduate school is
coursework in biostatistics and toxicology and statistical software. And by no means do I want to be a toxicologist. But having that knowledge is so beneficial to work with and to weave into a lot of the other side of this work, the more social side of it.
AUBREY: Having witnessed the impacts of climate change and covid-19 on Bay Area communities, Daniela knows that there is a growing need for this kind of training in climate and health.
DANIELA: I think we’re all living through this transformational time, but with that comes certain knowledge and abilities and skills that maybe weren’t emphasized in the traditional environmental health sciences field. So now universities are really starting to focus on graduating people with a more specific and tailored skillset to honestly just communicate what needs to happen and how to organize all of that.
AUBREY: Daniela sees a wide range of job opportunities, from non-profits to academia, to the private sector or government.
DANIELA: Climate and health, like this intersection, gives you a specialized but interdisciplinary skill set to help build resilient communities in response to a variety of environmental challenges or health impacts. And that can either be through policy or or data analysis, communication, marketing, like any sector really I feel like is needed, and should be involved.
AUBREY: Daniela also has some advice for anyone interested in pursuing a similar path.
Daniela: I would just say to be courageous to have a career that doesn’t look like a traditional career. I think the world our parents grew up in is not the world that we are living in and will inherit. So, we need different jobs and careers for that world. It’s important to remind yourself that just because your career path looks different, it doesn’t mean that you’re doing it wrong or falling behind. Just be your own inspiration!
[music]
AUBREY: This episode was written and produced by me, Aubrey Calaway. with additional help from Cecilia Mejia. Original music by Maya Glicksman. Thank you to Eddie Ahn for support on research and writing, and to Daniela Cortes for sharing her story, and her years of work at Brightline. This podcast is funded by the Environmental
Justice Small Grants from the California EPA. For more information about Brightline, you can visit our website at BrightlineDefense.org or on social media @brightlinedefense. You can also find a transcript of this episode on our Medium Blog. And finally, don’t forget to give us a follow and leave a review if you enjoyed the show. We are so excited to continue exploring Bay Area environmental justice issues with you, so please stay tuned for more from us, wherever you get your podcasts. Take care.