Rachel Spellenberg
Pronouns: she/her
Bio
Rachel Spellenberg graduated summa cum laude from California State University of Monterey Bay in 2016 with a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science, Technology and Policy. Rachel worked at a local grocery store in high school and was struck by the amount of organic and material waste created there. She recognized this issue was not isolated to this one store; it was systemic. During her undergraduate studies, she pursued her interests in waste reduction and natural resource management. She led a campus sustainability group implementing food and packaging waste reduction strategies and was a research assistant at the NASA Ames Cooperative working to reduce farmers' water usage in the Central and Salinas Valleys. After graduating, she managed the restoration of rare maritime chaparral habitat at former Fort Ord, an EPA Superfund Site. Now on the other side, Rachel believes in a more proactive approach. She is motivated to solve environmental problems by avoiding impacts through supply chain intervention strategies rather than responding to impacts that have already occurred. Rachel will specialize in Corporate Environmental Management at the Bren School to implement responsible product sourcing and pollution prevention throughout industrial supply chains.