Caitlin Carney

Caitlin Carney, co-owner of Porgy’s Seafood Market in New Orleans, promotes Gulf seafood by reintroducing local fishermen’s bycatch to consumers. She emphasizes education and community engagement, encouraging locals to try lesser-known fish species. Caitlin works with suppliers for wild-caught seafood, aiming to strengthen connections between fishermen and the community while redefining perceptions of “trash fish.” Continue reading Caitlin Carney

Rashida Ferdinand

Executive director, Sankofa Community Development Corporation, Lower Ninth Ward After Rashida Ferdinand earned her master’s degree in ceramics, she considered moving to New York for its energy and professional opportunities. “But I wanted to also be in a warm environment, physically and culturally,” she says. “Being around blue, purple, yellow houses. Being around my family. My grandmother was getting older. So it was a no-brainer.” … Continue reading Rashida Ferdinand

Darrah Fox Bach

Restoration programs senior manager, Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana Darrah Fox Bach cultivated her love for the outdoors in her native San Francisco, where environmentalism flourishes and Saturdays were devoted to hiking. She moved to Louisiana to study at Tulane University, and stayed for an AmeriCorps position with the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana (CRCL). When a job opened up at the non-profit advocacy group, … Continue reading Darrah Fox Bach

Alex Kolker

Coastal scientist, Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium During the Covid-19 lockdown, while others baked sourdough bread, Alex Kolker was studying satellite images of the Mississippi River Delta. As an oceanographer, geologist, and climate scientist, he is interested in how the Louisiana coastline loses land, and also how it builds that land back.  As he examined the images, Alex noticed a channel connecting the Mississippi River to … Continue reading Alex Kolker

Prasanta Subudhi

Professor of plant genetics, Louisiana State University Prasanta Subudhi grew up near India’s Bay of Bengal, in a village surrounded by rice fields. From a young age, the crop fascinated him. He considered careers in medicine and engineering, but rejected them both in favor of rice genetics. Prasanta came to the United States to do research at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. In 2001 he … Continue reading Prasanta Subudhi

Kristian Bailey

Kristian Bailey is a farmer, and he also considers himself a land steward and teacher. At Orais Hand Farm, located across the road from the Mississippi River, he is trying to move away from the idea of human dominion over nature. Instead, he is working in cooperation with it. 

Kristian talks about farming with “tenderness”: recognizing that Southern land carries wounds (his own farm is on a former plantation site) and that part of his job is to help heal those wounds. Continue reading Kristian Bailey

Chief Devon Parfait

Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Chief Devon Parfait spent his early years in Dulac, a bayou community at the edge of Louisiana. He caught fish from the dock, bounced on his neighbor’s trampoline, and went out on his grandfather’s shrimp boat. But Hurricane Rita destroyed his family’s home in 2005, when he was 8, setting off years of displacement. The extended family migrated inland and … Continue reading Chief Devon Parfait