Gallagher

Brittany Gallagher, 28, of Lake Geneva, WI, has served both in AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a degree in communication and film, she is currently attending Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, pursuing a master's degree in environmental studies. Her focus is empowering communities to use their collective power to improve the lives and health of their people and their natural environment. While an undergraduate, Brittany co-led two "alternative break" trips focused on environmental justice and education. After graduation, she joined AmeriCorps, leading service trips for at-risk teenagers. In 2006, she began work with the Institute for Children's Environmental Health. In 2007, Brittany joined the Peace Corps and spent two years in a poor village in Niger as a natural resource management volunteer. There she helped spearhead the development of a plantation to grow a variety of tree with nutrient-laden leaves and built awareness about the tree's benefits for improving nutrition. After the Peace Corps, she spent a year in Fiji, for service and postgraduate research on the connection between environmental and social problems in the Pacific.