Dika Kuoh
DEL Graduate ’13
Air Program Manager – Corp. Environmental Compliance, Delta Air Lines
Tell us about your current role:
I am part of the corporate environmental compliance team at Delta Air Lines. Within the team, I manage air quality compliance programs. My role is to ensure that our current and future operations remain in compliance with local, state, and federal environmental regulations.
The work ranges from acquiring permits, to certifying compliance, to quantifying air emissions from our various activities.
What motivates you to come to work each day?
The complexity of the work we do and the unique culture at Delta is what motivates me to come to work each day.
Tell us about a moment in black history that influenced or shaped your career/life.
The historic election of President Obama erased any remaining doubt in my mind about what is possible in this country.
What is your favorite mantra?
“Live life with purpose. Do work that helps other people.”
Thank you Dika for sharing your story and values with us!
Cameron Oglesby
Master of Public Policy Candidate | Environmental & Energy Policy, Corporate Sustainability, and Environmental Justice ’23
Tell us about your current role:
As a grad student, I work as project coordinator for The Environmental Justice Oral History Project, a developing storytelling hub out of the Duke Human Rights Center that works to elevate the personal, place-based narratives of communities impacted by environmental injustices across the South through oral history collection, journalistic partnerships, summer research, regional partnerships, student education, and podcasting. I’ve also continued organizing and advocating for EJ on campus as graduate coordinator for the Environmental Justice Campus Committee, as a Duke representative for the Warren County Environmental Action Team, and through the development of several events including Earth Month 2023 programs (coming soon) and a series of September 2022 community events celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Environmental Justice Movement.
Outside of Duke, I’m currently reporting for Yale Climate Connections, developing a series on extreme weather impacts on disinvested communities in the U.S. South. I’m also independently developing an interactive article on the Sampson County landfill with the Environmental Justice Community Action Network and serving as Associate Editor for Earth in Color – a creative studio created to affirm the inherent connections between Black folks and nature. In the last couple years, my writing and audio work have been featured in publications like The Nation, The Margin, Grist, Southerly & Scalawag, and Environmental Health News.
Excitedly, I was recently named a finalist for the Southern Environmental Law Center’s 2023 Reed Environmental Writing Award and received the Society of Environmental Journalist’s 2022 first place Outstanding Student Reporting award for my writing and community engagement work in NC hog country. I’m continuing to build community and knowledge as a People’s Climate Innovation Center Young Climate Leader of Color fellow, an Uproot Project Environmental Justice Reporting Fellow, an Op-Ed Project/Yale Public Voices Fellow on the Climate Crisis, and a Memorial Foundation Social Justice Fellow.
What motivates you to come to work each day?
I’m motivated by my family, my community, and my passion for the planet and its people. I firmly believe we stand on the shoulders of those revolutionaries and ancestors who paved the path before us. And that we draw strength from the disrupters and peacemakers we find community with. I do this work to make my family proud. I do it to pay tribute to the labor and love and sacrifice or those before me and those beside me. And I do it because of personal spiritual and cultural resonances to land, place, and planet Earth. I do what I do because it is necessary, and I am motivated by a deeper call to action.
Tell us about a moment in Black history that influenced or shaped your career/life.
I don’t think it’s possible to reduce my inspiration to any single moment or individual. Whether the 1982 Warren County PCB protests that launched the EJ movement or the 2022 announcement of a new EPA Department of Environmental Justice; whether the resilience of the Piney Woods Free Union community in Jamesville 300 years ago, my own family farm in Maryland almost 100 years ago, or communities reclaiming land here and now; each of the moments listed represents Black history blooming and influencing in real-time. These are just a handful of the immersive interactions – big and small, old and recent – that continue to shape my theory of change.
What is your favorite mantra?
“Oglesby’s never quit”- courtesy of my dad.
Thank you Cameron for sharing your story and values with us!