• Hello there! My name is Yessenia Balcazar, a life-long resident of the Southeast Side of Chicago and recent graduate of the Master of Urban Planning and Policy Program (M.U.P.P.) from the University of Illinois at Chicago. I am the current Senior Resilient Planning Manager at the Southeast Environmental Task Force and work to promote environmental justice for marginalized communities at the policy level. • I received my Bachelor of Art's degree in Sustainability Studies, (B.A.S.S.), from Roosevelt University in 2018, where I became especially interested in environmental justice issues throughout my studies, and through my own lived experience growing up in the Southeast Side of Chicago, an environmental justice community in the middle of one of the largest industrial corridors in the Midwest. I have spent the last several years working for community organizations in the Southeast Side of Chicago, and began the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Master in Urban Planning Policy Program in Fall of 2019. I believed that doing so would be very instrumental in allowing me to advance my career goals in creating instrumental change for communities like my own with the completion of my master’s degree.