ISS Schedule
Thursday, March 19, 2026 - Main Day ISS Events
8:00 a.m.
Registration and Breakfast
Mezzanine and Ballrooms
8:30 a.m.
Welcome and Keynote
Ballrooms
10:00 a.m.
Eco Expo, Student Poster Contest and Art Displays
Mezzanine and Ballrooms
10:30 a.m.
Sessions
Sustaining Your Work, Sustaining Yourself: Tools for Personal and Professional Resilience
Room 404
Presented by: Kerry Case
Session DescriptionSustaining Your Work, Sustaining Yourself: Tools for Personal and Professional Resilience | Room 404
This session offers actionable strategies to help sustainability professionals boost their ability to adapt and thrive in a constantly shifting landscape. Attendees will gain tools for identifying their individual resilience strengths and areas for growth, participate in an interactive skill-building activity, and discover resources for additional learning.
Session To Be Announced (TBA)
Room 321
Presented by: TBA
A Toolkit for Equitable Design
Room 320
Presented by: Megan Repka and Erica McBride
Session DescriptionA Toolkit for Equitable Design | Room 320
Architectural Nexus created an open-source, web-based Equity Toolkit designed to empower community engagement for any design project. Equitable design is a key to sustainable design. Join the Arch Nexus team that created this toolkit, which includes a blend of elements from the LBC Equity Petal, LEED, the AIA Framework for Equitable Communities, and SEED certification criteria.
Dark Sky Lighting: From Well-being to Being Future Ready
Room 316
Presented by: Dane Sanders, Vellachi Ganesan, Jeffrey Coons, and Elizabeth Jackson
Session DescriptionDark Sky Lighting: Dark Sky Lighting: From Well-being to Being Future Ready | Room 316
Preserving the night sky supports health, resilience, and sustainability. This session explores dark-sky–friendly lighting through Utah-based case studies, showing how thoughtful design improves safety, protects ecosystems, saves energy, and strengthens community character. Attendees will gain practical tools for applying dark-sky principles from individual fixtures to citywide policy.
Building Resilience Through Connection: A Student Sustainability Networking Session
Room 305
Presented by: R. Giselle Bandley and Kate Stephens
Session DescriptionBuilding Resilience Through Connection: A Student Sustainability Networking Session | Room 305
Join student sustainability leaders from colleges and universities across the state for a guided networking session including topic-based discussions on common program areas including Earth Week, move-out collections, campus gardens, and more. Participants will share experiences and best practices, build connections across institutions, and explore new strategies for collaborative sustainability work.
11:30 a.m.
Sessions
Engaging Faith Communities for Environmental Solutions: A Great Salt Lake Case Study
Room 404
Presented by: Darren Parry, Reverend Scott Wipperman, Rabbi Samuel Spector, and Phillip Fernberg
Session DescriptionEngaging Faith Communities for Environmental Solutions: A Great Salt Lake Case Study | Room 404
Faith communities are an influential, yet often overlooked, source of grassroots involvement in local environmental issues. In this discussion, panelists from four different Utah religious groups will examine tenets of their faith and actions their respective organizations have taken towards restoring the Great Salt Lake.
Utah Renewable Communities: Bringing Clean Energy Options to Utah’s Cities, Towns, and Counties
Room 321
Presented by: Glade Sowards, Dan Dugan, Drew Quinn, and Roger Armstrong
Session DescriptionUtah Renewable Communities: Bringing Clean Energy Options to Utah’s Cities, Towns, and Counties | Room 321
Utah Renewable Communities is a coalition of 19 cities and counties pioneering a new option for clean energy for homes and businesses in Utah. Join us to hear from a panel of member community representatives and learn more about our initiative and the future of clean energy development in Utah.
Building Resiliency in Intermountain West Communities Facing Increasing Wildfire Risk
Room 320
Presented by: Seth Arens
Session DescriptionBuilding Resiliency in Intermountain West Communities Facing Increasing Wildfire Risk | Room 320
As the intensity, severity and extent of wildfire increases, communities must become more resilient to wildfire risk. Changing climate conditions are increasing wildfire hazard and expansion of communities into the wildland urban interface is increasing vulnerability to wildfire. This talk will explore the causes of increasing wildfire hazard and vulnerability and how communities in the Intermountain West are responding to changing wildfire conditions.
Efficient and Emission-free Homes: The Only Truly Affordable Housing!
Room 316
Presented by: Kevin Emerson, Alyson Bergomi, and Don Worthington
Session DescriptionEfficient and Emission-free Homes: The Only Truly Affordable Housing! | Room 316
The built environment drives climate change and the cost-of-living crisis. Three Utah homes built in 2024 prove that emission-free housing is affordable and scalable. Learn about how advanced construction is highly economical and how mortgage innovation unlocks “hidden buying power,” reducing pollution and utility bills while building resilient communities.
Powerful Statements for Freedom, Justice, Equality, and Health in Environmental Earned Media
Room 305
Presented by: Olivia Juarez
12:30 p.m.
Networking Lunch and ISS Awards
Ballrooms
1:20 p.m.
Eco Expo, Student Poster Contest and Art Displays
Mezzanine and Ballrooms
1:45 p.m.
Sessions
Load Shifting, Grid Services, and Backup Power: The Weber State Microgrid
Room 404
Presented by: Justin Owen and Jacob Cain
Session DescriptionLoad Shifting, Grid Services, and Backup Power: The Weber State Microgrid | 404
WSU's recently completed 10 megawatt-hour battery provides many opportunities for energy savings, operational efficiencies, and resilience. This session will provide an overview of the financing, operations, and real life data of the system.
Retrofitting Utah: Opportunities and Challenges for Energy Efficiency Upgrades in Utah's Housing Stock
Room 321
Presented by: Bethany Kanten, Caitlin McLennan, Piper Christian, and Max Becker
Session DescriptionRetrofitting Utah: Opportunities and Challenges for Energy Efficiency Upgrades in Utah's Housing Stock | Room 321
Utah’s housing market is ripe for impact through energy efficiency retrofits. This session spotlights weatherization, HVAC, insulation, and heat pumps—alongside utility and federal programs—while tackling barriers like workforce gaps and financing. Panelists share strategies to scale equitable retrofits, cut emissions, and boost health and resilience statewide.
Farming that Relaunches Lives and Builds Community
Room 320
Presented by: Karl Ebeling and Rachael Dixon
Session DescriptionFarming that Relaunches Lives and Builds Community | Room 320
Eden Streets demonstrates how community-based farming builds resilience by growing food, skills, and connection. Through Grow Ogden’s urban farm job-training model, individuals regain stability while volunteers reconnect to land and each other. Learn how partnerships in recovery are turning urban agriculture into a practical pathway to stronger, more hopeful futures.
Closing the Loop: Using Feedback Systems to Cut Food Waste and Feed Communities in Utah
Room 316
Presented by: Isaac Vialpando and Kathryn Buntain
Session DescriptionClosing the Loop: Using Feedback Systems to Cut Food Waste and Feed Communities in Utah | Room 316
This session frames food waste as a systems design problem and explores how informational feedback reduces overproduction while physical “FEEDback” loops redirect surplus food to communities. Together, these approaches cut waste, reduce climate impacts, and build resilient, circular food systems.
2:50 p.m.
Student Poster Contest Winners and Afternoon Keynote Panel
Ballrooms
4:15 p.m.
Sessions
Rapid Resilience: A Prevention Science Approach to Quick Climate Resilience
Room 404
Presented by: Caroline Moreno, Mamta Chaudhari, and Emily Paskett
Session DescriptionRapid Resilience: A Prevention Science Approach to Quick Climate Resilience | Room 405
The Salt Lake County Health Department implemented a streamlined, "quick and dirty" climate resilience planning process. By adapting substance use prevention frameworks, the cross-divisional team managed political, funding, and capacity challenges to build momentum around resiliency. This presentation details their agile approach to starting critical climate conversations.
Can Utah Buy Enough Water to Save Great Salt Lake, or Will Policy Solutions Be Required?
Room 321
Presented by: Amy Wicks, Alta Fairbourne, and Zachary Frankel
Session DescriptionCan Utah Buy Enough Water to Save Great Salt Lake, or Will Policy Solutions Be Required? | Room 321
Utah’s leaders made promises to restore the Great Salt Lake to a healthy level by 2034. Without solid policy solutions to bring water to the lake, the only option to avoid a future with communities impacted by toxic dust is through dedicated water rights. Is this an economically viable future?
Session TBA
Room 320
Presented by: TBA
Cost-Effective Urban Heat Measurements: A College-Town Collaboration
Room 316
Presented by: Dan Bedford and Lorenzo Long
Session DescriptionCost-Effective Urban Heat Measurements: A College-Town Collaboration | Room 316
This session examines the use of low-cost instruments to measure and map exposure to extreme heat across Ogden, Utah. We’ll look at strengths and weaknesses of the sensors (and how we overcame the weaknesses), and how the University-City collaboration is informing planning and climate resilience efforts. Audience participation encouraged!
Friday, March 20, 2026 - ISS Workshops
8:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Cutting Energy Waste: Strategies and Tools for Industrial Systems - 1st Session/Instruction
Presented by: Blake Billings, Christopher Price, and An Ho
This session can be taken as a stand alone workshop, but is a prerequisite for the 2nd session/tour.
Cutting Energy Waste: Strategies and Tools for Industrial Systems - 1st Session/Instruction
This 2-part workshop offers a dynamic blend of classroom learning and hands-on experience. In the first session, participants will engage in interactive training on energy efficiency strategies for large industrial energy users. Topics will include energy savings calculations, measurement tools, utility bills, and key industrial systems such as compressed air, process heating, motors, and steam. The workshop will focus on giving training and tools for energy and utility savings.
Who Should Attend: Facility managers, engineers, Association of Energy Engineers (AEE) members, manufacturing/industrial facility managers.
The ‘How To’ of Resilience Hubs
Presented by: Baja and Debbie Lyons
Workshop DescriptionThe ‘How To’ of Resilience Hubs
This workshop is an interactive training that supports participants in different phases of Resilience Hub development including planning, design, assessment, partnership development, and taking action. This workshop builds off the information learned in the keynote session and shifts into a hands-on series of activities that guide participants through every phase of the Resilience Hub development process. The workshop will provide participants with action-based next steps for supporting or managing a Resilience Hub or network of Resilience Hubs.
Who Should Attend: Individuals interested in proactive resilience-building and neighborhood-scale action, community leaders, youth organizers, community planners, local government staff, emergency management and public health professionals, nonprofit practitioners, facilitators, and their aligned partners.
1:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Cutting Energy Waste: Strategies and Tools for Industrial Systems - 2nd Session/Tour
Presented by: Blake Billings, Christopher Price, and An Ho
Prerequisite: 1st Session/Instruction - Cutting Energy Waste: Strategies and Tools for Industrial Systems
Cutting Energy Waste: Strategies and Tools for Industrial Systems - 2nd Session/Tour
In the second session of the 2-part Cutting Energy Waste workshop, participants will tour Autoliv, an award-winning industrial facility. The visit will showcase real-world energy efficiency practices, facility and corporate strategies, and provide opportunities to explore large energy-consuming equipment up close. Attendees will also gain practical experience using free and publicly available measurement tools and savings calculators to assess energy use directly within the facility.
Who Should Attend: Facility managers, engineers, Association of Energy Engineers (AEE) members, manufacturing/industrial facility managers.
Building On a Resilient Foundation: Completing LEED v5 Resilience Assessments With What You Already Have
Presented by: Emma Kratz-Bailey, Whitney Ward, and Mallory Platt
Workshop DescriptionBuilding On a Resilient Foundation: Completing LEED v5 Resilience Assessments With What You Already Have
This workshop will take participants through the LEED v5 Climate Resilience, Human Impact, and Carbon Assessment prerequisites. Join representatives from VCBO Architecture to look at the prerequisite requirements and what you are already doing to be resilient, with highlights from Weber State University icons such as the Noorda Engineering Building.
Who Should Attend: Facility managers, engineers, architects, design and construction professionals, property managers and property owners, urban planners, government officials, sustainability consultants/LEED enthusiasts, and educators and students seeking to incorporate green building into their education program.