Kennedy Brown didn’t find environmental science through a weather map or a lab report. She found it through people.

While she was in trade school for emergency medical services in high school, Kennedy began noticing a pattern during her required contacts. Many of the people she encountered were dealing with respiratory illnesses connected to the environment where they lived. That experience stayed with her. When she came to PennWest’s Clarion campus, she chose Environmental Geosciences with a concentration in Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences and a minor in Black Studies because she wanted, as she put it, to understand “the how and the why” behind those issues.

At PennWest, that curiosity grew into something bigger. Kennedy became involved in environmental justice work after receiving the K. Leroy Irvis Scholarship and connecting with a professor who recognized her interest in the topic. That opened the door to debates with other PASSHE schools and broader conversations about how environmental harm is experienced differently across communities. Through that work, she studied demographic patterns, access to clean water, air quality and the long-term effects of environmental inequities.

What motivates her is both simple and powerful. “Everyone deserves to have, when you think about it, the bare minimum. Clean water is just what everyone wants,” she said. For Kennedy, environmental justice is not abstract. It is about what people live with every day, whether that means unsafe water, poor air quality or the ways climate change can intensify those challenges over time.

That purpose also shapes where she wants to go next. Kennedy recently earned a summer internship in New Jersey focused on native ecosystems, and she has developed a growing interest in wetlands and coastal research. She hopes to continue into graduate school and explore how environmental justice connects with climate, habitat loss and changing ecosystems.

Her journey reflects curiosity turned into action. At PennWest, Kennedy found room to ask deeper questions, connect science with human experience, and build the kind of path that keeps both people and place in view.