Closing the Loop: Kaitlin Reese’s Path to Circular Economy Leadership

By Rowen Carrick, Alumnus of the Sustainability Management Program, School of Professional Studies

When passion meets purpose, research becomes action. Kaitlin Reese (’25SPS, Sustainability Management) began her journey in sustainability as an Environmental Studies major at Haverford College. After graduating, she worked for the San Francisco Department of the Environment, which sparked her interest in the circular economy, an economic system that minimizes waste and maximizes resource use by reusing, repairing, recycling, and regenerating materials to keep them in circulation for as long as possible. She later moved to New York City and, while working full-time as a circular economy consultant at Eunomia Research & Consulting, decided to pursue the M.S. in Sustainability Management (SUMA) at Columbia University as a part-time student.

I caught up with Kaitlin to discuss her experience in the SUMA program, reflect on our experience in the Capstone Workshop (where she served as our team’s project manager), and look ahead to what’s next and how the program has prepared her to drive circular economy principles in her career.

What led you to the SUMA program? And since graduating, how has it supported the career you’re building?

Before SUMA, I majored in Environmental Studies with a concentration in Mathematical Modeling at Haverford College. Haverford is a liberal arts school, and my studies were very interdisciplinary; I studied environmental topics through the lenses of the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. I am a member of the first graduating class of environmental majors at Haverford, and I’m proud to have helped pioneer the Environmental Studies program by shaping a curriculum that created space for students to reflect on personal relationships with the natural world and to question the dominant histories of environmentalism. My undergraduate education was foundational to my first full-time job out of college, where I served as a Green Building Fellow for the San Francisco Department of the Environment. I led research at the intersection of green building and zero waste, exploring the reasons for surplus construction materials and how these ‘wastes’ could be reduced or redistributed rather than disposed of. As a Fellow, my role with the city had a fixed term. Pursuing a graduate degree was a natural next step for me, and SUMA allowed me to broaden my vision of a regenerative economy and expand my skill set to help make this vision a reality.

While pursuing the SUMA program part-time, I am also working as a Circular Economy Consultant at Eunomia Research & Consulting, partnering with businesses, governments, and nonprofits to advance circular economy policy and implementation. I’ve worked on the Colorado Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Needs Assessment for packaging, a first-of-its-kind study in the U.S., with Circular Action Alliance, the first established Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO) for packaging in the U.S. For this project, I conducted research and Excel modeling, building on skills I learned from the SUMA program, including stakeholder engagement, material flow analysis, and cost-benefit modeling to support evidence-based policy design. In my role at Eunomia, I also recently oversaw the development of an interactive online tool that helps brands evaluate environmental and financial key performance indicators (KPIs) for reusable beverage container systems, fostering cross-sector collaboration and innovation. I’m particularly passionate about reuse initiatives and collaborating with local governments to drive sustainable impact.

We got to work side-by-side in Capstone (with you as our team’s project manager!). How would you describe the project and what that role meant to you?

At the first Capstone Workshop session, the faculty advisors share their different project opportunities. Immediately, I knew I wanted to be in Chandler Precht’s (’22SPS, Sustainability Science) section, which was partnering with PR3, the Global Alliance to Advance Reuse. The project interested me for three reasons: the topic, the client, and the advisor. The opportunity to work on reuse with a client who is setting the standards for the reusable packaging industry, alongside an engaged and energetic advisor, was a “no-brainer” for me.

As an added bonus, this was the program’s first Capstone Workshop project focused on the intersection of sports and sustainability. As a lifelong athlete, I’ve long believed in the power of sports to bring people together. This power can also be used to address social issues, including sustainability and environmental protection. Through this project, I began to see the enormous opportunity in the sports industry to improve circularity, and I have been seeking ways to expand my current work at Eunomia into this space.

Serving as the team’s project manager was no joke! For me, it was well worth the additional time (and occasional stress!) to dive deeper into a project I was passionate about, and I became increasingly invested in it throughout the semester. I am proud of my team and our final report.

After Capstone wrapped, we headed to Portland with Chandler to share our Capstone work and research at the Green Sports Alliance Reuse Symposium. How would you describe what that experience was like for you?

As a student and consultant, it can be discouraging when hard work and research end up in a report that doesn’t go anywhere. The Green Sports Alliance Reuse Symposium was the perfect opportunity to present to stakeholders from sports leagues, teams, stadiums, concessionaires, and reuse service providers who are making real-world decisions that can be directly informed by our research.

The symposium was a great professional development opportunity because it helped me gain experience in presenting and networking. Another key takeaway for me is that there is good energy in sports! This past NYC Climate Week, I attended the event, “Playing for the Planet: How Sports Can Champion Conservation and Climate Action,” co-hosted by the SUMA program, and one of the panelists, Mackenzie Feldman (Founder and Co-Director of Re:wild Your Campus), shared how she thinks the environmental movement can learn from the sports industry when it comes to creating community and creating a movement. Everyone wants to be a part of a team, and I agree that we could do more to frame the fight for sustainability as a team effort.

The full-time job/part-time SUMA combo can be intense. What did that chapter look like for you, and in what ways has the degree changed how you tackle your work today?

Working full-time and getting my degree was not always easy, but it was certainly well worth it. I benefited from developing hard and soft skills in the classroom, alongside the opportunity to test them in a professional setting, and I was able to build my network in both settings. Working and studying concurrently essentially expedited my early career development.

With more responsibilities, I became very aware of how I was spending my time. I became much more effective at making the most of my transition time by doing my schoolwork during the seemingly countless hours I spent on the subway commuting between work, school, and home. On a more personal note, it became obvious which of these experiences gave me energy and which took it away. I’m so grateful for the relationships I developed as a student and for all the friends who were patient enough to tolerate my extremely delayed text responses, which would usually start with “So sorry! Work and school have been so busy recently!”

In all seriousness, the SUMA experience is well worth it. It was very challenging, but I wouldn’t trade anything for the learning, personal growth, and professional development I gained.

If you could share one piece of advice with current or prospective SUMA students, what would it be?

Be curious! Stay open to new experiences as you find your niche.

Students come to the SUMA program with a wide variety of experiences, which means there is so much to learn from your fellow classmates, especially in ways that may surprise you. It’s great if you come into the program with a fairly specific goal in mind, like I did, but I’m also incredibly thankful for the classes I took outside of my comfort zone. Of course, I enjoyed the Life Cycle Assessment, Cost Benefit Analysis, Circular Economy, and Solid Waste Management classes, but if anyone asks my favorite class, I tell them they have to take Claudia Dreifus’s course, Writing about Global Science for International Media. Similar to how the environmental movement can learn from the sports industry, we can all learn a lot from journalism on how to tell a story that can be truly heard. If I had only taken classes about the circular economy, I never would have taken this course—and I use these learnings when communicating with clients, coworkers, and friends, every single day.

About the Program

The Columbia University M.S. in Sustainability Management program, offered by the School of Professional Studies in partnership with the Climate School, provides students with cutting-edge policy and management tools to help public and private organizations and governments address environmental impacts and risks, pollution control, and remediation to achieve sustainability. The program is customized for working professionals and is offered as a full-time and part-time course of study.

The program fosters creativity and adaptability by equipping students with the skills to tackle real-world sustainability challenges through an interdisciplinary approach from the world’s premier sustainability academics, researchers, and practitioners. The up-to-the-minute curriculum and flexibility prepare graduates for careers in the dynamic and rapidly changing field of sustainability.

Learn more about the program here.