Janelle Robbins

Janelle joined Waterkeeper Alliance in 2003 as a research fellow to write A Citizen’s Guide to Manure Treatment Technologies. Janelle is now the Alliance’s Associate Director of Waterkeeper Support and oversees the domestic growth of the movement, provides scientific and water monitoring support to our ever-growing Waterkeeper organizations, coordinates our anti-coal campaign, The Dirty Lie, covers the scientific and engineering aspects of our other campaigns and works to reduce Waterkeeper Alliance’s ecological footprint. She also coordinates the Waterkeepers in the Gulf Region. For more information on how you can support the Waterkeepers impacted by the BP oil disaster, please visit Save Our Gulf.

Janelle graduated with honors from Cornell University in 2001 with a BS in Agricultural and Biological Engineering where she was part of a research team developing biosensors to detect viable Cryptosporidium parvum in water, and later to detect and distinguish between different strains of HIV. After completing her degree at Cornell, Janelle interned at Hudson Riverkeeper, and later went on to earn a MS in Biological Systems Engineering with a concentration in Land and Water Resources from Virginia Tech. There, she conducted research in the James River Basin of Virginia, studying the quality of agricultural best management practices. Janelle is featured as a Green Guru in the “Green Babies” books, in Glamour’s 2009 green issue as an Eco Hero and as a success story in the “Ten Ways to Change the World in Your Twenties.” Janelle is also a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Accredited Professional.

Janelle and her husband Steve live in the Hudson Valley and enjoy making their old house more sustainable, gardening and cooking, raising backyard chickens for eggs, hiking, traveling and playing with their dog Riley.