Introducing the New APPLES Fellow: Kelsey Arrington-Podraza

Kelsey Arrington-Podraza brings her unique experience to sustainability work, combining grassroots community experience with policy expertise as this year’s recipient of the Accelerating Policy and Planning Leadership for Equity and Sustainability (APPLES) Fellowship.

The fellowship is a partnership between the Office of Sustainability and the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning aimed at developing equity, justice, and sustainability-focused leaders from frontline communities that are most affected by climate change. The APPLES fellow receives a stipend, generous tuition scholarship, an internship with the Office of Sustainability, and programming to build leadership skills, develop networks, and enable socio-emotional learning.

Kelsey’s journey into sustainability began when she took a sales job in residential remodeling that shifted her perspective on the world. “I used to believe that homeownership was the American dream—that it guaranteed stability and upward mobility. But working inside people’s homes, seeing kids with asthma from mold, families burning money on energy bills, and houses falling apart—it radicalized me,” she explains. “I saw not just the human cost, but the environmental one too: wasteful, unsustainable construction practices baked into a broken system. I realized how deeply housing policy shapes our lives, our health, and our future. That’s what brought me here.”

The experience motivated Kelsey to think critically about how to build healthy, sustainable housing for people. She built her curriculum around a building-planning program, earning her Bachelor of Science in Urban and Environmental Planning from West Chester University.

Currently, Kelsey works as a Program Manager at New Ecology in the Climate Smart Communities division, overseeing the Energize Delaware Affordable Multifamily Housing Program. Through her fellowship, she’s also diving into embodied carbon, a cutting-edge measure that tracks the greenhouse gas emissions from building materials and construction processes. She prides herself on being a translator, taking complex data and numbers and making them understandable for diverse audiences. Her strength lies in grasping what each audience needs to know and finding the right approach to help them understand it. When she’s not working, Kelsey teaches yoga and loves hiking with her dog. She’s currently building community by hosting events and creating yoga sequences specifically for LGBTQ+ and POC spaces.