Our Mission
The mission of the Environmental Leadership Program (ELP) is to support visionary, action-oriented, and diverse leadership for a just and sustainable future. ELP aims to catalyze change by providing emerging leaders with the support and guidance they need to launch new endeavors, achieve new successes, and rise to new leadership positions. Since 2000 we have created a dynamic network of over 1,000 of the country’s top emerging environmental and social change leaders.
What We Do
We train a new generation of environmental leaders characterized by diversity, innovation, collaboration, and effective communications. We address the needs of emerging environmental leaders from academia, business, government and non-profits by:
- Providing training and learning opportunities to increase their leadership capacity through our Fellowship Program;
- Connecting Fellows with peers through our regional and national networks;
- Linking Fellows with experienced environmental leaders through substantive interactions and mentoring opportunities;
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Focusing attention on the need for the environmental community to develop the next generation of leaders.
Staff Contact Information 
Lucy Alejos
Co-Director, DDCSP Alumni Network
Lucy or Luz (she/her/hers) manages community weaving and curriculum design for Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program Alumni Network, including in-person gatherings and online leadership development. Common threads that have run throughout Lucy’s career are relationship-building, curriculum design, and resource sharing. Prior to joining ELP, Lucy coordinated grants, outdoor education programs, and special events for the REI Co-op’s Mid-Atlantic Market and Houston Market. Lucy is grateful to serve as Board President for Groundswell Community Project, a Natural Leader and Fresh Tracks Trainer for Children & Nature Network, and a council member for National Parks Conservation Association’s Next Generation Advisory Council. Luz grew up surrounded by mesquite trees, nopal, and roadrunners on the lands and waters of the Tonkawa peoples (San Antonio, TX). In her spare time, you can find Lucy repeatedly falling off and climbing back on her surfboard in her new home on the lands and waters of the Kumeyaay people (San Diego, CA) or getting her hands dirty as a worker at Pixca, a POC cooperative farm.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucyalejos/
Sydney Fuller
Co-Director, DDCSP Alumni Network
Sydney (she/her) is a Southern storytelling environmentalist with degrees in Fine Arts and Environmental Sustainability from the University of Michigan, where she participated in the Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program Alumni Network. Her interests range from ethnobotany to community building and political history, all of which continue to lead her to interesting conversations and experiences with her fellow DDCSP alumni. Now, as Community Engagement Manager for the DDCSP Alumni Network, Sydney plans webinars with speakers across disciplines, designs curriculum and programming for alumni, and finds new and engaging ways to support the alumni community. Sydney is constantly learning something new, and, when she’s not working, she can usually be found in a cozy corner with a stack of books.