Duke University · Climate Week NYC

Three people talk at a table on the open deck of a ferry, with orange container cranes across the water. — On the ferry to Governors Island.

The Work Between the Sessions

Four years with Duke at Climate Week NYC, from the ferry out to Governors Island to a window over the city at dusk.

Every September, Duke’s climate program comes to New York for Climate Week. Over four years the assignment has covered a technology showcase on Governors Island, panels on extreme heat, climate risk, debt-for-nature swaps and the power grid, an afternoon of resilience sessions at the Nest Climate Campus, and an evening for alumni in a room high above the city, usually with an edit due the next day.

The New York Climate Exchange’s hoarding on Governors Island, after rain.

A woman in a floral jacket leans down to shake hands with seated guests in a room with stained-glass windows. — Greetings before the climate technology showcase on Governors Island.

A smiling woman in a brown tweed blazer stands on a lawn with the tallest downtown tower and a skyline behind her. — A portrait on Governors Island, with Lower Manhattan across the harbor.

Two young men shake hands in a glass-walled lobby, one wearing a backpack, with a Nest Climate Campus sign and office towers behind. — A handshake in the lobby of the Nest Climate Campus.

Audience members seen through reflective glass, with tall office towers and a lower city block beyond the window. — The audience reflected in the glass of a conference room above the city.

Duke asks for a wide library of photographs each year, pictures it can use in publications, articles and fundraising for the department and across the school. We can imagine discussions about mitigating climate change as pie in the sky, full of rainbows and butterflies. What I see with Duke is people dealing with hard numbers and business dynamics, trying to understand organizations from the inside and listening to the battles people are facing on the ground.

A silver-haired man in a dark jacket speaks with his hands raised at a conference table while two people beside him listen. — Making a point across the conference table.

Men in jackets sit at rows of tables taking notes in a wood-paneled room hung with framed portraits. — Notes during the Science of Risk briefing.

Two panelists in grey armchairs on a stage, a woman in a dark dress speaking with her hands, against a backdrop of blue sky and clouds. — Onstage at the Nest Climate Campus for the AI-Ready Grids session.

A speaker at a lectern beside a screen as several hands go up in a seated audience, under a stained-glass window. — Hands up during the climate technology showcase on Governors Island.

A white-haired woman in a houndstooth jacket speaks into a microphone with both hands open, a man beside her listening, the moderator’s tan jacket in the foreground. — Answering a question from the floor during the resilience sessions.

So I work the edges of the program: the ferry out to the island, the audience doubled in a conference-room window, the hand that goes up from the floor, the conversation that starts when a session ends. The city is in most of these frames, across the harbor, through the glass, behind a portrait, because where this work happens is part of what it is.

A grey-haired man in a dark suit gestures mid-conversation among a group of guests in a room with windows over the city and a Duke Climate screen. — Conversation after the debt-for-nature swaps panel.

Guests with drinks at floor-to-ceiling windows at sunset, One World Trade Center and Lower Manhattan beyond them. — Guests at the alumni gathering as the sun sets over Lower Manhattan.

More commissioned work: commercial photography and commercial portraits.