We would like to welcome De’Noia Woods to the Richland Sustainability Department!

De’Noia Woods will be heading the Green Business Challenge and promoting Communications for the department.  She will be a part of the collaborative effort to create a program that highlights green business activities while encouraging business who aim to be more green achieve milestones on being greener.  She will publish the quarterly newsletter for the Richland County Sustainability Department and serve as a resource at local events. 

De’Noia Woods is a first year Earth and Environmental Resource Management master’s student at the University of South Carolina Columbia campus.  De’Noia has a background in varying elements of environmentalism and sustainability.  She got her start at the Wake Forest University working with their Sustainability Department at the beginning of her sophomore year.  She held the position of the photography intern which quickly blossomed into the creative liaison completing various art and environmental projects.  These projects included a green exhibition where she challenged students in the Wake Forest community to create art with an environmental message dealing locally or globally.  She is also responsible for bringing the Make A Forest initiative to the campus which prompts students to create a figurative or literal forest to bring attention to the forestry industry.  Upon receiving her undergraduate diploma, she accepted an AmeriCorps position as the Adopt-A-Road Coordinator with the Knox County Solid Waste Department in Knoxville, TN.  Throughout her service term she honed her skills in countywide beautification efforts, event planning and execution, and recycling outreach.  This year grew her passion for environmental management.  After her service term ended, she decided to return to school and start her master’s degree.  While at USC, her focus of her studies included environmental health sciences as it pertains to public health and factors that affect it.  She has knowledge of air, water, and waste pollution and the effects of urbanization on affected communities.  Her aim through her studies is to hone her communication skills for being a liaison for effectively communicating scientific findings to the mass public for better informed citizens in their communities to activate change agents.  Contact De 'Noia at WoodsD@rcgov.us