{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"AmeriCorps Connections","title":"Eps. 115 | From AmeriCorps VISTA to Congressional Candidate — Science, Sustainability, and Solving for What Matters","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2889,"description":"Michaela Barnett: From AmeriCorps VISTA to Congressional Candidate — Science, Sustainability, and Solving for What Matters\nWhat does it look like when a service year becomes a launchpad? Michaela Barnett's AmeriCorps VISTA year at University Tennessee (TU) Recycling in Knoxville wasn't something she planned — she stumbled into it while applying for a different job entirely. But that year handed her three community problems to solve, the freedom to figure them out, and a $100,000 grant for what's now UT's Grow Lab. That was just the beginning.\nMichaela went on to earn her PhD in civil engineering, where she sat at the intersection of behavioral science, engineering, and design. She wanted to understand not just what needed to change — but why people make the decisions they do, and how systems either support or undermine the change we need. That question led her to start KnoxFill, a sustainability-focused refillery that's now a community anchor in East Tennessee, stocking hundreds of bulk refillable products and shelving goods from 50 Tennessee-based makers and small businesses. And then it led her to DC, as a science policy fellow inside the House of Representatives.\nNow she's running for Congress in Tennessee's 2nd District — a seat that's been red since Reconstruction — because she believes the next layer of change happens at the policy level. And she's doing it the way she's done everything else: building local, investing in community, and treating the work itself as service.\nThis conversation goes deep on systems thinking, what a service year actually gives you, why we need to expand national service right now, and what it means to carry AmeriCorps values all the way to the floor of Congress.\nMichaela is #StillGettingThingsDone.\nLinks & Resources:\n🌿 Knox Fill\n🗳️ Michaela for Tennessee\n📣 Campaign: MB4TN\nAbout AmeriCorps Connections\nAmeriCorps Connections lifts up stories of AmeriCorps alums — 100+ featured! Honest, unfiltered truth about national service. These...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/c4sc2-uOGbHbwtPQX335ur5oQHYsLQ6rDBkAM2hvRNU/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9zaG93/LzQwMjg4LzE2OTIz/OTQ2NzctYXJ0d29y/ay5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}