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Home / Staff and Leadership / Sandy Costello
Pennsylvania Agriculture Projects Coordinator
email
570-768-6140
Sandy joined the team in August 2023 and serves as the Agricultural Projects Coordinator in Central Pennsylvania. She focuses on outreach and farmer conservation practices that lead to improved farm sustainability, and quality of water, land, and air in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. As part of the Alliance team and partnerships, she collaborates with farmers, nonprofits, food cooperatives and their food supply chains, as well as government leaders.
Sandy has been an ‘in the field’ agriculture practitioner throughout her career and seeks to deeply understand motivators and guide decisions of people within their immediate and global environments. Her previous experience and education have been coaching various facets of dairy management by advisors and farmers. Sandy has a master’s degree from University of Florida in dairy cattle feeding and a doctorate from University of Wisconsin-Madison in decision theory as it relates to animal health. She recently received her provisional Nutrient Management Plan License and became a Master Watershed Steward to fulfill a personal goal to better understand conservation practices to help farmers in a constantly changing environment and to play an active role in improving water and air quality for farm sustainability and for future generations.
Sandy spent the first 20 years of her life in Havre de Grace at the intersection of the Chesapeake Bay and Susquehanna River and has lived in Lewisburg Pennsylvania and near the Susquehanna River again for the last 22 years. The land and waters of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed are an integral part of her DNA. Her 30+ years of working directly with farmers and deeply understanding their life’s work, their challenges and aspirations combined with all our need for food has further informed her work and job with Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay.
In her free time, Sandy participates in a Nature Journaling club in State College and is learning about her natural environment by drawing and journaling about it. She is also a member of the Nature Book club through the Middle Susquehanna River Keepers. Sandy and her husband Rob and black lab, Fiona, enjoy hiking, cycling, kayaking, traveling to new places and visiting with family.
