Triton Talks 2025: Reducing Your Plastic Footprint and Why You Should Do So

Katherine B. Young:
Katherine B. Young, MD, MFA, fell in love with the ocean when she was a small child. After five years of art instruction as a teen, she studied engineering and medicine at Duke University, and trained in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Stanford University.

After working for 10 years as a plastic surgeon in San Francisco, she fulfilled her dream of becoming a full time artist and earned her MFA degree. She specializes in drawing and painting vast spaces of ocean and sky. Her work has won numerous awards and has been exhibited and collected throughout the United States.

When she learned that plastic waste was causing great harm to the ocean, she decided to address it with her art. To learn more about the problem and possible solutions, she studied the Circular Economy at UC Berkeley. With her unique background in medicine, engineering and art, she feels positioned to comment, educate and propose solutions to the environmental and health problems that plastic pollution causes.

The following galleries represent her artwork: HANG ART in San Francisco, Claire Carino Contemporary in Boston, and The Gallery at Tree’s Place in Cape Cod. She maintains a studio at 1890 Bryant Street in San Francisco, and lives in the city with her husband and daughter. Her artwork and creative process are featured in creativity expert Dr. Tina Seelig’s book, Insight Out.

Dr. Desiree LaBeaud:
A. Desiree LaBeaud, MD, MS, FASTMH
Professor (she/her/hers)
Pediatric Infectious Diseases

Dr. Desiree LaBeaud is a physician-scientist, epidemiologist, and professor in the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Stanford University’s School of Medicine. She received her MD from the Medical College of Wisconsin and trained at the Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital during her pediatric residency and pediatric infectious disease fellowship program. She earned her master’s degree in Clinical Research and Epidemiology at Case Western Reserve University. Dr. LaBeaud studies the epidemiology and ecology of domestic and international arboviruses and emerging infections, with an interest in the vector, host, and environmental factors that affect transmission dynamics and spectrum of disease.

Her research is community-engaged and seeks to define and then disrupt the underlying structural determinants of health. She studies the human health impacts of climate change including research focused on innovative solutions to the global plastic pollution crisis. Her current field sites include Kenya, Grenada, Pakistan, and Brazil. She currently heads a clinical research lab focused on better understanding the risk factors and long-term health consequences of arboviral infections and the most effective means of prevention. She has also recently launched a nonprofit, the Health and Environmental Research Institute - Kenya (www.heri-kenya.org) which is an initiative focused on Kenya to inspire community education, new research, policy change and grassroots activism in environmental health issues.

Associate Dean, Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health
Bechtel Faculty Scholar, Stanford Maternal Child Health Research Institute
Professor, by courtesy, of Epidemiology and Population Health
Professor, by courtesy, of Environmental Social Science at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability
Senior Fellow, Woods Institute

Matt Simon:
Matt Simon is a senior writer at Grist, covering climate solutions. Prior to that, he spent over a decade at Wired magazine. He’s the author of three books, most recently A Poison Like No Other: How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies.