AN INTERVIEW WITH JAVITS CENTER CEO JOYCE LEVESTON BY DARLENE CAMAC

June 4, 2025

Every year, the annual New York Sun Works Conference invites students to come together and present their findings in Sustainability Science and contribute to the advancement of solutions to the world’s most pressing climate challenges. As a member of the Youth Press Team, I had the honor of interviewing the first female CEO of the Javits Center, Joyce Leveston.

“I hope to be the representation for women in leadership,” said Joyce.

Joyce spoke about how much pride she takes in maintaining the Javits Center’s rooftop farm, the largest of its kind in New York. The view over the New York cityscape from the rooftop farm is, for Joyce, the best that the city offers. Joyce’s participation in the conference itself stems from her desire to encourage students to get active in environmental projects. She deliberately kept her own opening presentation extra short to make sure the student presenters had more time to present their own projects.

Moving on to talk about the student presenters, I had the pleasure of interviewing Elena, Lilly and Angel from JHS 218 James P. Sinnott about their presentation on aquaponic farming. The group’s experiment sought to find out if their aquaponic system containing Tilapia fish could outgrow a regular hydroponic tower system.

In their aquaponic system, waste from the fish is turned into nutrients with the help of bacteria, allowing plants to thrive through this underwater ecosystem. Fish waste was the only source of nutrients for the plants. Although both systems allowed plants to flourish, the hydroponic tower system was able to outgrow the aquaponic system, most likely due to the potency of the nutrients used.

For me, this annual conference illuminated the importance of science and experimentation to help build a greener future, not just for New York City, but for the world.