January Young Professional of the Month: Katya Forsyth

We are thrilled to highlight Katya Forsyth (she/they) as January’s YP of the Month, the first YP of the Month of the new year! Katya currently works for Association of Compost Producers as the executive director and at Zero Footprint as the Healthy Soils Program Block Grant Manager. 

Katya has been working in the compost industry since 2020, when she started helping with customer service at a small compost company in Boston, MA. Before that, Katya’s love for composting kicked off while living on a permaculture farm in Costa Rica for six months in 2019, where she managed the compost piles and the fermentation station. Since then, Katya completed her MS Environmental Science and Policy from Northeastern University, where she studied regenerative agriculture and circular food systems. In 2022, Katya started working for Kellogg Garden Products and the Association of Compost Producers (ACP), where she started to learn about the challenges and opportunities in the compost industry in California. In 2024, Katya transitioned to Zero Foodprint from Kellogg, and kept working at ACP. At Zero Foodprint, Katya manages a Healthy Soils Block Grant from the California Department of Food and Agriculture, which gives farmers money to buy compost and institute other regenerative farming practices. It’s very interesting to be on “both sides” of the compost industry, in this way. Katya recently took over as Executive Director of ACP. Katya is excited to continue ACP’s California specific SB1383 Workshops, produce more webinars, and continue working to increase the value and volume of compost in California. 

Katya served on the Education/Webinar YP committee at USCC from 2022 until 2024 when she became the Steering Committee chair for the YP Group. Katya has been working hard with Hessa and Teri to support the professional development programming at COMPOST2025. 

Congratulations to Katya for her outstanding contributions to the composting industry and her dedication to the YP Group over the past couple of years!