Student Profiles | GEP

My academic career began at Howard University where I obtained a B.S. in Biology. However, my passion for natural resource management developed while I was living in the rural village in central Madagascar where I worked as an environmental extension agent in the Peace Corps. The experience provided a unique, first-hand learning opportunity to participate in community-based natural resource management. It also very clearly modeled the intricate mixture of power and politics that determines decision making around natural resources. Upon leaving Peace Corps, I worked for an international NGO in Washington, which helped me cultivate a passion for the water sector and a drive to advance sustainable and equitable solutions in the developing world. 

SINCE COMING TO AU 

Since coming to American University, I’ve focused on developing a theoretical foundation that supports my practical work experience through courses in international development, women and development, water governance, and environmental economics, among many others. The interdisciplinary nature of the program has provided a valuable set of tools that allow students to analyze the complex nature of environmental challenges.  

I’ve carried out research on a range of topics including the politics of transboundary water resources, women’s participation in community-based natural resource management, social safety net programs in Southern Africa, pro-poor water privatization and water quality in the Anacostia watershed. Recently, I had the opportunity to utilize what I’ve learned in GEP while interning at the World Bank in the Office of African Water Resources Management. The program’s connections have also allowed me to spend a semester at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences studying water resource governance, political ecology and ecotoxicology.

WHAT’S NEXT

After graduating from the GEP program I hope to obtain a fellowship so I can continue to develop my research on civil society participation and the Nile Basin Initiative. I want to contribute to projects and research that advance interdisciplinary approaches in water resources management.

HOW I GOT HERE

I came to the Natural Resources and Sustainable Development program with a background in International Relations, Environmental Science, and Spanish. My professional experience between undergraduate and graduate school was eclectic to say the least. I worked in cross-cultural communications at an immigration law firm, got my hands dirty while teaching in an outdoor classroom at an earth sciences school, and simultaneously coached high school lacrosse and worked as a barista. However, it was while working for a small NGO in rural Indonesia that my perspective on the environmental field matured. Witnessing first-hand the need for a holistic development approach, I realized that in order to do the work I was passionate about I would need to learn more. The NRSD program struck me as a unique degree with which I could combine my wide range of interests.

SINCE COMING TO AU  

In my first semester at SIS, I learned to adopt the mindset of a development practitioner -- to take on the challenge of wearing many hats. I’ve written papers on topics ranging from economic valuations of environmental services to the impacts of conditional cash transfers within community development models. Taking advantage of the Washington D.C. environment, I attended conferences and events at the World Bank, National Geographic Society, and Woodrow Wilson Center while interning for the United Nations Environment Programme. In Costa Rica, I became part of a truly international study body at the University for Peace. It was not uncommon for a Management of Coastal Resources class to be held on a boat amid mangroves and crocodiles; or I might learn about pioneering PES schemes while visiting the forests in Costa Rica where they are implemented. To fulfill the summer internship requirement, I worked in Bolivia and studied biomass measurement for a voluntary carbon market project, gaining technical skills in GIS and improving my Spanish in the process. 

WHAT’S NEXT?  

After returning to Washington, I will finish my studies at AU while interning for the U.S. Department of State within the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs. I will also have the opportunity to participate in a graduate practicum that will examine the drivers of development and conflict in the Mekong River Basin, producing a professional output to inform the State Department’s water team. The NRSD program has helped me to find my niche within the complex nexus of environmental conservation and international development.

HOW I GOT HERE

When I came to American University, I had been working in various positions related to urban and rural agriculture in Washington state, including apprenticing on a small organic farm and developing urban gardening programs in marginalized communities. Prior to that, I spent time traveling in southeast Asia, living with and learning from rural organic farmers. These opportunities provided me with a deeper knowledge and understanding of some best management practices in sustainable food production and, to a certain extent, distribution. I decided to apply to the Natural Resources and Sustainable Development program because I wanted to continue researching and interacting with food systems at all levels and, in particular, gain greater understanding of the wide field that is “sustainable agriculture” and global food policy. The NRSD program also provided an opportunity to continue gaining experience working and living outside the United States. 

SINCE COMING TO AU 

Professors at AU have challenged me to engage and analyze both policy and practice. The NRSD program allows for an incredible amount of flexibility, such that I have had the capacity to focus on food issues within almost every class, yet have also been encouraged to broaden my perspective and recognize the interconnectivity of various issues. The professors and courses during my year at the University for Peace provided me with a unique and valuable graduate experience. The UPEACE year offers students countless opportunities to see classroom learning put into practice, as well the incomparable experience of meeting young professionals from around the world and establishing an invaluable global network. For me, it contributed to an incredible amount of personal and professional growth.  

WHAT’S NEXT?

One of the great things about the NRSD program is that the opportunities available to me post-graduation are broad and varied. I can take the skills I’ve learned at AU any where in the world and be a valuable asset to a variety of programs and institutions.

HOW I GOT HERE

I have always been interested in environmental sustainability and justice issues, ever since I saw the film “Fern Gully” as a small child. Prior to AU, I lived abroad as a science teacher at an international school in Sofia, Bulgaria. There I observed many environmental changes occurring in the name of “modernization and development,” a topic that often led to discussions with my students. Their passion and interest in environmental sustainability and their hope in the prospects of a better future inspired me. My interests in environmental sustainability have centered on issues of organic, local food movements, food sovereignty and the effects that agricultural policy can have on environment. I needed to understand the root causes for some of the imbalances and inequalities that our current food and agriculture system promotes. I wanted to develop the tools to help work towards a better system; thus, I decided to return to graduate school.  

SINCE COMING TO AU

As a student in the GEP program, I have taken courses that have built upon my background in science and teaching and given me new abilities to analyze and communicate issues from a social science perspective. I have been involved with local, urban food initiatives through the Neighborhood Farm Initiative, the DC Field-to-Fork Network and Sustainable DC Food working group efforts in 2012. I also interned with the Bureau of Land Management’s socio-economics program to help develop tools and resources for the Decision Support, Planning and NEPA division. I also spent a semester studying at the Norwegian University for Life Sciences (UMB), outside Oslo, in Ås, Norway. There I took courses in climate change economics; marine, coastal, and aquatic resource management; and conservation and restoration ecology. UMB has strong life sciences and development studies programs; these two aspects integrate very well with my background and work at AU.  

WHAT’S NEXT?

After graduation, I hope to integrate my knowledge and skills of life sciences, agriculture policies, natural resources management, and ecological restoration, whether through working with an organization or advocacy group, or pursuing a PhD. I hope to utilize integrated and ecosystem-based approach, which is needed for moving current policies and practices forward towards increased social and ecological resilience.

HOW I GOT HERE

I came to the Global Environmental Politics program with a background as a journalist. My recent work included stories about Rio Tinto’s titanium mine in Madagascar, drought in Kenya and coastal conservation in the Indian Ocean. 

In Madagascar, for example, villagers and activists told tales of the mine ruining fishing grounds, appropriating forest resources and raising inequality in the local economy. At the same time, the company unveiled an ambitious conservation plan to permanently protect or replant swaths of already degraded forests. Both sides were telling versions of the truth; I realized my journalism could only scratch the surface of development challenges that at once implicate ecology and politics across the globe. 

I needed more schooling. At the time, I couldn't even tell you what political economy or political ecology was. I had never heard of the Tragedy of the Commons, the Limits to Growth or the Colonial Division of Labor. I didn't know Malthus from Ostrom. 

SINCE COMING TO AU 

At AU, I've been continually challenged (in a good way) by professors and classmates to develop new lenses for understanding the local and the global. I've studied deforestation, Hindu ecology, fisheries economics, regression analysis and even GIS mapping. I've written papers on topics ranging from community-based natural resource management to global trade flows. 

My time at AU certainly hasn't been confined to the classroom. I've been arrested in environmental protest in front of the White House. I helped organize dozens of renewable energy petition drives for Oceana. Working for Greenpeace India, I researched and produced an atlas of Indian Ocean conservation metrics that called on India to create new marine management plans in more than a dozen potential biodiversity hotspots. 

WHAT’S NEXT?

After graduation, I will return to India for additional independent research focused in political ecology and local environmental practice/relations. This will ultimately build to a Ph.D. and long-term research/academic career that has started here at AU. 

Today I see the politics of the global environment with new eyes. The challenges are no less complex; AU has simply prepared me to help tackle them.

My passion for traveling, extensive work with health and homeless populations in the U.S. and undergraduate studies in psychology, religion and anthropology landed me with World Camp Inc, a small NGO. I spent the better part of 4 years between Malawi and India: other coordinators and I ran HIV workshops, tree-planting initiatives, gender empowerment groups, community outreach projects and volunteer programs in rural and urban settings. 

What struck me was how absolutely intertwined energy, health and general well being are in our surroundings, both in positive and negative ways. How Malawi’s massive deforestation rate exacerbated the spread of HIV. How access to clean water shaped gender roles and relations in India. 

But mostly what I saw was the changing environment, and, coupled with poor resource management, the devastatingly continual impact this had on my friends, students and co-workers. How the effects of droughts in Malawi and monsoon flooding in India rippled through every fabric of society. I saw similar impacts from both severe water scarcity or excess water: contamination, disease, failed crops, stressed families. I began to understand that while I love working at the community level, in order to truly be effective, I must also work to bridge the dangerous gaps that persist between communities and the policies that govern them.  

SINCE COMING TO AU

I’ve been learning like crazy! Attending intellectually stimulating classes through discussions, peer insights, professors’ experiences, interesting readings and field trips. For the past 8 months I’ve interned with a team of auditors, GIS specialists, economists, lawyers, biologists, toxicologists and chemists to assess water quality allocation for different users -- agriculture, industry, household, recreation, environment -- in Costa Rica. 

WHAT’S NEXT?

I hope to first spend a few years working with water management and climate change at the municipal level. Then I plan to take that experience, my degrees and all the motivation this program has given me to work on water rights and allocation in communities at high-risk for natural disaster and/or conflict.