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curriculum vitae
academic background
Honors BA in Environmental Studies and Minor in Political Science | August 2018 - May 2022
Honors Preparation Themes:
‘nature’ as death/ nature as life and indigenous epistemologies for ‘new’ environmental relationships
politics of resource distribution and critical dams, departures for the managing the future american tap
capitalist ‘ruins’ and frontline ontologies for prefigurative policy
charting liberation for the sacred-unseen and geographies of black spirit
> THESIS: Black Ecologies and Spatial Imaginaries
An examination of the spiritualism of black migrants during the Great Migration, focusing specifically on those traveling to the Pacific Northwest, and what kinds of spiritual practices and beliefs acted as protection, purpose, and faith in their journey. Even more specifically, I am curious why there was such a limited number of blacks who chose to come to the PNW and how that absence has altered the perceptive black identity of the PNW, namely Portland, and how might the environmental and physical co-optance of many black churches into art spaces for white folks in N/NE Portland is an act of erasure, gentrification, etc., with a possible imagining of the reaction of the spiritual soul and substance and memory that is left in those churches, once black people left them. I would like to use this paper as an opportunity to suggest and prove a potential conception of a semiological/aesthetics/axiological understanding of the natural/environmental change due to gentrification of black residents and the infiltration of white communities. How is there difference in the experiences of racism in comparison to the South and the allusiveness of racism in Portland, spatially.
College Participation
180 Consulting
Culture, Identity, and Acceptance Week, Executive Committee
Inclusive Excellence Fellowship
“Intro to Environmental Studies,” Teaching Assistant
“Environmental Justice in Action,” Teaching Assistant
Petey Greene Tutoring Program
Presidential Sustainability Research Fellowship
Rubin Scholar Mentorship Program
Sexual Health Advocate
Swarthmore Afro-American Society, Executive Board
Swarthmore Queer Union, Executive Board
Swarthmore Student Government Organization
Chair, Academic Affair
The Swarthmore Review, Poetry Editor
University of Pennsylvania Carey Law Outreach Program
career and research history
PROJECT LEAD AND CO-CREATOR, BOARDS PROJECT | JUNE 2021 - AUGUST 2021
Swarthmore College, Lang Center Summer Grantee
Selected as a grantee of Swarthmore College's Lang Center Summer Grant Program, myself and my friend/collaborator were awarded $5,000 to fund our execution of the 'BOARDs.' project, where we will commission a series of interactive physical boards in neighborhoods with demographics often marginalized and unheard in protests, and offer a space for communities to heal through providing their vision for the kind of Portland they wish to live in.
RESEARCH ASSISTANT, PROFESSOR CAROL NACKENOFF | JUNE 2021 -
Swarthmore College
I supported Dr. Carol Nackenoff's research for an upcoming manuscript on Black women's perception, disposition, and organizing history on mother's pension's between the year's 1910-1936. I completed several entries of the annotated bibliography, notes, and original sources on this section of the entire manuscript.
CURATORIAL ASSISTANT FOR ARTISTIC DIRECTOR & CURATOR OF PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT ROYA AMIRSOLEYMANI | JUNE 2021 - AUGUST 2021
Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA)
Reconnecting my internship history with PICA, I was welcomed into a co-designed internship project to support the research and design of three artists's residency projects: Mia Imani Harrison, vanessa german, and jumatatu poe + Donte Beacham. In this position, I was given the space to develop my community engagement, research visualization, client relations, and creative direction capacities.
RESEARCH ASSISTANT, RESEARCH JUSTICE INSTITUTE | JUNE 2021 - SEPTEMBER 2021
Coalition of Communities of Color
As commissioned by a coalition of Oregon banks, philanthropic, and social institutions, the Coalition of Communities of Color's Research Justice Institute employed me as an intern to support the collection, analysis, and reporting of data on the racial
wealth gap in aggregate, and specifically, in Oregon. This research is being utilized into a report for these institutions to inform their 2022 fiscal year investments, programming, and partnerships to leverage their resources to help close the gap.
RESEARCH ASSISTANT, INCLUSIVE COMMUNITY CONSULTING | MAY 2021 - JUNE 2021
Monravia College, National Wildlife Federation (NWF)
Under the supervision of Dr. Daisy Purcell from Monravia College, I oversaw the completion, review, and submission of the Informed Consent and Human Subjects Institutional Review Board for the Inclusive Community Consulting's project with the National Wildlife Federation's Development of a National Tribal and Indigenous Partnerships Expansion Strategy (NTIPES). The NTIPES entailed: a series of community engagement and listening sessions with Tribal and Indigenous leaders and Native-led NGOs; all-staff and board training on different cultural and social protocols in Indian Country, basics of Indian law, and identifying strategies for relationship-building with Tribes and Tribal organizations; and a structural and budgetary guidance to ensure the strategy is executed by the NWF.
FELLOW, INCLUSIVE EXCELLENCE FELLOWSHIP | JANUARY 2021 - MAY 2021 Swarthmore College
Fellows are chosen to advance themes and projects around Diversity, Equity and Inclusion within the institution. My project explored the current status of restorative justice and conflict resolution capacities, interests, and engagement across the College. Through a robust array of meetings with administrators and program leaders, I provided a substantive proposal for the pilot of a deeply integrated, interdisciplinary institute for facilitation training in lieu of the establishment of a dedicated physical and personnel committed to overseeing these kinds of training and services. My recommendations were developed based on the conversations with College administrators, comparative research from other institutions further ahead in providing institutional services for restorative justice, and my findings from past materials from existing restorative justice practices. The intention of these recommendations is to create a tiered, multi-year project that will institutionalize restorative justice and conflict resolution capacities from training certification to the restoration of the former Mediation Clinic on campus.
RESEARCHER, BLACK FOOD SOVEREIGNTY COALITION | DECEMBER 202O - MAY 2021 BFSC
Upon reaching out to the BFSC, myself and one of the leaders, Mr. Charles Smith, co-created a project for me to augment the Coalition's exploration in how to better tell their story to a variety of different audiences: funders, participants, similar organizations, media outlets, etc. From this scope, I helped develop: a grant tracking tool; best practices for tracking and framing metrics on contribution and participation; emphasizing the need and offering methods to connect mission and strategic goals; and most importantly, templates to effectively produce grants, strategic plans, and reports that are flexible to changing goals and shifting work.
FELLOW, PRESIDENTIAL SUSTAINABILITY RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP | SEPTEMBER 2019 - MAY 2021 Swarthmore College
Fellows are chosen to complete rigorous, student-driven projects related to sustainability for the academic year. My partner and I, are analyzing the College's current adherence to the zero waste commitment; while also co-authoring a formal zero waste plan centered on environmental justice (EJ), innovating new ways to frame and measure EJ principles, and engaging a larger constituency of campus stakeholders.
SCHOLAR, MIT SUMMER RESEARCH PROGRAM | JUNE-JULY 2020 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Consisting of research seminars, workshops on graduate preparedness, activities in research ethics, and overall introduction into the graduate school experiences, I spent the majority of my time working with Dr. Christine Walley, on her National Endowment of the Humanities Grant Award on preserving, digitizing, and cataloging the Southeast Chicago Historical Society Archives. My work this project consisted of: transcribing the Society's Archives for digital preparedness, small research projects on notable people from the neighborhood's past, and editing visual oral histories for the final digital website.
SCHOLAR, MOORE UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAM | MAY - JULY 2020 University of North Carolina
Under the guidance of Dr. Kumi Silva, my research sought to understand and present tangible praxis for members of the state periphery. The purpose of this project was centering the research inquiry in the context of healing and liberation of the “citizen,” the self and the collective; ultimately, building out new relations for sustained, intersectional, and transformative political movements. My work provided two formative contributions to the scholarly theory of revolutionary engagement, while effectively critiquing the canon and current day movements.
STUDENT RESEARCH | OCTOBER - DECEMBER 2019 Environmental Justice in Action Course, Swarthmore College
As a class, we had the ability to select a local environmental justice organization to work with, and in a team of three other students, we decided to work with the Soil Generation network of the Greater Philadelphia Area. Our directed ask was: Research new community economy systems for shifting to an organizational/business model that would provide resources and training for local communities to build and develop their own local, solidarity-based economies. In less than a months, we were able to provide comparative analyses of some of the country's top solidarity-economy based institutions, and a valuable list of actionable interventions and models to transform their organization into a functional solidarity economy.
LEGISLATIVE INTERN | JUNE - AUGUST 2019 Office of Senator Jeff Merkley, D-ORE
Selected for my commitment to social justice and civil rights, the Otto and Verdell Rutherford Scholarship offered me the opportunity to work on the environmental and foreign affairs portfolios of US Senator Jeff Merkley. During my time I developed proficiency in note-taking, briefing, crafting decision memos for the Senator, data expertise organizing constituent emails and most importantly, being responsive to the needs of our constituent over the phone, leading tours and writing policy response letters.
STUDENT RESEARCH | MARCH 2019 - MAY 2019 Intro to Environmental Studies Coursee, Swarthmore College
The local environmental advisory council of the Swarthmore, PA area, known as the Multi-Municipal Environmental Advisory Council (MMEAC) and I recognized the group's lack of critical awareness among the group and local municipalities the need to engage in an environmental justice framework to help reduce emissions and create an effective climate action plan. Therefore, it is urgent to update that report or conduct an entirely new one to incorporate the need for comprehensive equity programming in climate planning. As an outcome, , I developed two frameworks of critical questions to guide the Council’s work and in the process was able to organize several meetings, introductions, and efforts to further realize the need of environmental justice in their work.
CARBON CHARGE RESEARCH ASSISTANT | NOVEMBER 2018 - MAY 2019 Swarthmore College Office of Sustainability
In this position, I was tasked with auditing each individual academic department, measuring their square footage against the amount of their carbon emissions to accurately assess their contribution to the aggregated carbon emissions of the College.