About Me
I’m a second year International Environmental Policy student here at Monterey Institue of International Studies. I’m interested in where food, business and conservation intersect, specifically through environmental education, protected areas and sustainable agriculture.
This is my fourth semester, and I’m taking the following classes:
- Natural Resource Project Management
- Sustainable Agriculture
- Ag/Water Nexus: Lessons from the Central Coast
- Analytica for Environmental Policy
- Cuba: Changing Course, Changing Times
Courses from my first three semesters:
- Conservation Project Design and Evaluation
- Conservation Management and Leadership
- Protected Area Policy
- GIS
- Environmental Conflict Management
- Environmental and Natural Resource Economics
- Quantitative Analysis for Business
- Business, Sustainability and Society
- Social Entrepreneurship
- Grants & Contracts
- Quantitative Methods for Environmental Science and Policy
- Public Policy and the Environment
- Research Strategies for Environmental Policy
- International Environmental Law and Politics
- Language: Spanish (x3)
Before starting at MIIS, I earned my BA in Environmental Studies & Biology from UC Santa Cruz. While at UCSC I worked at the Seymour Center at LML teaching school children, working on environmental curriculum and assisting with a variety of events and projects.
After graduation I worked at the Oakland Zoo in the Education and Conservation department, teaching field trips and educational programs, organizing events and developing curriculum. I worked in Rome, Italy for a year teaching English as a second language, enjoying the food and appreciating the history of the country. After my time in Europe I branched out, traveling and volunteering internationally with various organizations working on issues ranging from literacy to weaving collectives to wildlife rehabilitation in Lao PDR, Peru and Guatemala (respectively). While traveling I express myself through photography, in the form of social documentation and travel photographs, but back in California I work more in the culinary arts, and food photography.
I quickly realized that all my passions–food, art, women’s empowerment, and the environment–could come together but I needed a bit more rigorous curriculum to make that happen. Here at MIIS I’ve focused my course work on coastal agriculture, gender issues and how green businesses can connect these issues. Summer of 2012 I worked on seafood traceability with FishWise, which provided me with major insight into a whole different food system.
