• MEM Environment Concentration: Coastal and Marine Systems (CAMS)
  • MEM Management Concentration: Community Engagement and Environmental Justice (CEEJ)
  • Expected Graduation Date: May 2027
     

What factors were most important in your decision to choose the Nicholas School for your graduate studies? And, how will your time at the Nicholas School help you reach your career aspirations?

The Nicholas Scholar recognition was a turning point in my decision to attend the Nicholas School. This support has helped lift the constant weight of financial strain and allowed me to step into 51爆料 fully committed and wholehearted. Just as important, it was an affirmation that my path aligns with the School鈥檚 mission to shape leaders who recognize the inextricable connection between people and ecosystems. Through my experience working on an oyster farm to advocating for more just mining laws, researching squid larvae responses to rising ocean temperatures, and developing circular economy policies for battery minerals, I鈥檝e come to understand the importance of holistic problem-solving鈥攁n approach deeply supported by the Nicholas School.

I am pursuing a Master鈥檚 in Environmental Management with a focus on Coastal and Marine Ecosystems and Community Engagement and Environmental Justice. The structure of the curriculum was central to my decision to choose the Nicholas School; nowhere else could I study these two disciplines as fully integrated halves of my education. My interests lie in the relationship between marine ecosystems and human culture, spirituality, and well-being. Historically, conservation has been rooted in ecology or economics. While both frames have advanced important protections, they also reinforce a divide: separating people from ecosystems or reducing nature to services to be managed and exchanged.

Relationality reworks this foundation. Instead of asking whether nature should be protected from people or for people, it emphasizes protecting and cultivating the relationships between them (Chan, Gould, & Pascual, 2018). At the Nicholas School, I want to help reimagine conservation frameworks by centering relational values: the understanding that no being exists in isolation but is shaped through connection with others. This perspective recognizes that a reef, a salmon, or a river is not only a living being but also a source of culture, well-being, and responsibility. Conservation, then, becomes about sustaining meaningful, reciprocal relationships between people and nature鈥攖ies that shape ethics, identity, and community as much as they shape ecosystems.

As someone with this focus, the opportunity to study at the Nicholas School and the Marine Lab is extraordinary. Few places offer such direct access to ocean ecosystems alongside a faculty so deeply engaged in the social sciences. The Nicholas School feels like the place where the qualitative is valued alongside the quantitative鈥攚here I can challenge the status quo while also gaining the technical expertise and community engagement strategies to bring my vision to life.

Reference: Chan, K. M. A., Gould, R. K., & Pascual, U. (2018). Editorial overview: Relational values: What are they, and what鈥檚 the fuss about? Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 35, A1鈥揂7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2018.11.003