These are some paths I’ve walked.

Climate Renaissance (2025)

Yale's Summer Environmental Fellowship & Leitner International Research and Internship Fellowship

Galicia, Spain

Explored how key features of the Renaissance—its interplay of religious inquiry, scientific discovery, governance, and artistic exploration—can guide climate discussions today. Walked 400km of the Camino de Santiago interviewing pilgrims on climate ethics, lived in a Trappist monastery studying ritual as ethical language, and supported a “guerrilla artfare” project in Galicia examining art's role in mobilizing public will against deforestation.  Developed a framework for artist-mediated cultural diplomacy, integrating visual and emotional intelligence into climate dialogue.

Environmental Trauma and Healing (2024)

Yale's Stacy L. Sanders Memorial Fellowship & Leitner International Research and Internship Fellowship

Geneva, Switzerland & Fukuoka, Japan

Examined how war and Western influence reshaped ecological consciousness across Eastern and Western traditions. Organized an NGO general assembly at the United Nations in Geneva on demilitarization and environmental protection, coordinating with the Polish Embassy to secure the participation of President Lech Wałęsa. Conducted field research across Japan, interviewing Buddhist monks, a yogini, and a rural beekeeper on embodied ecological knowledge and how Western influence and war recovery post WWII have changed the passing down of environmental traditions. Became the US ambassador for Japanese bee-building workshops, expanding the presence of the beekeeper I met, promoting environmental learning, and an independent understanding of what it means to heal from disaster. Produced a body of paintings, Nature’s Mother, which considered the clash between Western and Eastern cultural understandings of nature.

Grassroots or Sky? (2023)

Yale's Richter Fellowship, John E. Linck Fellowship

Geneva, Switzerland & Sardinia, Italy

Investigated the gap between multilateral climate governance and lived ecological practice. Produced a research thesis at the School for International Training and the World Trade Organization in Geneva over three months, analyzing how international trade policy and green market mechanisms can be leveraged for climate action — and where social justice considerations are crowded out by market logic. Then spent a month in Italy to test that analysis against its opposite: lived in a convent community, serving as chef and sourcing exclusively from convent-grown ingredients, learning sustainability as a place-based, relational, and spiritual practice rather than an economic problem. The juxtaposition (WTO negotiating rooms in Geneva, a convent kitchen in rural Italy) became the methodological core of the fellowship, and a lasting question in my practice: what gets lost when environmental stewardship is translated into policy?