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Tessa has worked in the field of environmental education with organizations such as Summit Land Conservancy and Conserve Utah Valley to help spread awareness and appreciation for the natural world. Tessa’s research in the Environmental Humanities focuses on environmental education as a method of fostering resiliency and connection in the face of climate change. Tessa’s thesis work combines accessible, digital education and experiential learning methods to encourage emotional resiliency and place-based sensory connection as a way to understand and confront eco-anxiety and climate grief.

Fiona's work at the University of Utah explores the intersections of Conservation Management and Restoration, Indigenous Methodologies, and Education while working at Antelope Island State Park. Her thesis will deconstruct the colonial narratives woven into State Park programming and collaborate with the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation to accurately depict the history of land acquisition, highlight their commitment to kinship beyond humans, and celebrate their long-standing relationship to the land. She believes centering the resilient voices and perspectives of Indigenous peoples are imperative to climate change adaptation.

Natalie Slater is a second year student and Mellon Community Engagement Fellow. In partnership with the nonprofit Art Access, Natalie created and is facilitating an artist collaborative called Embodied Ecologies that looks at environmental health issues in Salt Lake from the lenses of environmental justice and disability justice.

Maya Kobe-Rundio, Environmental Humanities master’s student, received one of the two Floyd O’Neil Fellowships for 2021-22. This fellowship will support her research related to the Greater Sage Grouse.

Anne Whitehouse is a recent graduate of the Environmental Humanities Graduate Program (December 2021). Last summer, Anne interned with Seven Canyons Trust, a local nonprofit dedicated to daylighting and restoring the impaired waterways of the Salt Lake Valley. Urban waterways was a theme of her thesis as well, which explored the relationships between women and urban waterways under colonial rule in Pak T’ae-won’s 1938 novel Scenes from Ch’ŏnggye Stream.