lfranklin – coexist

senior spotlight: lea schaffer ’24

What majors or minors did you combine with environmental studies?
I’m a biology and environmental studies major.

Why did you decide to become an environmental studies major?
I actually transferred to Wesleyan University for my junior year. Part of what interested me in transferring is that I was coming from a school that was just doing hard sciences and biology. I wanted to get a better understanding of its applications in the world, and I thought the environmental studies program was a very good way for me to see, especially in terms of sustainability, the impacts and the larger picture.

Can you tell me about your senior project?
I’m doing an essay that has to do with wastewater management and climate change. So, what is wastewater management? How does it function? And what are the problems with it? And how does climate change exacerbate it?

Why did you choose that topic?We have these family friends that my dad has worked with that has this really cool company called Clean Two that does septic tanks that have a process to denitrify the waste. So I learned all about why it was needed. It was placed near Cape Cod in Massachusetts, where they have a huge nitrogen problem in the water and all of it comes from wastewater. It’s kind of a solution to that. That got me interested in wastewater in general, and kind of understanding how climate change makes things more important in that matter.

senior spotlight: amy smith ’24

by lfranklin

Hey, Amy! What majors or minors did you decide to link with environmental studies during your time here?
I’m majoring in environmental studies and biology, and minoring in IDEAS.

What drew you to those majors?
I came into college, knowing that I wanted to study biology. I grew up on a farm in a pretty rural area, so I always had a strong connection with nature. That’s the same thing that drew me to environmental studies. In terms of IDEAS, I took a mechanical design class my first semester of college, and just like really loved the creative aspect of it. Being able to do hands-on work, as opposed to a lot of my bio classes at that time that were just purely lecture based classes. I really liked the interactive aspect of it.

So what did you do for your senior project?
I did a thesis, I worked with a lab at UMass Boston that I interned with last summer. The lab is focused on marine ecology. The project was looking at how different environmental changes are impacting kelp populations and we found that nitrate concentrations and sea surface temperature are primary environmental drivers of kelp population decline in the northwestern Atlantic. So on the coast of Connecticut, Boston, and up towards Nova Scotia.

senior spotlight: katie yin ’24

by lfranklin

Hi, Katie! What are your majors and how have you combined them here at Wes?
My double major is economics and environmental studies. My interest in environmental studies started because I grew up in China during the time when pollution was much worse than it is today. I really wanted to do something about it, so that got me interested in my high school’s environmental organizations. And that interest continued in college. Then, later on, I chose to major in economics because I learned about the carbon cap and trade systems and the carbon tax. And I feel that if we want to solve our environmental issues, we need to look out how they’re intertwined with our economic system.

senior spotlight: meera nemali ’24

by lfranklin

What are your majors?
I am an environmental studies and anthropology major.

Tell us about your capstone project!
I did my capstone paper last semester through an anthropology class called From Metropolis to Megalopolis (ANTH249). I wrote my capstone about how urban planning and city infrastructure can worsen environmental disasters and the ways in which we can sustainably plan our cities in the future. I don’t really know if there’s a way to prevent these disasters, but there are ways to prevent further damage in cities.

senior spotlight: sloane dzhitenov ’24

by lfranklin

Hi, Sloane! What are your majors and where are you from?
I’m a triple major, which is crazy. I’m a film and environmental studies major and also an economic major. And I’m from Massachusetts.

Outside of academics, what else are you involved in on campus?
Film takes up most of my free time. I try to make as many movies as I can. I also run Intercut, which is the film and TV magazine on campus. Those are honestly my main extracurriculars at the end of the day

senior spotlight: serena levingston ’24

by lfranklin

Hi, Serena! What are your majors here at Wes?
My majors are environmental studies and feminist, gender, and sexuality studies.

What sort of intersection have you found between those two majors?
I think there’s the ecofeminism aspect, looking at how the ways people treat earth seem to mirror the ways people treat women and marginalized people. I’ve taken a lot of classes that focus on the effects of colonialism and western imperial thought on the earth and people.

What are you doing for your senior project?
I wrote a capstone essay last semester in the FGSS Department that was focused on endocrine disruptors, which are a class of chemical compounds that includes things like BPA and parabens. I wrote about how such things are talked about in mainstream media narratives, what that shows about cultural fears, and how that can be applied to broader rhetoric around environmental effects. So, for example, there’s a lot of panic around the effects of endocrine disruptors on reproduction. So I looked at things like who is panicking and who does it actually affect? And I found that the people who are panicking are not necessarily the ones who are affected by it.

senior spotlight: alberto lopez ’24

by lfranklin

Our 33 class of 2024 ENVS linked majors have primary majors in 15 different departments, from film to government to feminist, gender and sexuality to chemistry. This diversity reflects the deep and widespread interest in environmental issues on the Wesleyan campus and our incredibly fertile coexist community! Alberto Lopez ’24 is a government and environmental studies major from Texas. Learn more about Alberto, below!