What are your combined majors/minors?
My primary major is a university major for environmental and ecological design and engineering. It’s linked with environmental studies and I have a minor in IDEAS.
Can you tell me about your university major? How you created it, what drew you to it, and what it consists of?
I was originally in earth and environmental science. I liked it but some of the requirements were just not going to be helpful for what I wanted to do, and I wouldn’t be able to take other classes that would be more helpful. IDEAS wasn’t a major yet—now, it’s the College of Design and Engineering Studies. So, there was no major that let you build stuff, and I wanted to build stuff. That’s why I made the university major. It’s been super fun and I haven’t had to take too many classes that I don’t want to, so I recommend it.
Can you tell me about your senior thesis project? I know you were working on new forms of beekeeping but I would love to know more!
I designed and built a new kind of beehive that I designed with a lot of biomimicry in mind. It’s made out of a 400-pound hickory log that I hollowed out, and I cut a big access door out of it, and outfitted it with a hive sensor and a whole bunch of other stuff. I coated the entire inside with propolis and beeswax and all this other stuff. So, basically, I’ve made a beehive out of a massive log that’s also an observational apiary and currently has about 20,000 very happy inhabitants and a lot of honeycomb.
What drew you to this project?
I like bees; that’s the main reason. But as I’m sure most people in the Bailey College of Environment know, bees are in trouble and have been in trouble and will continue to be in trouble for a while. Colony Collapse Disorder is a real problem that’s taken all of our bees out. And even though honeybees are invasive, we’ve become so incredibly dependent on them that they’re their keystone now. If they don’t make it, we are all in a lot of trouble and our crops are in a lot of trouble. We need to come up with some sort of better solution. The hives that we’ve designed, our current designs, are really made more for people than they are for the bees. And every winter, we lose half of all of our managed hives, and then people are like, ‘oh, I wonder why that happened?’ Maybe because you stuffed them in a plywood box. That’s my thesis.
Going back to the environmental studies major. Do you have a favorite class that you’ve taken during your time here?
Maybe my favorite class I’ve ever taken was Ecologies of Attention: Bio-Semiosis, Attunement, and Ethics, with Professor Elise Springer. It was a philosophy seminar. It was really, really fun. Almost every class we did outside. There were always snacks. And the conversation was always top tier and every book was just phenomenal. A tie is probably any of Christian Nakarado’s classes, because he let me build stuff.
What originally drew you to the environmental studies linked major?
That’s a really good question. I always knew I wanted to do something with environmental studies and sustainability. And, then, like many people, Helen Poulos just kind of popped up out of nowhere. And here I am.
As you’re wrapping up your time as an environmental studies linked major here at Wes, do you have any advice for people who are just starting out, or who are interested?
I think that anybody starting out should definitely look at all the major options and all the requirements. If you don’t like what you find, then just make your own. It’s the best way to go, in my opinion. But I think my main advice would just be to try all the random silly things and all the weird things. Because there are a lot of weird classes I took because they seemed like they’d be weird and interesting, and then they turned into something really awesome. I took the ethics class I mentioned because I thought, ‘what a weird name.’ That was literally the only reason that half of us joined, and it turned out to be the best class I’ve ever taken. The Bailey College of the Environment is just an awesome place with a lot of awesome events. We have all these different speakers and different opportunities to learn outside of the classroom. I don’t think everybody takes full advantage of the opportunities, but they definitely should.
Can you talk a little bit about Cultivating Justice and how you got involved?
I guess I’m technically a founding member. We started Cultivating Justice because it was discovered that at the time, in 2020, only 1.8% of all registered farmers in Connecticut were listed as being non-white. And those stats definitely bothered us. So the whole goal is to cultivate the next generation of young farmers, BIL POC farmers. We provide people with access to things they typically wouldn’t have in their communities. A lot of communities don’t have access to nature or don’t have community gardens. We’re working right now with the Miller Street Bridge Street Community, situated underneath the Portland Bridge. They’re landlocked by the highway and two railroads, and they’re underneath the bridge. So the entire area is contaminated with lead. We try to go and help the community because the government is really not about doing anything to support that neighborhood. And, in fact, technically the entire neighborhood is condemned, which I did not know you can do. We try to just generally help out the community and provide access to nature.
Anything else you want to add or highlight?
My spotlight is that I got an award from the Bailey College of the Environment governance board. They gave me the Robert Schumann Award for Distinguished Environmental Stewardship for my thesis project.
Do you have any plans to do similar work, post grad?
This summer I’m going to be researching my log hive and I also moved bees into a typical Langstroth box that same day, and gave them a sensor, too. So all summer I’m pretty much going to be researching the effectiveness of my hive versus the Langstroth hive. Other than that, I’m going to be working with Cultivating Justice a lot. And I’ve been building two more massive garden beds on Miller Street Community Farm, so I’m going to be leading a farm and forestry camp with Fire Ring Farms. Generally, just staying outside! I do technically have a business now and I’m a registered apiarist. Hopefully, I’ll be building lots of cool things for lots of cool people and, fingers crossed, teaching people all about bees. I have plans to build one more log hive this summer. That’s my plan.