Steve Dolph is a Ph.D. candidate in Spanish at the University of Pennsylvania. He works on Iberian and transatlantic literature and human ecology in the early modern period. His current research examines representations of ecological crisis in Renaissance Spain, with a focus on landscapes and ethics in the pastoral literature of the early 17th century. Follow his work at stevedolph.com

Carolyn Fornoff, Ph.D. candidate in Spanish & Portuguese, is completing work on her dissertation,Species Sadness: Sex, Politics and Nonhuman Creativity in Latin America. This project traces narratives of human-animal kinship in twentieth century Mexico and Central America. It takes the nahual—the Mesoamerican belief that each human individual is linked to an animal counterpart—as its starting point to explore how intimacy between humans and animals constitutes a mechanism through which writers and artists reconfigure normative ways of being ‘human.’ Carolyn is the PPEH Program Coordinator for 2015-2016.

Jess Holler is a PhD. student in English Literature at Penn, and a MA student in Folk Studies, Public Sector-track, at Western Kentucky University. Her work combines archival research on the history and print culture of sustainable agriculture and grassroots environmental activism in the U.S., 1930s-1960s, with activist cultural documentation and applied, community folklore practice bridging contemporary non-profit work in environment, food justice and sustainable agriculture with local history. She is deeply invested in community-based public folklore and public history programming. Jess is currently conducting fieldwork on the role of personal experience narrative documentation in non-profit food access outreach with the VeggieSNAPs program in Columbus, Ohio, and interning at the Ohio History Connection to help develop education, outreach, oral history and collections digitization projects related to the history of conservation, environmental education and organic farming in Ohio. 

Patricia Eunji Kim is PhD Candidate in the History of Art department, where she specializes in Greek and Hellenistic art and archaeology. Her dissertation on Hellenistic period royal women considers the visual culture of queens through postcolonial and ecofeminist frameworks, while engaging various theories of gender and the body. Patricia's broader research interests include issues of cross-cultural interaction, gendered power dynamics, and landscape in the Hellenistic period. She is also interested in public education, curatorial work, and cultural heritage issues--all of which have helped shape PPEH collaborations and projects.  Follow her work at www.patriciaekim.com and tweet her @kallixeinos. 

Ruben Post is a third year Ancient History graduate student. He is interested in the connections between climate, ecology, economics, and society in the ancient Greek world. He has presented conference papers on the connection between ecology, agriculture, and food in ancient Greece as well as on integrating palaeoclimatological and archaeological evidence from the ancient Mediterranean world. In preparation for his dissertation he is currently working on a project addressing the role of environmental determinism and climate change in modern historiography on the ancient Greek world.

Brooke Stanley is a Ph.D. candidate in English at the University of Pennsylvania. She works on postcolonial ecocriticism and contemporary fiction, particularly southern African. Her specific interests include food politics, indigeneity, farming, and land distribution questions. Her current research addresses nationalism and transnationalism in environmentalisms.

Kasey Toomey is a dual-degree Masters candidate in Fine Arts and Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. His visual practice ranges from sculptural and installation work to public space design. His current inquiry is into the constructedness of our contemporary environment and how that is expressed in film and built form. 

Fatima Zahra is in the Ph.D. program at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) and is a research associate for the International Literacy Institute at Penn. Fatima holds an M.S.Ed. in International Educational Development from Penn. She has worked as a development consultant and M&E specialist on various projects concerning children’s education and health, the use of mobile technologies for educational development, economic empowerment of adolescents and adults, parental and community involvement, and citizenship education. She has worked with organizations such as Save the Children, Glasswing, BRAC and UNESCO, and with the Ministries of Education of Bangladesh and Uganda. Fatima is currently leading a project on farmers’ education in the northern part of Bangladesh. She works with the farmers to promote education for productivity and sustainable agricultural development.

Ayla Fudala (C'16) is interested in combining her two passions, writing and the environment. She has studied microclimatology in the Peruvian Amazon, ocean acidification in the Indian Ocean, and is now writing her thesis onthe organic farming movement in Hong Kong.

Shams Haidari (C’16) is a Political Science and History double major, interested in Middle Eastern governance, energy production, and energy trade. Her Honors Thesis for Political Science explores the Abu Dhabi state energy firm’s investment in European gas markets and attempts to understand the broader role of state energy firms. Outside of her coursework, Shams enjoys photography, travel, and Arabic poetry.

Aviva Rosen (C'18) is an aspiring Communications major and Creative Writing minor from Philadelphia. As a member of the Jewish Penn Environmental Group, her efforts to promote environmentalism and sustainability has been met with enthusiasm, apathy and even hostility. Through extensive interviews with religious environmentalists and surveys of her religious peer, she hopes to uncover what it is that drives religious millennials to care about the environment in the hopes of inspiring others to lead environmentally conscious lifestyles.