I am studying the connection between the criminal justice system and public school education system in America. As our current system stands, students are being punished so severely through punishment and explosion that it leads to their lack of success in completing education which leads to their involvement in the criminal justice system. My research focuses on how black students are punished disproportionately greater than their white counterparts which directly correlates to the huge population of black people making up the population of prison cells in America. This is known as the school to prison pipeline, a cycle which limits a students ability to get out the system resulting them to be incarcerated. Through my research, I am looking at disciplinary methods in public school systems and how their ineffectiveness leads to more people of color, specifically black students to eventually be removed from the school system. As of today, many of these practices have led to the continuous erasure of black students from the education system by placing them in the prison system.

LGBTQ+ students face overwhelmingly negative statistics in and out of school, here and across the world. Supportive teachers and the educational efforts they are involved in like GSAs (Gay Straight Alliance), inclusive curriculum, and specifically inclusive policies make significant positive effects on LGBTQ+ students. The teachers that can understand these students the most though are LGBTQ+ themselves. This project explores the following questions. 1. How do teachers who identify as LGBTQ+ interact with their public education system? 2. Do teachers who identify as LGBTQ+ feel supported in the daily work life and in their professional goals as teachers? 3. What insights do teachers who identify as LGTBQ+ have for their LGBTQ+ students? Through collaboration with various equity and educational leaders, primarily from Washington State and the UW College of Education, a Google Forms survey was created and shared through various digital platforms. Qualitative data was taken from the survey responses of 20 LGBTQ+ identifying teachers in the United States and 2 in China. Responses were analyzed using coding techniques where I deep read responses and categorized them by relationships and on a scale of trust. A majority of teachers were open about their identity and stated feeling supported by their schools. However, analysis revealed that most long answer text responses showed varying levels of mistrust: between teacher and faculty; teacher, student and the school community; as a factor of race and ethnicity; and learned from their life history from student to teacher. The suggested solutions are to recreate and implement discrimination and protective policies, curriculum, and space and face reforms that are specifically inclusive to the entire range of identities that LGBTQ+ individuals inhabit. Additionally, more research needs to be done in how policies and LGBTQ+ issues affect the symbiotic relationships between students and educators.

The goal of the present study is to explore barriers young Muslim girls face that prevent them from participating in sports and physical education , and to generate strategies to address these barriers. This has been accomplished using a mixed methods approach. First, we conducted a narrative review of extant literature about barriers to school sports and physical education by Muslim girls (grades K-12). Through this process we identified barriers at different levels of the social ecological framework-including those at the interpersonal, organizational, community and societal levels. Next, we conducted qualitative interviews and a focus group with members of this population (Muslim girls grades K-12), in which we sought to explore and discuss these findings. The goals of this qualitative component of the study are twofold. First, we seek to gain the perspective of experts (e.g., members of the population of interest) on the barriers identified through the narrative review. Second, we will generate potential strategies to address these barriers, from the perspective of members of this population. Thus far, emergent themes from the narrative review include: policies and rules ranging from inflexible dress codes, gender organization, public swimming and dancing, and the observance of the holy month of Ramadan. The broader goal of this research is to begin the process of including the voice of Muslim girls in research about their physical activity and sport participation, and to partner with them to suggest potential avenues for change to meet their perceived needs related to physical activity and sport.

At present, there is a disconnect between people’s awareness of environmental crises and their motivation to act on this knowledge. Novel ways of fostering a sense of connection with the environment are currently being explored to address this problem. Dance, among other artistic disciplines, has the potential to motivate pro-environmental actions because it appeals to people’s emotional centers through empathy-inducing experiences, community building, and non-traditional communication. Using some members of the Seattle dance community as a case study for environmental dance, this research explores whether and how environmental activism through dance is manifested in Seattle, barriers to engaging in environmental dance, and if current forms of environmental dance effectively motivate action. To execute this exploration, I will conduct several one-on-one semi-structured interviews with members of the local dance community; interviews will last between 0.5-2 hours. Interviewees will be selected to represent varying degrees of participation in environmental dance, from internationally recognized dance creatives to young entrepreneurs. These discussions will inform a qualitative analysis of how dance has or has not been used as tool for promoting environmental action locally. Based on relevant research and my 10+ years of involvement in the Seattle dance community, I predict that environmental dance will take on the forms of choreographic productions, site-specific explorations, embodied knowledge, sustainable practices in the arts, and collaborations between scientists and dancers. Through this research, I aim to promote a dialogue within and between the environmental science and dance communities, legitimizing dance as a way to make people care about environmental issues and inspiring further environmental dance endeavors beyond the scope of Seattle. 

Indigenous peoples for generations have been meticulously maintaining and enhancing lands previous to colonial influence. As explorers set eyes on the landscapes of the North America, they mistakenly ascribed these lands as wild. Much to our behold, this was the working of carefully crafted ecological practices based on long established knowledges and understandings about the land. This perspective is rooted in the profound relationship of responsibility the indigenous peoples have developed with their lands. These connections are imperative as we navigate towards an ecologically sound future. Currently we are displaced from nature, deprived of a meaningful relationship with our land. This inextricable linkage of people with the land is a fundamental oversight of current work in conservation. Ecological imperatives are guided by external entities and do not comprehensively weigh holistic perspectives of impacted communities. Decisions on ecological management have been established on limited contextualization and uncomprehensive assumptions of a select few. Acknowledging these shortcomings, we can then reintegrate an engagement with the land into our education and refocus on the individuals that are directly connected to environmental issues. Through the Pipeline project in our Environmental Alternative Spring Break program, I aim to develop a bottom-up methodology that engages with individuals in the community to constructively develop discussions around conservation of the Olympic Marmot. This investigation of land stewardship has substantial implications towards current ecological methodology of land management and environmental engagement.