Despite not fully knowing what she wanted to do or what she was getting into at times, Reva has used her opportunities to better understand her talents and skills through the process of returning to graduate school and making decisions that directed her towards what she is doing today. While Reva shared that access to science programs as a young person fueled her intellectual curiosity and decisions, she also recognized the imbalance when it comes to valuing STEM over other areas of study: “I do think there is a socially reinforced situation where if your child is good at a STEM field and they’re interested in it, you should keep that kid in STEM because that is a “superior” field to be in and it makes money.”

 

About quitting her job at Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, MI she said, “It opened up a world of choices that I am still navigating,”. Asking her how she feels about what she is studying now, she replied, “Where I had previously narrowed down where I hoped my path would go from age ten to twenty-five…choosing the next step in a sequence and only starting to take a step or two outside after college, it’s felt like I have jumped off the hopscotch. Turns out, there are actually a lot of intersecting causes in the world to understand and support. What among them?”

 

The people Reva has met along the way in her academic and professional career have  been the biggest avenue of changing the way she looks at things and how to challenge herself more as a critical thinker. “Since I was very little, I think I was celebrated a lot and put into spaces of privilege… I think the “STEM supremacy” I grew up around is something that I feel very keen to counter now, especially in the class I’m teaching because… I almost want to debunk the superiority that experts, especially in quantitative fields, carry.” Reva expressed a core value of hers is challenging the ways society celebrates all people, especially young people, by creating a hierarchy based on their abilities, accomplishments, and access to opportunities, and she sees herself confronting this power dynamic on a larger level. Reva credits the diverse experiences she has had as allowing her to be more in touch with her values of being self-reflective and practicing humility.

 

As a graduate student, Reva finds herself in the environment of collaborating with others. She has been challenged to ask more questions about the ways in which we should act collectively to respond to climate change issues, moving away from the paternalism which frames individual climate solutions and agents, especially in the Global North and elite institutions, as holding the key – as was a common mindset in Reva’s previous academic environments. When it comes to developing climate change solutions, some stakeholders are listened to more than others and Reva hopes to make this process of protecting the environment we all inhabit a more just transition that recognizes power dynamics and is more interconnected in its approach.

 

When I asked about the loneliness epidemic Reva expressed, “I think the loneliness epidemic is real…it’s almost a truism in social justice or environmental justice spaces that community is essential and place is inseparable from the work you do or how people understand themselves.” Reva expressed that these reflections on place are important because not everyone feels intrinsically connected to land and that those relationships are complex but important to discuss to better understand human wellbeing and connection.

 

Reva communicated that impacts of climate change and the ways in which we respond to them are rightfully emotionally charged because everyone has a different relationship to the environment that is shaped by the intersectionality of their identities and factors they cannot control. Reva believes that every day can be a challenge to better understand or reflect deeper about our role in impacting the spaces we are intrinsically a part of, but have different types of connectedness to.