Note: Written in March 2024 for a Southeast Asian Economics course at UC San Diego's School of Global Policy and Strategy — the second policy paper I submitted for the course that quarter, the first being on digital trafficking. Wildlife trafficking generates an estimated $7-10 billion annually and is deeply entangled with poverty, corruption, and the same criminal networks behind other forms of illegal trade. The paper argues that enforcement-only approaches are not only ins

A graduate capstone project for a Strategy and Negotiation course, completed in late 2023. The concept was strong. The team dynamics were not. I'll leave it at that Every graduate program has at least one group project that teaches you more about managing people than about the actual subject matter. This was one of mine. The assignment was a strategic analysis and forward-looking recommendation for a major corporation. Our team chose IBM — a company that has spent the better

What drew me to the women and walkability question was straightforward: safety in public space is something I think about, and something that urban development has historically failed to design around. The research is clear — from the age of eight, public spaces are dominated by boys to eighty percent, and girls report feeling significantly more excluded. That gap doesn't close as women age; it calcifies.

After my HighEcology concept was selected to move forward, I developed the final project with a partner (name redacted for privacy) for VIS 162, spring 2022. Where the solo pitch was impressionistic, this one was grounded in actual climate data for San Diego County. The stakes got more concrete — and so did the proposals. Get it? Concrete! The solo pitch started with a feeling — the texture of a future city, its bees and holograms and repurposed concrete. The final project st

Speculative design courses produce a lot of ideas that never go anywhere. That is not a failure of the form — it is the point. The value is in the generating, the articulating, the moment of writing something down and discovering whether it has enough internal logic to survive a sentence. Some of these went further than others. All of them are mine (some inspired from external sources), and here they are.

The solo concept pitch I developed for VIS 162 — a speculative futures and sustainability course — during my junior year, spring 2022. My idea was selected to move forward into a team final project, which became its own iteration. This is where it started -- and honestly, I think the idea has real viability. An overwhelming feeling of closeness. Everywhere I walk, it permeates, oozing saturated colors and blue screens amidst an occasional chirp from a passerby. The air feels