Aminieli Hopson

Senior Sustainability Intern

Office of Sustainability

Aminieli James Hopson is a senior at the University of Connecticut’s School of Business studying Real Estate and Urban Economics with multidisciplinary passions for the intersection of International Business and Sustainable Economic Development. His multi-cultural background of growing up in 4 U.S. states on the North American East Coast, as well as Tanzania, East Africa has shaped his passion for the environment and cross-cultural collaboration.

 
Coming into university as a Yale Young Global Scholar with a focus on culture, philosophy, and development, provided Aminieli with a robust passion for SDG17 (Strategic Partnerships for the Goals) where he connected with students from 18 countries around the globe on critical discourse related to strategies for leadership, environmental justice, and economic development. His immediate coursework at the UConn School of Business, an exchange semester at Lund University’s School of Economics & Managment in Lund, Sweden, and the Universitas21 Global Citizenship Course provided Aminieli with a unique tool kit for how to incorporate financial/organizational strategy into regenerative design principles for the built & urban environment. Since joining the Office of Sustainability (OS)’s team as a student-intern in 2023, Aminieli has worn various leadership hats around UConn’s campus including acting as a Project Leader for the UConn Consulting Group where he led a research team for alternative food solutions in Finland, serving as the President of the 200-student Business Connections Learning Community from 2023-2024, and a student-mentor for National Association of Black Accountants (NABA) throughout the semesters. He’s been able to combine his multidisciplinary work with his learnings from his time at the OS to increase sustainability within these spaces on UConn’s campus. Aminieli looks forward to combining the takeaways from these experiences to a career that invests in the healthy development of livable infrastructure that promotes thriving communities and economic progress. He is incredibly grateful for this opportunity to attend UConn@COP30 and looks forward to using his foreign language skills to connect and learn more about this meaningful work from peers and professionals at an international level.