Hope Dymond

Hope is currently a sophomore studying Environmental Engineering with a minor in Human Rights. She came to UConn from Common Ground, an ecologically themed high school in New Haven, which gave her a background in topics of environmental justice and food production. At UConn she interns at the Office of Sustainability, working with technical aspects of energy efficiency such as LEED building design, as well as social awareness programs such as the Green Office Certification program and other outreach. Hope is taking a course through the CT Brownfields Initiative at UConn where she is learning about environmental policy, remediation engineering, and the multidisciplinary aspects of brownfield transformation. In the fall she and three other students are writing an EPA grant for the city of Middletown, and in the spring she will do her “practicum” with a town on a Brownfields project. She is also an undergraduate researcher for Dr. Christine Kirchhoff, who is analyzing both the barriers and drivers of resiliency action in coastal Connecticut towns. Hope believes that in her very technical engineering program, it is necessary and beneficial to step out into the world of social sciences. Engineers may design solar panel systems, or carbon capture technologies, but the policy framework can be critical to their actual implementation. There is a history and an art to international relations, around environmental issues and beyond, that Hope knows little about. That is where she is drawn to learn more.