Student Sustainability Ambassadors

I have lived abroad in Singapore and Australia and am extremely passionate about travelling and discovering new cultures! Environmentalists and philanthropists have inspired me to contribute to our society’s well-being, whether it be environmentally or socially. I have been involved in UNESCO, as well as Amnesty International where I was able to help individuals directly in my community and internationally.

My grandma inspired me to be sustainable. She had he own veggie garden, always shopped locally at the market, only walks or buses everywhere, sews her own clothes, is vegetarian, a big animal love, and volunteered at a church thrift shop. I am an adventurous eater! I would be down for weird food combinations. I also speak 4 languages.

My inspiration for sustainability comes from my roots in my hometown in India, where little things like reusing pickle jars and using sal or banana leaves instead of plastic plates are inbuilt into our cultural practices. Often side-lined, I have come to cherish these practices and bring them to light! 

My father’s love for nature and taking care of the natural world inspired me since childhood to hold environmental sustainability deep in my heart.

I have lived abroad in Singapore and Australia and am extremely passionate about travelling and discovering new cultures! Environmentalists and philanthropists have inspired me to contribute to our society’s well-being, whether it be environmentally or socially. I have been involved in UNESCO, as well as Amnesty International where I was able to help individuals directly in my community and internationally.

Visiting family in the Dominican Republic taught me a lot about how people from different countries can employ sustainable practices in their environment, where they succeed and where they fall short. Through this program I hope to employ the best of both worlds into my own life and community.

I love being active my everyday life from indoor to outdoor sports. I’m currently a forward on the Concordia Women’s Rugby team. Go Stingers !

My older sister has always been interested in environmental issues. She helped me understand why I should care about sustainability. I used to have two pet lizards. My sustainable hack is that if your compost bin takes up space, put it in your freezer! I use a reusable container and put the compost bag inside it.

As a kid, my parents were super into nature and we would go hiking all the time. My family are bird geeks. I felt very connected to nature and my parents always enforced sustainable practices at home like conserving water and electricity.

I got lost in the Amazon Rainforest. I had not realized the lack of connection I had with nature until this happened. I realized this was because I hadn’t given nature agency, its own voice. I just took it for granted as if it were just a space that was completely outside of myself. This experience allowed me to realize nature is within me and I am with her. We are interconnected a whole and the fact I wasn’t taking care of her allowed me to take action and see sustainability as self-care practice. Taking care of the environment is nourishing your soul as you are interconnected with it and every decision you make has an impact not only in her but in yourself as well.

The first things that inspired me to be sustainable were learning to compost at a young age and growing chilis with my mum

I first connected with sustainability in my college/CEGEP course called “Knowing What to Eat”. Connecting something I really loved – food – to global issues opened a new facet of sustainability to me. The small choices I had taken for granted in the past now seem monumental. All of a sudden, I realized that an important part of my lifestyle affected farmers and the environment. This sparked a desire to meaningfully contribute to reducing food.

Someone who inspires me to be sustainable is every small kid I see because I want them to be able to group up in a clean and diverse world and not have to suffer from climate anxiety or be in need because of what people did before they were born.

The thing that inspires me to be more sustainable is my cat, Pickle. Pickle takes more than he needs. Be better than Pickle; only take what you need.

I grew up in Bethesda, Maryland. Throughout my childhood, I had the joy of wandering through creeks and ponds. Eventually, the community helped fund our “Discovery Creek”, where we, as the community’s children, were introduced to the wildlife in our local ecosystem. I hope to use what I have learned to continue to inspire dignity and respect throughout our communities and ecosystems.

Someone who inspired me to take part in sustainability is my chemistry high school teach. She would always dedicate some time of the lessons to explain environmental issues from a chemistry perspective. We then started an initiative of recycling paper, cardboard, and plastic. It was really nice to see people starting to get more interested in their involvement. One of the best ways to be more sustainable is to reduce or stop the consumption of meat, which is also great for animal justice ! My grandparents’ lifestyle also inspired me to be more sustainable and connected to nature itself.

I was motivated to get engaged in sustainability because, in my opinion, it is a way to give back and express gratitude to our Planet Earth for all the benefits we receive from it to survive each and every day. Replacing all the light bulbs in the world with energy-efficient ones could save around $127 billion each year! To put that into perspective, it’s estimated that it would take around $330 Billion to end world hunger. Solving one problem could lead to solving another one! Washing my clothes in cold water is a sustainability hack I personally employ because it not only conserves energy but also makes the clothes last longer.

My bachelor thesis project was my aim inspiration for me to get started with environmental science where I found how to make biocolours from natural sources for bioplastic colouring. Gradually, I learned about sustainability and started writing blog posts which encouraged the reuse and recycling of materials. Plant-rich diets reduce emissions and tend to be healthier, leading to lower rates of chronic disease. My doctoral thesis focuses on finding new antibiotic hybrids using computers. To solve one of the pressing global health issues known as “Antibiotic Resistance”.