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Ph.D. Candidate
My interest in Russia continues to grow as I look at the political and economic changes it has endured, and how they are reflected in public space. I received funding from Cornell to spend seven weeks in Moscow during the summer of 2009, with the intent of looking at relationships between urban horticulture and deindustrialization. While walking to the university on my first day, I noticed that the medians, sidewalks, and spaces between buildings were filled with vegetation. At the end of the street there was an active and well-kept park. I soon found amazing parks throughout the city, and began to wonder how they were established and maintained. These questions form the basis of my dissertation, which focuses on the policy behind Moscow's public park system. Based on a conceptual framework of urban political ecology, it integrates archival research, interviews, and assessments on the ground to examine how the system developed over time. I hope this study will contribute to environmental policy that improves upon the quality of life in cities.
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