Meet One of the First Graduates of the Environment and Sustainability Undergraduate Degree

On a beach in the Yucatán Peninsula in summer 2023, Diane Li (C'26) remembers looking up and seeing countless stars. She couldn't stop looking.

"I saw nature like never before," she said. "I can still close my eyes and imagine the night sky that I saw on the beach there. "I'd never seen so many stars in the sky."

At the time, Li was coming off her first year at Georgetown and an experiential learning course focused on sustainability in Mexico for two weeks. Li was originally set to study sociology at Georgetown, but that starry night on the beach and her time in the Yucatán made her rethink her academic trajectory and nudged her toward environmental issues.

Nearly three years later, Li is preparing to graduate from Georgetown as part of the first cohort of the Environment & Sustainability degree. The joint program between the Earth Commons and the College of Arts & Sciences offers students an interdisciplinary and experiential education that combines environmental science, policy, culture and justice.

A Defining Trip to the Yucatán

Li grew up in Montgomery County, Maryland. She chose Georgetown to meet people from all over the world and learn from diverse perspectives.

"I was seeking something new, talking to people from all different backgrounds, finding new ways of thinking and ways people were raised," she said.

In the Yucatán, Li discovered those new perspectives as part of a new experiential learning class offered by the Earth Commons: Ecology, Culture and Sustainability in the Yucatán.

Over the course of two weeks, she and her classmates explored the region's ecology, sustainability and culture. Li also completed a project examining community-based ecotourism in the region.

"It was life-changing. Even though it was a quick experience, it definitely had a lasting impression," she said.

During the trip, Li also learned about the new interdisciplinary degree on the environment and sustainability. Just a few weeks later, Li switched her major, joining the program's inaugural cohort.

For Li, the degree represents a major milestone for her family. Her parents came from low-income families and immigrated to the U.S. before Li was born. They told Li they had worked hard to get to the U.S. so she could pursue her dreams. In the new program, Li felt like she was doing just that.

"I already had such an incredible experience in this study abroad program, and it felt like that was just a tiny window into what this major and experience could offer," she said. "Growing up with parents who did not have the luxury to choose what they could study, I feel like that is what this major stood for and what made me really excited."

Studying the Environment in Downtown DC and Abroad

When she first joined the program, Li was interested in environmental conservation and how to support communities affected by climate change. Through her major, she took interdisciplinary classes, met with professors with different expertise and interned at multiple organizations, all of which helped narrow her focus in the fields of environment and sustainability.

Over time, Li found her passion for the intersection of museum science, the environment and sustainability.

During her junior year, she interned at the Natural History Museum of Crete in Greece with some funding from Earth Commons. At the museum, Li studied barn owls and the bones of the small mammals that the birds consume and regurgitate, like mice, rats and even small bats. The research helps map where small-mammal populations live in the Mediterranean and how they shift in response to a changing environment.

Li also spent the spring semester of her junior year abroad in Tokyo, Japan. At Waseda University, she connected with a Japanese classmate who has a family member living near Li's family in Maryland and teaches ikebana, a Japanese floral art form Li had always been interested in. The connection ultimately inspired Li's capstone project for the environment and sustainability major.

"I love ikebana. I love flowers," she said. "I thought, why don't I have that as my capstone? It feels like the universe is trying to tell me something."

Over her senior year, Li has researched how flower arranging practices shape people's perceptions of nature. She's currently interviewing people interested in flower arranging to understand their motivations and how the hobby has shaped their views of nature.

"We go out to seek these flowers and spend $10 to buy materials to arrange a bouquet," she said. "If that changes the way we think about flowers, how does it change the way we think about nature? Does it build a deeper connection? Can we be more sustainable if we feel connected?"

Over the last year, Li has been living and studying at the Capitol Campus. She said she appreciates having easy access to places like Chinatown, Union Station and the city's plentiful museums. Living downtown also allowed Li to bike to her internship, which is a credit-bearing requirement of the major.

In the fall, Li interned with DPR Communal Farms, which is a part of the DC Department of Parks and Recreation. She worked across three different urban farms in DC, helping harvest crops, distribute food to needy community members and conduct maintenance.

Li said she's grown close with other students in her environment and sustainability major and appreciates the small, tight-knit cohort. She's also grateful for the mentorship program Earth Commons facilitates between undergraduates in her program and graduate students in the Environment and Sustainability Management program.

One of the hallmarks of the program for Li has also been the small class sizes. In her Environmental Communications class last semester at the Capitol Campus, she was one of four students, which gave her a richer educational experience, she said.

"When you get more attention like that, when you have smaller class sizes, you get to know your professors and develop much deeper relationships with the professor and other students in the class."

But what stands out the most to Li about her program is how it's encouraged her to view the world differently through the lens of sustainability. In one of the major's intro classes, Li remembers her professor, Randall Amster, saying something that has stuck with her ever since.

"Professor Randall asked the question of how we can be well in an unwell world. This question of how to be well in an unwell world innately ties with sustainability," she said. "We have an intense culture here at Georgetown, but this major gives me a chance to just take a breath and have a different way of viewing the world and caring for myself and others that I don't think I would have necessarily gotten from other classes."