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Global Studies
School of Global Studies and Languages

Hear from Graduate Students

Graduate Student Veronica Garcia

Veronica Garcia,  Fall 2021

Veronica Garcia is a Chicana from sunny Los Angeles, California. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of California, Irvine where she double-majored in Psychology and Criminology, Law, and Society. During her time at UCI, Veronica was a peer educator for UCI’s mental health counseling center where she planned and facilitated mental health workshops to support students through stressful times. She was also involved in research concerning experiences of transgender women in prisons for men within the California prison system. After realizing she wanted to work at the grassroots level, Veronica joined the Peace Corps as a Youth Development Volunteer in Costa Rica. She lived in a small indigenous community near the Caribbean coast with a homestay family which continues to stay in touch with Veronica and calls her their hija adoptiva. Throughout her time there, Veronica co-implemented programs ranging mental health, sex education, gender empowerment, restorative practices, and arts and recreation. Following the Peace Corps evacuation due to COVID-19, Veronica continued working with Latin American communities at a non-profit that provides unaccompanied youth migrants with an immigration attorney so they do not have to navigate the US immigration system alone. This experience sparked Veronica’s interest in migration studies and she is now applying her experiences and passions to her research. Veronica’s thesis project focuses on barriers to healthcare access among indigenous migrant women in Oregon. At the University of Oregon, Veronica is a Coverdell Fellow and a Promising Scholar Award recipient. She is not sure where she will end up after graduate school, but she is certain she will continue working closely with Latin American communities.

Graduate Student Anastasia Grigoreva

Anastasia Grigoreva, Fall 2021

Anastasia grew up in a small Siberian town in Russia. When she was 17, she received a state scholarship sponsoring her BA studies in Linguistics and Intercultural Communication at St. Petersburg State University. One of her major dreams was to go abroad to a Spanish or English-speaking country to improve her language skills. This dream finally came true in 2017 when she joined the AIESEC Global Talent program to do a professional internship as a teacher in Colegio Americano Anáhuac, Monterrey (Mexico). This experience turned out to be life-changing on both a personal and professional level. As part of this program, Anastasia got to work with students with learning disabilities and behavior and emotional disorders, learning about their struggles firsthand and realizing that the current system of education is not designed to accommodate these types of learners. The experience reinforced Anastasia’s passion for teaching and opened her eyes to the possibilities of making a change through education, in and beyond the classroom. Fascinated by Mexico, she went on exploring adult education and obtained a work permit. At the same time, Anastasia started a traineeship at the United Nations Information Center, which further catalyzed her passion to pursue a career in international development.

Now at the UO, Anastasia is focusing on studying disability, education, and childhood from the global perspective while also pursuing a graduate certificate in nonprofit management. Her research centers on the impact of civil society on inclusive education in Mexico, and she already received a grant to do fieldwork in Mexico City in summer 2022. Moving forward, Anastasia would like to continue her work in Mexico both in academia and as part of a nonprofit organization. She hopes that this work will allow her to further contribute to inclusive education and make some positive social changes happen.

Graduate Student Skyler Humphrey-Davis

Skyler Humphrey-Davis, Fall 2021

Skyler Davis received her undergraduate degree in Finance from Southern Adventist University, graduating in 2020. At the University of Oregon, her concentration within the Department of Global Studies is focused on International Community Development. Skyler is also pursuing a certificate in Nonprofit Management from the School of Planning, Public Policy, and Management.

Skyler’s research interests are situated in the interconnection between BIPOC communities and outdoor wilderness spaces. Through her research, Skyler is looking to explore how BIPOC community members within the Pacific Northwest explore, experience, realize their right to outdoor spaces, and the organizations facilitating BIPOC community members’ participation in outdoor adventure activities.

Upon completion of her master’s Skyler plans to pursue a career in Social and Community Impact within Outdoor/Athletic brands while also creating visual media through photography/cinematography highlighting the experiences of BIPOC individuals in outdoor spaces.

Graduate student Tara Olson

Tara Olson, Fall 2021

Tara is excited to be a master’s student of Global Studies, where she can delve into issues that connect her personal experiences and her professional interests. She is drawn towards exploring the intersections between disciplines, and has an enduring interest in food systems. Tara received her bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies and Political Science from the New College of Florida in 2018. As an undergraduate, Tara studied permaculture design in the campus food forest, revitalized a school garden project for the preschool she worked at, and traveled to France to WWOOF, while studying abroad in Germany.

All of these experiences led her to the Peace Corps as a food security volunteer in 2019. Tara lived and worked in a rural village in the far-west of Nepal, where she facilitated several projects, including permagardens, a community seed bank, school fruit orchards and nutrition education. She is grateful for the insights she gained about the reality of international development and food insecurity, which ultimately led her to the University of Oregon’s Global Studies program. What her community in Nepal taught her and what she learned from engaging with international development organizations, planted a seed in her that continues to grow today.

Now, Tara studies global and local structural dynamics that influence agricultural sustainability and global inequality. She has become part of an exciting research network through which she is leading a case study of agroecology in the Willamette Valley. Her research explores the socio-historic influences on the contemporary food system and aims to capture the diverse visions for the future of food and agriculture.

Tara is hopeful about the power of inclusive governance and agroecology for transforming local food systems, as well as their ability to mitigate global issues that impact us all, from climate change to economic inequality.

Graduate Student Taylor Paone

Taylor Paone, Fall 2021

Taylor Paone is a first-year master’s student in the Global Studies department with a specialization in Food Studies. She is currently working on her research project which explores the relationship between beekeepers and honey bees in the Willamette Valley, Oregon. Taylor grew fascinated with the relationship between honey bees, the people who keep them, and their entanglement in human systems in 2016 when she was studying abroad in Chile. In the region of Valparaiso, she explored how international trade agreements alter the livelihoods of small-scale beekeepers. She is thrilled to continue this exploration here at the UO. Taylor is originally from Vermont and received her BA in Global Studies and Environmental Studies from the University of Vermont. Her rural upbringing fostered a love and necessity to hold a deep connection to outdoor spaces. She is passionate about building connections to her human and nonhuman community through land appreciation-especially through sustainable agriculture and art. During her AmeriCorps service in Vermont, she worked with local farmers on a food security project, the Health Care Share, which provides individuals experiencing food insecurity with weekly CSA shares. As a Peace Corps volunteer in the agricultural sector in Paraguay, she had the opportunity to learn from incredible farmers practicing innovative techniques to support their human and ecological communities.  In her free time, she enjoys farming, looking at mosses through hand lenses, and weaving with plants!

Graduate Student Jo Schlegelmilch

Jo Schlegelmilch, Fall 2021

Jo grew up on a farm in the countryside of Minnesota but considers the Northwoods of MN home. She earned a BA in anthropology from the University of Minnesota Duluth where she focused on cultural studies, Native American Studies, and sustainable food systems. Her capstone projects included a qualitative study on community sentiments regarding the Lake Superior watershed and she worked alongside a team of academic colleagues to implement an indigenous medicinal permaculture garden at her university’s land lab site. Her passion for ethnobotany inspired her to become a certified herbalist and in her free time, she enjoys feeding her curiosity for complementary and alternative medicine and experimenting with fermentations.

Following her time as a food security volunteer for Peace Corps Nepal, Jo received the Paul D. Coverdell Fellowship to return to school in pursuit of her MA in Global Studies. She is here at the UO with a concentration in food studies and nonprofit management. As a graduate student, she focuses on humanistic approaches to resilient food systems and serves as a Food Security Leader for the Student Sustainability Center’s policy and advocacy committee. Her research is inspired by her work in managing a program that addresses Covid-19 exacerbated health disparities affecting BIPOC communities throughout north Minneapolis. Jo will return to Minneapolis to conduct research on the resiliency of the local food system. In the future, she aspires to continue working in professional fields concerned with humanitarian aid and emergency disaster relief.