- Royce Fellowship
Concentration
Award Year
Zoe Kupetz is a junior, expected to graduate in 2022, studying Environmental Studies on the Environment and Inequality Track. She grew up in Los Angeles, California with her parents, Dan and Lori, and her sister, Sophie, who graduated from Brown in December of 2019. On campus, she is one of the student coordinators for the Community Dialogue Project (CDP), which works to support students in cultivating meaningful and intentional communities rooted in empathy, liberatory consciousness, and care. She designs curriculum for the CDP, and co-facilitates a community-building program for first-year students, as well as a weekly discussion space for students that centers healing, growth, and connection. Additionally, Zoe tutors a 10-year-old boy named Hakimu through Brown Refugee Youth Tutoring and Enrichment and am a leader for the Brown Outdoor Leadership Training. In her free time, she loves hiking, spending time with friends and family, and hanging out at coffee shops. Zoe’s main areas of interest and study are environmental justice and progressive education. Her Royce Project sits at the intersection of these two fields. In May of 2016, the Portland (Oregon) Public School District became the first in the nation to pass a comprehensive climate justice resolution, which commits to centering voices from frontline communities and empowering students to become activists for social and environmental justice. Her research project will focus on the coalition behind this landmark action, Educating for Climate Justice, and seeks to highlight the stories and knowledge of those involved. Zoe will examine Educating for Climate Justice’s grassroots approach to education reform and curriculum development and map the ongoing work of implementing climate justice education in Portland Public Schools.