Azalea is a researcher, writer, and organizer building her expertise in paradigms of climate justice, international natural resource and energy policy, and Latin American politics. In 2018 and 2019 she co-organized the NYC Climate Strikes, where over 400,000 students went on strike to demand climate action. As a key organizer with youth movements TREEage, Extinction Rebellion Youth, and Fridays for Future, she honed her ability to connect the people around her in powerful movement organizing strategy.
In her roles as Communications Coordinator for youth movement organizations, she developed tactful press strategy and fine tuned her voice in the written word. She was featured in several documentaries on the youth climate movement in her capacity as a youth organizer, and has been quoted in more than a dozen domestic and international media outlets.
When COVID struck, Azalea was a Senior in high school and transitioned to digital organizing. As she began college, her focus shifted from movement organizing in New York City to analyzing social movements in her academic work, with a particular focus on Latin American socialist movements and resistance to natural resource extraction. In college, she worked with the Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated film director Josh Fox, to explore the complex themes of immigration, climate change, and organizing strategy from behind the camera. As a research assistant for her professor's upcoming book on Bethlehem Steel’s 20th Century activity in Venezuela and Chile, she conducted extensive historical research, and dipped her toe in the waters of ethnography.
Azalea studied development, politics, and languages in Ecuador, living between urban and rural communities to begin learning Quechua and perfect her Spanish. On the heels of her time in Ecuador, she interned in the international development industry, and crafted her Honor’s thesis on the ‘Sustainable Development’ framework, generating novel theory by conducting original research in Colombia.
Awards
For her dedication to original scholarship and drive to explore, she was awarded the Hatfield Award for Global Scholarship from her Alma mater, the Louise Olmstead Award for her work in Applied Ethics, and was nominated for the George Wharton Pepper Prize. She was a finalist for a joint Fulbright to Bolivia and Chile to study sociopolitical consequences of critical mineral extraction.