Divya Srijay

My name is Divya Srijay, and I am a rising sophomore from Spartanburg, South Carolina interested in majoring in physics and neuroscience. I spend most of my time working on protein design in the programmable biology lab in the BME department, and in my free time, I enjoy playing the cello, reading, and spending time outside!

My project this summer focuses on accessibility to equitable greenspaces. Considering the increasing urgency of preserving natural environments and the prevailing effects of redlining, after learning about the importance of nature in my writing class, Biophilic Cities, understanding how to equitably implement greenspaces entered the forefront of my interests. With the Kenan Summer Fellowship, I plan to discover who isresponsible for attending to this equity- if anyone at all. To do so, I will be interning at Columbia Green, a nonprofit dedicated to increasing access to greenspaces in underserved parts of Columbia, SC, and visiting Singapore, a flagship biophilic city to learn about their approach to the ethics of biophilic design.