Rachel Elfant, MS
International Jesuit Ecology Project (IJEP) Program Manager
Rachel has experience as an organizer, presenter, facilitator, and researcher for climate, degrowth and integral ecology in both academic and non-academic environments. She has worked in Peru, Argentina, Spain, Sweden, and the United States in inter-generational and inter-cultural contexts all of which challenged the hegemony and promoted alternative methods of sustainability towards socio-ecological transformation. In 2019, as the organizer for Chicago Area Peace Action, she guided college and high school student activists to create a coalition of organizations, companies, and religious groups in support of the Green New Deal in Illinois and presented it to various representatives in the US Congress. She is a yoga teacher and formerly taught at the Cook County Jail utilizing meditation, breathwork, and the philosophy of yoga as a form of social activism within the American legal system.
She enjoys caring for the environment while considering the perspectives of cultures and countries. She thinks it鈥檚 important to respect and learn about various ways of being and living, and to be cognizant of the influence dominant cultures have over traditions and lifestyles in cultural contexts that differ. Rachel enjoys working at the nexus of society, spirituality, and environment to seek justice in both the collective and individual spheres. Rachel has recently began experimenting composting in a small 4 by 8-foot balcony, she loves to move the body whether it is through yoga or West African dance and using her bicycle as a primary mode of transportation. Rachel is a member of Fundaci贸n Ecoceno, a center for advanced studies and a platform for action towards the conception and implementation of systemic societal change and socio-ecological transformation.
Education
- MS Human Ecology 鈥� Culture, Power, Sustainability, Lund University (2018)
- BS Biology and Spanish and Certificate Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin 鈥� Madison (2014)