Jess Wallach

BA, Geography, Class of 2013
Jess Wallach

Biography

Jess Wallach (Class of 2013) has devoted her time during the 2016 election season as a field organizer with the Yes on I-1464 campaign, a statewide ballot initiative that limits the influence of money in politics. After the election, she plans to return to teaching at the intersections of climate justice, decolonized pedagogies, and art as activism. As a Geography undergraduate at UW, Wallach’s professors and community were a rich foundation for this work. She constantly felt challenged to learn about social identities, to reflect on how they informed everyday experiences, and to critically examine the systems that shape them. Wallach has never forgotten the work of her female professors during her undergraduate experience. She attributes their “caring, authentic, and powerful leadership” to understanding what it meant to be successful as a woman. After graduating with her BA in Geography, Wallach more recently earned an MAED in Urban Environmental Education, a program that gave her an opportunity to blend her background in geography with multicultural, place-based education and build on her passion for “creating learning environments that build power, create community, and foster skills for systems-level change.”

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