Student Spotlight: Oxford Cambridge Arc student panellist

The journey so far

I’m a second-year DPhil student from Trinidad and Tobago studying in the Department of Geography and the Environment through Linacre College.

At the University, the thing that I’m most involved with is rowing where I’m on the men’s captains’ team for Linacre College. I’m also an avid cook and a lover of board games of all kinds.

Oxford Cambridge Arc

Outside of the University, I’m determined to engage with the communities that I am - and have been - part of, and so work with the Oxford Cambridge Arc project and the City of Los Angeles on questions around infrastructure, the economy, and community.

I got involved with the programme through my department as a way to learn about, engage, and maybe even contribute my expertise to my new local community here in Oxford (and now the Arc too!)

Getting established through the pandemic

Through the now-ubiquitous use of videoconferencing, the pandemic has enabled greater accessibility for critically important public engagement around important infrastructure decisions.

For me personally, this has meant being able to be meaningfully engaged in projects across the globe—in Los Angeles, Oxford, Accra, and Port-of-Spain— where before it would have almost certainly necessitated a physical presence in these locations.

Looking to the future

For almost as long as I can remember, I’ve been working towards being an expert in water systems managing water projects and teams at an intergovernmental organisation like the United Nations.

Because water is so crucial to us as humans, it can sometimes be taken for granted and mismanaged at a multitude of scales (individual, household, community, municipal, regional, subnational, national, and trans-boundary) to the detriment of regular people just trying to lead happy lives.

I want to tackle that mismanagement and have worked to give myself experience at almost all of these levels so that I can be effective across a range of contexts. We’ll see how that turns out, but I am hopeful!

Student opportunities with the Oxford Cambridge Arc

For the OxCam Arc work, there are definitely opportunities for others to get involved as the panel will be rotating across multiple years—students with diverse areas of expertise, interested in supporting their communities are definitely invited to take part!