Sy grew up in Littleton, Colorado and graduated summa cum laude in 2018 from the University of Colorado, Boulder in Ecology and Environmental Science. While at CU, Sy was a Norlin Scholar, a Resident Advisor, and worked at the environmental center on campus. Sy wrote a senior thesis analyzing the extent and importance of public participation in federal land management in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

After graduating, Sy worked as an organizer for the Polis for Colorado Governor’s campaign, and then moved to El Paso, TX to volunteer with Annunciation House, accompanying refugees, staffing a shelter, and supporting the organization’s border awareness education program.

In the year before law school, Sy completed an Americorps service year with CivicSpark in Oakland, CA where they supported sustainability staff in Alameda County in adapting the built environment to more resiliently serve the needs of the community and wrote a curriculum to support community members in exploring connection to “place.”

While at Georgetown Law, Sy wants to combine the two areas that are most important to them: environmental justice and immigation justice. Sy believes strongly in community based efforts that prioritize human rights to rectify environmental harms and preserve human connections to the natural environment. To this aim, they plan to focus on issues related to international environmental law. They’d first like to explore the intersection of U.S. trade policy and environmental justice abroad, especially in Latin America.

Sy is otherwise interested in reading (and someday writing) visionary fiction, hiking and birding, and getting involved in youth education here in the DC area!