Racial Equity Summer Fellow

The Initiative on Cities and the Howard Thurman Center are delighted to welcome Jessica Bajada-Silva as its Undergraduate Student Fellow for the City of Boston’s Mayor’s Office of Resilience and Racial Equity this summer.

Jessica Bajada-Silva is a junior studying Environmental Analysis and Policy in the College of Arts and Sciences. She currently works as a Student Office Assistant at the BU Hariri Institute for Computing and previously interned at the Human Rights Center in Padova, Italy. On campus, she’s involved as a Scarlet Speaker in the BU Admissions Office and Ambassador for the Kilachand Honors College.

What made you want to apply for the internship?

I worked at a human rights center last semester while I was abroad and I realized that I wanted to do more with my major than just environmental work. I wanted to work more with people and less with trees. A really big issue that I’m passionate about is environmental justice, such as redlining and discrimination that leads to race inequity. I thought it would be apt to work for a race equity office and get to learn something new about a different discipline while still applying my own.

What are you most looking forward to this summer?

I’m just excited to be working for an office I’m passionate about. I’ve never worked in a city hall office so I’m really excited to have the new experience.

How did you first become interested in environmental issues and racial justice?

It started in high school; I took AP Environmental Science which touched upon environmental justice which really piqued my interest. When I came to BU, I wasn’t an environmental major but I realized over time that it was something I was really passionate about and I wanted to make it into a career. After taking a few sustainable development courses and learning about the inequities that are present in the world and within our own country and cities, I started to realize that I wanted to make a difference. When I took an Environmental Justice course this semester, it completely solidified that I wanted to do this as my career.