Stephanie Walton

DPhil Geography and the Environment, 2023

I’m working on my DPhil in Geography and the Environment with the Smith School focusing on the problem of asset stranding in the transition to sustainable and healthy food systems. Before starting at Oxford, I was a researcher at the Centre for Food Policy at City, University of London where I worked with local grassroots food producers in the UK to understand how government policies help or hinders them in their efforts to re-diversity grain production systems. I received my MSc in Sustainable Cities from King’s College London.

In my past life before academia, I was a strategy director for R/GA, an international advertising agency where I worked in London and New York. As an undergrad, I did a BM in Piano Performance.

I’m originally from Texas, but have been in London for 7 years and was in New York prior to that. In addition to cooking and eating great food, I love reading, attempting to drag my two kids up mountains, going to the theatre (especially musicals), roaming aimlessly around museums and running.

Contact: stephanie.walton@gtc.ox.ac.uk

DPhil Geography and the Environment
2021

My experience in Oxford has been shaped by many different aspects of life: academia, where I have completed my MPhil in Water Science, Policy and Management and have just begun my DPhil looking at the gendered impacts of Ethiopia’s development policies; sport, where I’ve had the opportunity to get involved in sports and constantly injure myself; GTC, where I’ve met many friends and been welcomed warmly by the close-knit community; and the COVID pandemic, which threw a spanner in just about everything (and has been particularly tough given how well Australia, my home, has combatted COVID).

For this student profile, I am going to briefly reflect on the influence and importance of sport during my time in Oxford, with a particular focus on the impact of the Green Templeton Boat Club (GTBC). Back home, sport played a big role in my life: it was the place I went to look after my mental and physical health, and it provided another avenue to meet new people and engage with friends. That’s why, when I moved to Oxford–a completely foreign environment to me–it was important to get involved in as many sports as my body would allow.

In the pre-pandemic portion of my Oxford experience (October 2018 to March 2019), I was involved in touch rugby, rowing, Australian Rules Football, and rugby to differing extents. Of these sports, it has been rowing with Green Templeton Boat Club which has informed my experience most significantly; rowing with GTBC has not only allowed me to learn a new sport and compete, but it has allowed me to become involved in a club which is accessible and inclusive to all.

My fondest memory of rowing with GTBC is the Summer Torpids (‘Torpeights’) campaign of Trinity term, 2021 because of how well the club battled through difficult circumstances. The term started with the men’s squad not having enough experienced rowers to fill a boat, let alone enough rowers in a position to be involved in bumps racing. What we did have however, was a large group of enthusiastic men and women novices (people who hadn’t rowed before) who were willing to learn; I particularly found it heartening to hear how being a part of the club benefited people’s physical and mental health after such a tough year. As a club (men and women, together), we navigated difficult guidelines and uncertainty to train approximately 30 novices to row, and even trained 5 novice men to race in bumps! While the results don’t make for pleasant reading, I am incredibly proud of the squad and how well we performed (regardless of my constant swearing).

Ultimately, what makes GTBC such a great club to be involved in, is its willingness to put people before results (which, I think, leads to results in the end). We are inclusive and accessible to all, a community of supportive friends, and a place where many have been able to look after their mental and physical health after a tough year. In my role as captain the past two years, the club has played an important role in my Oxford life, but I’ve also seen first-hand the important role it plays in the lives of others and the GTC community-at-large.

DPhil Geography and Environment
2019

Alex is a DPhil candidate in Geography and the Environment and a Green Templeton College Scholar, studying governance of the Blue Economy – a new sustainable development paradigm being promoted in support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The research will focus on power relations and more-than-human entanglements immanent to the blue economy discourse and its implementation in small island and least developed coastal states.

Alex graduated from the School and Geography and Environment’s Nature, Society and Environmental Governance MSc, with Distinction, in 2019 following a career in environmental policy and governance working in local government and the NGO sector in the UK and continental Europe. Alex’s work has encompassed marine protected area implementation, inshore fisheries management, protected landscapes, integrated coastal zone management, urban regeneration, and climate change adaptation and mitigation. As well as writing policy, Alex has successfully secured many EU grants for public policy innovation.

Before his local government career, Alex graduated from Queen Mary College, University of London with a BSc in Environmental Biology, going on to work as a commercial fisherman and fish farmer then gaining an MSc in Aquaculture and Fisheries Management from University of Stirling. After graduating, Alex worked at the University’s Institute of Aquaculture to support UK aid programmes in Bangladesh and Thailand.

Alex set up and ran the successful Social Science Seminar Series at Green Templeton College, until the COVID-19 pandemic stopped in-person events.

DPhil Geography and the Environment
2017

Rebecca Peters, hailing from San Francisco, California, is passionate about environmental justice, deep ecology, and community building. With the UK-DFID funded REACH Water Security programme, she works closely with government and academics in Bangladesh on the political economy of water pollution. From 2016-2017 she served as a Research Associate and Luce Scholar at the Asian International Rivers Center (AIRC) in Yunnan, China. Previously as a Marshall Scholar her MSc in Development Economics (University of Manchester) focused on water redistribution in South Africa, and her MSc in Water Science (Kings College London) examined state-led water management in China. Rebecca holds a BA in International Development Economics and BSc in Society and Environment with a minor in Global Poverty from the University of California, Berkeley where she was a Truman Scholar, Udall Scholar, the University Medalist, elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and a fellow of Berkeley Law Human Rights Center. As a proud member of GTC, she values serving as the Couples and Families Co-Representative to the GCR. She enjoys vegetarian cooking, long distance running, and inventing dance moves with her partner, LT Stephen Honan.

Contact: rebecca.peters@ouce.ox.ac.uk

DPhil Geography and the Environment 
2018

Cocoa is a vital resource in the confectionery and cosmetic industries. Unlike most commodity crops, it is cultivated by millions of small smallholder farmers worldwide. They convert complex landscapes into farmlands to maximize their meagre profits, implicating biodiversity and conservation efforts. Meanwhile only less than 1% of the year-round reproductive output of cacao results in harvestable pod yields. To close this yield gap, my work seeks to understand yield relations to physiological capacity and pollination ecology, and how the novel n-hB technique can optimize yields.

I am the Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer at Agrofides Inc, a Fintech and Agtech firm based in Massachusetts. Prior to Oxford, I served as the Research Director at the Urban Ecology and Design Lab, Yale University, also where I received my graduate and postgraduate training in Forest Science, and Mechanical Engineering/ Material Science, respectively.

I have been an organist but now perform piano works of the Baroque-Classical period and Classical-Jazz improvisations. I do cross country skiing, soccer, table tennis, squash, running and I’m a novice in windsurfing. I’m obsessed with nature.

For the 2021-22 academic year, I will be taking on the role of GCR president for the GCR Committee.