Rebecca L. Farnum

Rebecca Farnum is a 2012 EPA Marshall Scholar currently researching for a PhD in Geography at King's College London, where she explores discourses of environmental conflict and cooperation, particularly around food and water resources in the Middle East and North Africa under the supervision of Drs Naho Mirumachi and Alex Loftus.

Becca has completed an LLM in International Law focused on environmental and human rights law at the University of Edinburgh and holds an MSc in Water Security and International Development from the University of East Anglia. She graduated in May 2012 from Michigan State University with degrees in anthropology, interdisciplinary humanities, international development, and international relations. Her senior honors thesis explored “Food and Water as the Middle East and North Africa’s ‘Coal and Steel’: Regional Economic Integration and Peace Prospects.”

In Summer 2011, Becca worked at The White House in First Lady Michelle Obama’s Correspondence Office. Becca is a member of the United Methodist Church and a great believer of interfaith and intercultural understanding and activism. In her undergraduate years, she cofounded MSU’s Campus Interfaith Council and worked with Students for Peace and Justice and the MLK Diversity Committee.

In the United Kingdom, Becca works with Norfolk County Council to teach environmental education residential programmes for students, building capacity and demand for sustainable economies, and The Brilliant Club to tutor high-achieving pupils from low-participation schools, raising aspirations for university study. She also helps run the London Water Research Group and co-convenes a Working Group on the Hydro Cycle, examining societal knowledge of hydrological science and anthropogenic impacts on water.

Becca serves as an International Board Member for Dorm Room Diplomacy, an organisation building relationships between international undergraduates through online videoconferences, and as the Founding Secretary of the AMENDS Global Fellows, the alumni organisation of the American Middle Eastern Network for Dialogue based at Stanford University.