Elise Steenburgh ’22

Hello! My name is Elise, and I’m a third-year Environmental Studies and Biology double major (and maybe Comparative American Studies minor!). Before starting at Oberlin, I took a gap year with Global Citizen Year and lived in Florianópolis, Brazil. Most of my time at Oberlin has been spent living in Harkness as a member of the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association (OSCA). 

This semester, I'm teaching Steel Pan ExCo (and a member of OSteel) and teaching a Biomimicry ExCo that I created. To keep in touch with my gap year experience, I am also a part of Oberlin Capoeira Angola, an Afro-Brazilian martial arts group. As a multi-racial student, being part of Multiracial Students Association and the Asian American Alliance has helped me embrace my identity and find other students with similar lived experiences. 

Outside of class work and extracurriculars, I love discussing the power and importance of language, the evolutionary connections between biology and anthropology, and the likelihood of living to see the end of the world. I also love watching movies (and updating Letterboxd with ratings and reviews), writing blogs (for both the Oberlin Blogs and Wordpress), and chilling in nature.