Leib, Ronit

Ronit Leib is pursuing a Master's Degree in City and Regional Planning (M.C.R.P.) from the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University.  Her academic interests are in nature-society relations, community-based planning, international women's rights, food policy, political ecology, and animal geography.  Ronit plans to pursue a doctoral degree in animal geography, focusing on human-animal relations and the consumption of animals in the urban environment.  The CHANS Fellowship is a very exciting prospect, as it can help Ronit to achieve her professional goals by providing the opportunity to learn from and interact with CHANS scientists and peers on the latest human and natural systems research.  Ronit is very enthusiastic about the prospect of presenting her research on the do-it-yourself (DIY) slaughter trend in the urban environment at the Fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Franscisco.

Last summer, Ronit interned at the Population Reference Bureau, where she conducted a demographic study of scientists and engineers in the United States and wrote an article on unemployment trends and the inclusion of women and minorities, as part of a project funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.  Ronit is a Graduate Research Assistant at the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, where she is assisting Professor Harold Salzman on creating a model to measure the sustainability of rural-subsistence communities in the Arctic, and analyzing petroleum engineering workforce and education for a project funded by The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).  Ronit holds a Bachelor's Degree in Statistics from Rutgers College and she worked as an actuary for four years prior to pursuing a Master's Degree.  Ronit is a fellow at the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), where she is researching women's leadership and participation internationally and providing program support for Rio+20 and various projects.