Gabriella Albuquerque Hsieh

A resourceful and active community leader with excellent analytical skills and a demonstrated commitment to academic success. Would bring forth excellent written and verbal communication skills including; persuasive writing and speaking, confident public speaking, and negotiation skills. Currently, during my first year at Colby College, I am polishing my writing and editing skills, organization and time management, taking a variety of challenging courses that allow me to be interdisciplinary, and committing to being an active member of the community.

Throughout the entirety of 12th grade I developed, created, and enacted my own research project as a student in the AP Research class. My research project aimed to discover how implementing large green spaces in industrialized and urban areas can have a range of benefits for communities and individuals by improving mental health and increasing social cohesion. Fundamentally, I wanted to expose the linkage between green spaces and nature with crime rates considering how industrialized cities tend to have higher and more dangerous levels of crime compared to rural and nature integrated towns. By conducting my own research on the effects of plants on boarding school student's mental health when cared for and kept in their dorm rooms, I concluded the importance and necessity of green spaces and nature to improve psychological and physiological well-being. I would like to expand this research by applying it to the U.S. prison systems and the lowering of recidivism rates.