Esaac Mazengia

Esaac Mazengia is a 2^nd year Master’s of Environmental Science Candidate at the Yale School of the Environment working under the guidance of Dr. Dorceta Taylor. An NSF GRFP scholar, Esaac researches the intersection of environmental justice, outdoor recreation, and African Immigrant community health and wellbeing. As an Eritrean American growing up in the Pacific Northwest with an interest in the environment, he saw firsthand the benefits gained from having regular access to natural spaces through outdoor recreation, as well as the large equity gap in who was out on the trails. Most notably was the lack of African immigrants and other minorities despite their prevalence in the region. With the support of the Yale Center for Environmental Justice, Esaac is utilizing mixed methods to complete a multi-city study based in Seattle and Boston critically examining the constraints on outdoor recreation and public land accessibility faced within African immigrant communities with the hope of using these findings to help develop new strategies and collaborations to begin to better address these barriers.