‘It caused people around me to develop rare cancers’
Alayna Jenkins
St. Charles, Missouri
Jenkins, an environmental science and public policy concentrator (with a government secondary) from suburban St. Louis, was an activist from an early age, with a particular passion for human rights.
First she got involved with the movement to end gun violence following the 2014 police killing of Black teenager Michael Brown in nearby Ferguson. Jenkins began to make the connection between human rights and the environment a little later, when she learned of mounting public health concerns involving West Lake Landfill, a nuclear waste site located just seven miles from her home.
This 200-acre Superfund site is contaminated with radioactive waste, byproducts of the Manhattan Project and nuclear weapons production. “It leaked into Coldwater Creek, which sits on a floodplain, and caused people around me to develop rare cancers,” Jenkins said. That drove her involvement at age 16 with the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, which has pushed for the removal of radioactive material from the site.
At Harvard, Jenkins kept pursuing the link between the environment and human rights. Her capstone project probed the connection between air pollution and mental health disorders. She started working for the Office of Sustainability’s Resource Efficiency Program to promote sustainability efforts in undergraduate Houses and dorms. She also put some of her training to work on behalf of her home state, currently serving as president of the Gen Z-led Missouri Biodiversity Project.
In 2022, Jenkins helped represent Harvard at COP27, the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Egypt. From there she became involved with various UN climate initiatives, including a formal youth constituency group. “We come together from more than 100 countries to draft statements about our needs,” Jenkins explained. “Because our generation is going to be tackling climate.”
As Jenkins plans a career in public service, she can’t help but think back to a group of nuns who gathered regularly near the West Lake Landfill. She remembered praying with them for a better future for all those adversely affected by exposure to radioactive waste. “That’s something I’ve thought about at Harvard,” Jenkins said. “I literally have that better life.”
