Biography

 

Bennett Weissenbach

Bennett Weissenbach

  • Deferred, Scholar-elect
  • United States
  • 2023 PhD Polar Studies
  • Lucy Cavendish College

I am a journalist and writer from Los Angeles. My work explores the relationship between my generation’s environmental and technological inheritances. As an undergraduate at Princeton, I used breaks to embed with scientists in Alaska, visiting the largest glacier in the American Arctic, living off-grid in winter to research permafrost, and walking and packrafting across the Brooks Range to study the boreal forest’s poleward migration. After graduating in 2020, I received a Luce Scholarship to study the climate crisis in Nepal, but after the pandemic derailed my plans there, I instead reported on the economic and health impacts of COVID-19. My writing has appeared in the LA Times, National Geographic, Smithsonian, Scientific American, Literary Hub, Washington Post, and other publications. I am now writing a narrative nonfiction book — equal parts adventure, science, cultural criticism, and nature writing — that recounts my journeys into the Alaskan wilderness to study climate change and shed light on digitally induced blindspots in my generation’s environmental consciousness. As a PhD candidate in Polar Studies at Cambridge, I plan to continue exploring these questions under the mentorship of Professor Michael Bravo. In my free time, I run trails, surf, and volunteer as an ocean therapist.

Previous Education

Princeton University English 2020
University College London English 2018