BY: RUBY DARTER

UGA alumnus Sarah Riggs spoke on her journey from anthropology at Franklin College to working in environmental protection at Ceres, a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization. 

Sarah Riggs graduated from UGA in 2020 with a degree in anthropology, a minor in classics, and a certificate in nonprofit management and leadership. Originally from Warner Robins, Georgia, Sarah now works in the field of corporate sustainability and is dedicated to improving the environmental and social performance of companies.

During her time at UGA, Sarah was an undergraduate research assistant on a project examining the impacts of the palm oil industry in Southeast Asia. She recalls that this project not only built many fundamentals she would go on to use in her professional career, but also sparked her interest in the impact of supply chains and human activities on nature and Indigenous Peoples. In addition, she specifically remembers the course ANTH 3200 “The Anthropology of Consumption and Globalization” as opening her eyes to the widespread impacts of these topics on people around the world.

Sarah references several UGA anthropology faculty members as inspiring her as an undergraduate student and contributing to her Franklin College experience. Sarah still remembers the leadership and dedication to student growth of Dr. Jennifer Birch and Dr. Jason Gonzalez. Additionally, Dr. Roberta Salmi and Dr. J Peter Brosius both taught courses that had a great impact on her. She points to Dr. Brosius’s course as being the most influential to her career even today.

In the summer of her junior year, Sarah had the opportunity to intern with the National Geographic Society and worked on a proposed initiative about cultural revitalization and heritage protection in the Brazilian Amazon. She observed how quickly environments and societies changed, which sparked her interest in how the human-nature nexus affects the environment and the impacts of globalization. She fondly recalls how many amazing people she met in the organization and participating in the annual Explorer’s Festival where she heard grantees share their research and experience.

If she could change anything about her time at UGA, Sarah wishes she had learned more technical skills such as data management, rather than having to learn them on the job. She advises graduates and new alumni not to shy away from temporary work or contracts. Her first role out of college was a six-month position that turned into a full time job, and helped her gain valuable industry experience.

Now, Sarah works at Ceres, which she describes as, in many ways, her dream job. She is dedicated to making companies consider their environmental impact, and then implement policies to reduce nature-related issues. Her team largely focuses on food and forestry companies that source commodities with large environmental footprints, such as palm oil, soy, cattle, cocoa, and timber, pulp, and paper.

Sarah is inspired by people standing up for human rights and environmental protection, and feels blessed to be able to work in a field that allows her to do such important work. She believes that there is a lot of good being done in the world to protect our planet and loves being able to contribute to that work. Overall, her time at UGA equipped her for a career spent protecting the environment and her anthropological foundation she gained here helps her to consider the impact of our actions on vulnerable ecosystems and communities.