SIRI Practicum Student Reflections
In their own words, students share their reflections on their SIRI Practicum experiences!
One of the most rewarding aspects of my graduate program has been the opportunity to apply what I’ve been learning in the classroom to a real-world project. This semester, I am working with an advisory firm that is helping to push the boundaries of sustainable finance. The initiative we’ve been tasked with is ambitious: design a framework for system-level investing.
Systems as a theme has been around me for all my life. Growing up the systems around me were shaped by culture, religion and language. Over time I noticed the professional systems emerging around me...
Transitioning from the comfort zone of pure finance into the world of sustainable consulting has been a compelling journey. My earlier academic and professional experiences had taught me to value precision, predictability, and strict adherence to frameworks. Yet this recent sustainable investing consulting project forced me to interrogate those instincts and rethink how finance can actively shape a better future.
My SIRI Practicum project focuses on ESG metrics, corporate responsibility, and talent strategy, specifically on the role that students and fresh graduates play in driving private companies towards being more socially, politically, and environmentally responsible.
As a graduate student concentrating in Climate, Energy, and Environment at Columbia SIPA, I have always been fascinated by how principles of sustainability and human rights are translated into corporate action. Much of my prior exposure to this field - whether at multilateral organizations or in policy research - has focused on the development of high-level frameworks and standards. This semester’s practicum gives me a unique chance to see the other side of the equation...
Entering this practicum, I found myself working in a sector that is not quite familiar to me. My academic and professional background has centered on international relations, security, and communications, but sustainability and investment haven’t been areas where I held direct experience or knowledge. That quickly changed at the start of this project, when our client introduced us to the foundations of sustainable investing and the role of corporate governance and ethics in shaping financial decisions.
To someone raised in New York’s concrete jungle, the idea of working in Guyana’s forests feels both foreign and strangely familiar - a reminder that the land beneath my city was once just as densely wooded. This semester, I am fortunate enough to be part of the team conducting research in the sustainable forestry and timber industry in Guyana...
Our client is a non-profit organization that promotes the adoption of sustainability reporting across institutions worldwide. It provides a common language for organizations to communicate their environmental, social, and governance impacts...
In the Fall 2025 SIRI Practicum course, my team and I are working on a project in the public sector domain, focusing on a country’s Sustainable Finance policies where we are expected to deliver policy recommendation as the final outcome. Our objective is to support the policy-making process with a comprehensive assessment on the country’s domestic landscape, multilateral lending, and comparative analysis.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve begun work on a group-based practicum project at the intersection of sustainable finance and international entrepreneurship. The focus is on the city of Fukuoka, Japan, which is emerging as both a testbed for urban regeneration and a gateway for international startups entering the Japanese market.
This semester in SIRI Practicum my team and I are working with a client in the nonprofit sector whose goal is to help make it so that corporations’ political activities reflect positive climate policies. In a time where companies are more in the public eye and under a microscope, it not only makes moral sense to incorporate sound climate policies into companies’ strategic agenda, but also economic sense.
When I first learned about the project and specifically the tool for human rights due diligence (HRDD) we would be working with, I was struck by the alignment between its mission and my own personal and professional journey...