Phoenix Kenney Shrestha, PhD

Phoenix comes to the Dartmouth Center for Social Impact (DCSI) dedicated to building the strong relationships needed that make community-driven action possible. After spending the better part of the last decade in the Himalayan region of Nepal and northern India, she has engaged with a variety of approaches to grassroots organizing. In particular, she has looked at youth-led social activism and advocacy and how those efforts have resulted in the formation of a unique youth culture centered around social change. Now, she is excited to explore how these experiences and insights can inform her work within the Dartmouth community. At the DCSI, Phoenix supports the Youth Education & Mentoring (YEM), internship, and social sector careers programming, as well as the Center's annual immersion trip. 

Phoenix holds both a PhD and MPhil in Education from the University of Cambridge. She views learning as a lifelong and multifaceted process and is particularly interested in the power of informal learning and dialogic opportunities. Her research has examined how social learning environments foster the co-development of skills such as confidence, negotiation, and conflict management. This work continues to shape how she thinks about individual and collective contributions to shared understandings. 

Having grown up in Vermont, Phoenix is happy to be back trail running and cross-country skiing in the New England woods that shaped who she remains today.