Aaliyah Xochitl Muhammad

Bio
Aaliyah Xochitl Muhammad is a first generation American scholar. She graduated cum laude from UC Riverside with a B.S. in Sustainability Studies in 2017. Her undergraduate training focused on the intersection of gender, class, and race and its role in environmental justice. As a Gilman Scholar, she conducted a community and environmental health research project "Are the People of the Solomon Islands Food Sovereign?". This was awarded a UC Education Abroad Program Undergraduate Research Award and inspired Aaliyah to serve her own community through AmeriCorps as an Outreach fellow at GRID Alternatives.

Through her service year, Aaliyah learned more about the growing air pollution crisis in her community, the Inland Empire. She recognized the impact of her talents in story-telling and bilingual outreach as an Americorps volunteer. She nurtured these skills through billboard sales at Lamar Advertising where her negotiation and client management skills thrived. Aaliyah is seeking to combine her 5+ year career in advertising sales, client management, and story-telling with a graduate education in business sustainability and communications to educate the community and guide business stakeholders to act in the best interests of the communities it operates in, especially in the Inland Empire and other at-risk populations.