NEERAV YADAV
Bhimrao Ambedkar University, B.A., Conservation

Neerav was born and raised in Rajasthan, India, and is passionate about wildlife (especially reptiles), conservation, and ecology. After college, he worked at Jan Chetna Sansthan, a non-governmental organization that focuses on rural livelihood, education, and women’s empowerment in the tribal villages of South Rajasthan. From Jan Chetna, Neerav moved to the Madras Crocodile Bank and Center for Herpetology, where he managed a residential volunteer program for Indian and international visitors at one of the premiere reptile zoos and wildlife education facilities in South Asia. He also assisted with zoo management, research, and documentary filmmaking. In 2012, he founded an ecological education and travel company, through which he has led student groups from the U.S. and India on programs in Rajasthan, Ladakh, South India, and Sri Lanka. Neerav has led multiple snow leopard expeditions to Ladakh to observe snow leopards, wolves, ibexes, and Tibetan red foxes in their natural habitat. He is also a lead trainer at Smokeless Cookstove Foundation, an NGO working toward addressing the major issues of household pollution in rural India by training communities to make their own smokeless cookstoves at no cost. Most recently, Neerav coordinated the two-month Rajasthan immersion component for the Princeton Bridge Year Program in India, and looks forward to coordinating next year’s program in Rajasthan. Last year he led Putney’s Community Service India program. Neerav is fluent in Hindi.

LAUREN O’NEILL
Western Connecticut State University, B.A., Anthropology/Sociology, Political Science

While at university, Lauren studied cultural anthropology and sociology. She later added a double major of political science, with a focus in environmental policy and water resources and minors in international studies and art. Lauren discovered a deep love for travel during a study abroad opportunity that took her to Thailand. There, she also traveled around Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. The next few years of university, she took the opportunity to get engaged on campus, partaking in many volunteer opportunities, including working with the United Nations and the Dalai Lama, and volunteering abroad in Nicaragua. Since graduation, Lauren has worked in Yale University’s herpetology department; backpacked around South America; worked as a field technician for the American Museum of Natural History’s Southwestern Research Station; and lived in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, taking teenagers backpacking through the backcountry of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks to perform community service work. Her passion for travel then took her back on the road, spending four months traveling the American Southwest before flying to India, where she spent the majority of last year exploring the diverse cultures of the country. Lauren continued to travel around Asia, visiting Nepal, Thailand, Borneo, and the Maldives before going to Europe and exploring the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Switzerland. This fall, Lauren will return to California to work with children, create her own yoga workshops, and save money to return to grad school for ethnobotany at the University of British Columbia.