Master Communicator • Strategist
A history of my work; professional and personal ​
Hello and welcome!
All of my work, including the many projects that I have been involved with or led, have centered around issues that are at the core of who I am. These include environmental issues, humanitarian and human rights issues, global economic issues, politics, social justice and film.
I spent 2019 deep in research and writing projects that centered around my environmental work and personal political work. The photo on the left is from a research trip to the Wisconsin Historical Society. I took time off to visit protected wilderness areas surrounding the city of Madison, as I prepped to complete my Master's thesis in Marine and Environmental Affairs and to serve as a teaching assistant and lecturer, in charge of 3 weekly Environmental Studies 100 classes at the University of Washington (I had a total of 75 students under my personal charge).
The photo on the right is from a meeting hosted by Vote Run Lead, a nonprofit that trains women to run for political office. I wrote about the meeting I attended with other politically-active women around Seattle who are considering their own runs for political office in a monthly blog post for Girls Who Can, a Seattle-based start-up that aims to encourage young women to reach their highest potential.
I've logged hundreds of hours doing in-depth research.
This photo was taken while sorting through files at the Wisconsin Historical Society. I've also spent time in multiple University Special Collections, Presidential Libraries and National Archives locations.
I've done this for my own book-related research, as well as for projects on which I was hired as a ghostwriter, co-author and/or editor.
During the summer of 2019 I joined a group of conservationists who were working to protect a swath of undeveloped land in southeastern Washington State that is a migration corridor for elk and other keystone species. It was my job to explain the importance of this work to donors. Because my background is both so broad in general, yet extensive in environmental-related areas, I was able to be easily brought onto this project towards its completion, and hit the ground running, without needing a lot of background information or hand-holding. I even finished my work 2.5 weeks ahead of schedule and gave the nonprofit that had hired me a discount for my services since I hadn't needed as much time as they had predicted. This project was also a turning point for me personally, as I had always marketed myself as a writer, yet on this job I happened to get better photos of the elk than the hired photographer. I decided from then forward that since I had had such good online and social media luck as an amateur photographer, I would market myself to clients as a jack-of-all-traits who can save clients money by serving multiple roles at once.
I work hard to save my clients time
and money.
I spend my personal life just as I do my professional life--
solving problems.
In February 2019 Seattle had a record-setting, 50-year snowstorm. I was the first volunteer to show up at the city's emergency shelter for the homeless and helped set up shelter beds. I also created a clothing booth with donations that I had collected from neighbors in my apartment building and organized an emergency food closet that was stocked with donations that I had personally solicited via a series of strategic social media posts that I created in various online neighborhood groups.
It is easier to imagine now (now that we are living in a post-COVID-19 world), but in 2019 most people hadn't yet experienced life with empty supermarket shelves; a life without access to basic necessities like toilet paper or food. Yet that is what Seattle went through during this week-long snowstorm. While my city was well-intentioned, they weren't prepared ahead of time to meet the needs of this last-minute shelter. All food and basic supplies used inside of this shelter came from neighbors who dropped them off on foot, when roads were not drivable, after seeing my calls to action on social media. Working this shelter myself helped to cement my personal approach to fixing large, systemic problems, something that I hope to continue to do via the formation of my own nonprofit, something that I am currently in the process of founding.
I have spent years researching our waste system, especially issues surrounding recycling and plastics.
Plastic production, consumption and pollution
are all very complex matters that are not well understood
by the public and I hope to
be a part of changing that.
I'm sure most people would advise me to not mention politics on my professional website. However, the political volun-tourism that I started doing on my own time (and dime) is something that I am incredibly proud of and that I believe showcases my ability to go above and beyond when it comes to solving problems and seeing important projects through to their completion.
I started this work by traveling out to rural West Texas on my own, to volunteer for candidates in an area that the media kept saying was changing from solid red to purple, but that otherwise wasn't being discussed or put into context. I wanted to see the political and societal changes that were happening for myself, in order to better understand what was happening to the United States at the national level. Since this first trip to Texas, I have spent time volunteering for female, minority and progressive candidates in half a dozen states. I plan to write about this experience in a book about political movements.
Conducting in-depth research makes me jump for joy.
I shot this video while taking a break
from sorting through files at the
Special Collections department at Stanford.
My extensive history of conducting live interviews is one of my strongest assets when it comes to the freelance writing, ghostwriting and co-authoring that I have been doing over the past few years.
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I explain my television career in greater depth below, but this photo is from a television show that I created, hosted and produced when I was just 19. Working on this show allowed me to conduct more than 150 live-on-tape interviews with guests from a myriad of backgrounds, about a wide-range of topics.
Earlier life and work
My favorite personal project is my three special kitties who were born with special needs (missing eyes) and who were written about in The Hindu, one of India's largest papers.
I have used my extensive background to write a series of children's books about important environmental and humanitarian issues. My books cover topics ranging from pollution to animals to refugees.
Trekking to off-the-grid spots that few are aware of is one of my specialities. I snapped this shadow selfie while hiking around Death Valley during the rare, 30-year superblooom of 2016.
Case in point: this video I took of myself during the rare 2017 superbloom at the Carrizo Plain National Monument.
Being able to write about and report on ocean-related issues and solutions is my ultimate goal with a Master's in Marine and Environmental Affairs from the University of Washington.
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I was first brought into my program as a Top Scholar, meaning at the UW Grad School paid me to attend UW instead of going elsewhere.
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I have spent the past 5 years working as Assistant-to-the-Editor of a policy-based academic journal called Coastal Management. Part of my job entails fielding the most recent ocean- and coastal-based policy research conducted by academics, researchers and policymakers around the globe.
Between undergrad and grad school, I spent time backpacking through several SE Asian countries, including countries that only recently opened up to tourism. This was one of the most formative experiences of my life.
I spent several months in 2014 teaching English to Laotian Buddhist monks.
Between undergrad and grad school I took time off from writing, journalism and creating to work within the energy efficiency sector.
I was in charge of making a campus of 40,000 students and 100+ buildings more efficient and pioneered my own unique grading system aimed at encouraging departments and buildings to compete against each other for the best scores.
My innovative approach is now being used by campuses, office buildings and school districts around the country.
The system I created wound up finding an estimated $1 million in energy savings, just at the University of Kansas's main campus.
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I obtained 3 undergraduate degrees from the University of Kansas. Starting with Linguistics, followed by Environmental Studies and Economics. I was also on the university honor roll.
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Because Environmental Studies was my main passion, I spent part of my undergrad time interning and writing at an environmental magazine called Greenability.
While in undergrad I wrote a screenplay about LGBT adoption that came in as a semi-finalist in the screenplay contest at the Austin Film Festival.
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I write screenplays because Film and Media Studies was my minor in undergrad (I am only a few credits shy of it being my 4th degree) and is one of my biggest passions.
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The top right photo was taken in my home state of Kansas and featured by Afar Media across multiple platforms, including on their website, within their self-promoting emails and on their Pinterest page.
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The photo to the right was taken in India and was used to illustrate a short story I wrote as a part of a contest held by The New Yorker magazine. I came in runner-up.
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The top photo is more recent, taken in New Mexico.
Travel photography and writing is one of my favorite pastimes.
I studied abroad in 2010 working with various environmental and humanitarian nonprofits in rural South India. This included conducting field research, working with rural farmers on water efficiency issues and visiting remote tribal areas, like the photo shown here. This experience shaped the way that I approached my entire future after this point and still impacts how I make decisions today.
At the age of 19 I was hired by my local CBS affiliate to be the youngest Television Broadcaster in a Top 50 market in the entire U.S. While working for them I developed two shows, one a weekly public affairs talk show aimed at discussing issues that were important for teenagers, for which I served as creator, producer, writer, host and lead interviewer. I served as producer and associate producer on other local programs, ranging from a local dating show to a weekly news program to various specials.
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When I left my work in television it was to pursue my education, which originally focused on environmental issues, which I saw as the single most important story of the 21st century.
While installing solar panels on low-income housing in Oakland, CA I snapped this photo, which wound up in a story on Oprah.com.
http://www.oprah.com/home/reduce-reuse-recycle-and-redefine-simran-sethi/all