Robyn Yzelman

Robyn Yzelman is a doctoral candidate researching the afterlives of extractivism in the Northern Bolivian Amazon, and how they have transformed ecologies, land relations, and identity among Indigenous and campesino communities. Her second project, rooted in apprenticeship with Andean-Amazonian traditional healers in Bolivia, examines the impacts of emerging ecological crises on embodied relationalities of healing. Previously, her undergraduate research on migrant domestic workers in Singapore explored the radical possibilities of love and care relations under capitalist structures.

Before joining the PhD program, Robyn worked in the corporate law sector in Washington, DC and in the Singapore civil service as an environmental policymaker. Locally, Robyn has served as a volunteer domestic violence services advocate and youth mentor, and globally in helping to lead partnerships with artists and community-led rural development initiatives in Haiti. 

Robyn graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar College in 2015 with an A.B. in Political Science and Women's Studies, along with several honors for academic and personal distinction. Her research has been supported by the American Anthropological Association Robert Lemelson Fellowship (2023), the Washington University in St. Louis Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity Graduate Fellowship (2023-24), and the Ann Cornelisen Postgraduate Fellowship (2017-18).