Hometown: Little Silver, NJ
Education: Rollins College, B.A. in Religious Studies and International Business
Work Experience: I have pursued dual bachelor’s degrees in Religious Studies and International Business while also developing fluency in French. To complement my academic pursuits, I completed a nine-month internship with an international staffing company and participated in a highly competitive commerce immersion program in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France. These experiences demonstrated how economic forces influence a variety of cultures and beliefs.
Recently, I have dedicated three months to researching Robinhood to better understand cultural and quasi-religious fixation on financial markets, an emergent emphasis on immediacy, and the rise of market speculation as an obsession. This research revealed Robinhood’s quasi-corrupt brokerage practices and exploitation of structural inequities in the American economic system. My experience has underscored the pervasive influence of American capitalism, which has promulgated the worship and fetishization of wealth. My experience as a staffing agency intern included serving the trucking and general labor industries across North America. This required reviewing candidate applications, consulting with corporate clients regarding qualification requirements, conducting interviews, as well as staffing over seventy crew members for Formula 1.
Academic and Research Interests: My graduate studies aim to educate society that fulfillment extends beyond the accumulation of wealth. While this pursuit of meaning coincides with conventional notions of success, the pervasive influence of Capitalistic culture has cultivated a mindset in which individuals are compelled to subordinate intrinsic motivation in favor of assimilation into the dominant economic paradigm. The existential dimensions of human life are systematically overlooked in a society structured around wealth accumulation.
My studies have curated a passion for a wide spectrum of religious traditions. In many of these religious traditions, there exists a veneration of poverty and a caution of the responsibilities that accompany wealth. My research has examined doctrinal development and the sociopolitical functions of religious thought. My work on Reform Judaism traced the theological and ethical perspectives on sex and sexuality, highlighting the increasing embrace of progressive interpretations. My study of Christian doctrine and political philosophy in the United States from 1776-1865, evidenced that appeals to “tradition” were strategically mobilized to justify opposing positions on slavery and democracy. Tradition isn’t a stable moral authority but rather a malleable construct that demands critical scrutiny in political discourse. In Buddhist philosophy, I have examined the “ideal path,” arguing that the Arahat model aligns more closely with early Buddhist teachings than the later-developed Bodhisattva ideal.