Mashyat Tomory was born and raised in Bangladesh. She has witnessed and suffered the consequences of climate-change-driven floods, including infrastructural loss, health hazards, a lack of governance and education. Her hometown Dhaka often sinks underwater and canoes often replace cars.
Mashyat moved to New York in 2016 and earned her undergraduate degree in Coastal Environmental Studies from Stony Brook University. In Spring 2021, she began the City College of New York’s Sustainability in the Urban Environment program to learn how planning and policy could improve the lives of groups disproportionately harmed by climate change.
Her interest in the environment started in high school. During college, she worked to conserve wildlife and protect water resources in the South-Eastern hills of Bangladesh. Through her work, she built rapport with underrepresented communities in Bangladesh, learning firsthand about the daily challenges thrown at them by climate change. She found herself increasingly drawn to the concerns of precarious human communities. Mashyat became involved in a project improving rainwater harvesting, working closely with a Mro Village in Rangamati, a community of indigenous hunter-gatherers. She helped strike a treaty offering rainwater harvesting systems in exchange for the protection of endangered animals. This work had many ripple effects, for example improving school attendance for the young girls who were typically tasked with long hours of trekking back and forth to collect drinkable freshwater.
Since she joined the program, Mashyat has enjoyed its interdisciplinary nature. She is hoping to start her capstone next semester, most likely on community-accessible greenhouses. Outside of school, she interns for the NYC’s Department of Environmental Protection, working with grade school and high school students to increase their understanding of city processes, such as water and sewage management, and their environmental effects. During her off time, she enjoys gardening and camping. For those interested in climate change, she recommends “The Uninhabitable Earth” by David Wallace-Wells.
