Rebecca Hayes Jacobs

Rebecca is a PhD candidate in American Studies at Yale. She is writing her dissertation on the redevelopment of the Brooklyn Navy Yard—a former naval base and shipbuilding facility—­­­ into a sustainable manufacturing park. As an ethnographer based in the humanities, her interdisciplinary research incorporates methodologies from anthropology, history, and geography.

In addition to her academic studies, Rebecca works on projects that lend themselves to public conversations. She has developed original education programs on urban planning for the Museum of the City of New York and the New York City Department of Transportation. Before graduate school, she worked for the UNESCO World Heritage Center, and as an instructor and curriculum writer for Livable Streets Education, where she led K-12 students in inquiry-based, hands-on activities to study the urban environment. 

Rebecca received her B.A. from Columbia College, Columbia University, where she double majored in Cultural Anthropology and History. She wrote her undergraduate thesis on the role of documentary film in the environmental justice movement.