jah elyse sayers (they/them) directs their creative energy toward liberatory placemaking through research, writing, artmaking, teaching, and building. you can find their writing in Wagadu, BRICLab Essays, The Trophallaxis Study Group, Deem, and Society & Space Magazine. 

jah is currently a phd candidate in environmental psychology, a sub-area of earth & environmental sciences at the graduate center, cuny. their dissertation focuses on queer and trans, black, indigenous, and people of color’s embodied, enacted, and relational placemaking in tension with public-space planning, research, and policy, focusing on the rapidly changing landscape of people’s beach at jacob riis park in neponsit, queens. they prioritize poetic, participatory, and insurgent methods in their research.

they also work as a research associate with the place, memory & culture incubator, editorial assistant with women’s studies quarterly (new york, ny), member-worker with the home build collective of black visioning group (philadelphia, pa), copyeditor, adjunct instructor, and performance and installation artist.

at present, they are a social practice cuny actionist fellow.