Deepti Bansal Gage, JD ’20, has been named a 2020 Planet Forward Storyfest winner in the “Fan Favorite Award” category.
Planet Forward is a project of the Center for Innovative Media at GW’s School of Media and Public Affairs with a mission to teach, celebrate, and reward environmental storytelling by college students. The Planet Forward Storyfest Awards recognize and reward the best and most compelling student-told stories illuminating environmental issues and solutions.
Ms. Gage won the award for her entry, “Wait! Before You Squish That Bug…” Her piece, inspired by a lecture on the Endangered Species Act by GW Law Professor Robert L. Glicksman, explores why we should care about endangered species and each species' importance to our ecosystem and even our economy.
“Through my writing, I would like to reach those who may be otherwise uninterested in species conservation,” said Ms. Gage. “My hope is that they may find a reason to think twice before dismissing an organism that might be incredibly important to their own life or their greater community.”
In 2019, Ms. Gage was chosen as a Storyfest finalist in the “Shareable/Short Video” category for her project, “Nature’s Small But Mighty Fix for Algae Blooms.” This year, she and her fellow grand prize winners will travel to Iceland, where they will report on pressing environmental issues found just south of the Arctic Circle.
Ms. Gage credits her late grandfather for her love of storytelling. “I was inspired to tell stories to spark interest in the curiosities of our natural world for others like he did for me,” she noted. “This award not only will provide me with an opportunity to continue storytelling, but it will also allow me to live his dream by taking this expedition around Iceland.”
While at GW Law, Ms. Gage served as a research assistant to Professor Jeremy Bearer-Friend and former Associate Dean LeRoy C. Paddock, a member of The George Washington Law Review, a senior correspondent for Planet Forward, student co-chair of the ABA TIPS Animal Law Committee, and Secretary of the Environment and Energy Law Association.
After law school, she will be joining Beveridge & Diamond, an environmental law firm, in their Washington, DC, office. “Learning from the professors in GW Law's Environmental and Energy Law Program has shaped my outlook on conservation and the role I hope to play in environmental law,” she added.