Athena Tharenos

Athena is a postgraduate student at the University of Oxford, currently pursuing an MPhil in International Development. Her interests, both personal and academic, have long been directed towards fostering cross-cultural connection and understanding through storytelling and acts of service. This budding value was bolstered by her undergraduate studies, where she received honors degrees in both Anthropology, Chinese Studies, and Environmental Geoscience. After visiting southwestern Iceland on a scientific service trip in high school, she always hoped to return and learn more about the communities and landscapes found nestled between its awing volcanoes and towering glaciers. To enable this, one of her bachelor’s theses focused on the opportunities and obstacles presented to transnational actors and Arctic states alike by a waning cryosphere in the Far North—her love for storytelling directed towards interpreting systems of change. Her master’s thesis lies in a similar vein, revealing local perceptions of the impact rapid tourism development has had on people's livelihoods on the island of Rhodes; ideas she hopes to explore further, albeit in a wholly different way, when she returns to Iceland for the 2026 reconnaissance expedition.