I’m Alicen— a fourth-year undergraduate student at Elon University studying policy, and where I also represent them as a distance runner on the track and field team. I’m originally from Springfield, Missouri, so despite my growing love for the East Coast, I remain a proud Midwesterner at heart.

This is a space where I reflect on and share what I learn through personal experiences, service work, and studying the systems that hold our world together, or threaten to pull it apart. I write from both reflective and creative places—poetry, essays, and observations—as well as from a more analytical lens, engaging politics, policy, and intellectual curiosity.

I’m especially drawn to questions of justice, society, security, and what it means to live with both integrity and impact. My strengths lie in pattern-recognition across domains, systems thinking, and synthesizing both meaning and alternatives from complex ideas.

At the heart of my writing is a love of challenge. My goal is to think deeply and live intentionally.