This Human of the U about CSBS student Tiare Cuoto, 19, from Oahu, Hawaii, is from an interview conducted on Dec. 9, 2024 and was originally posted on Jan. 1, 2025. Tiare died on Dec. 31, 2024 in an accident. The @theU editors express our condolences to Tiare’s friends and family.

“I grew up in a small community on the north shore of Oahu, Hawaii where environmental advocacy was the norm. I rode my bike to school every day and my family used our car about once a month to go to Costco. We grew most of our own food and would help with beach clean-ups every month.

When I moved to Salt Lake City, I realized this wasn’t the case in other places. On my first day of middle school, I was like why does everyone have a plastic fork? Although it was minor, it helped me realize there was a lot of room for change.

I became involved with the Sierra Club during high school. While in high school, I worked with a representative from the club to create a clean energy plan for Canyons School District to eventually transition to 100% renewable energy.

These advocacy experiences led me to major in environmental and sustainability studies, and political science. I love caring about the planet and I want to earn the skills I need to find common ground with people who have different viewpoints than me. I am interested in working on environmental change at a policy level.

I love the University of Utah and I’m so grateful for all the opportunities that are here. This coming May, I am doing a Hinckley Global internship and I am excited for what it will add to my degree experience.

If you are feeling lost and don’t know what to do, just get involved as much as you can. There are so many awesome opportunities out there that not everybody’s taking advantage of.

Read more about Tiare here. 

— Tiare Couto, a sophomore from Oahu, Hawaii studying environmental and sustainability studies, and political science