Lily Villa (Pierce) is a graduate student in Anthropology in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University. She received her B.A. in Anthropology at Arizona State University.
Lily worked for nine and a half years in youth educational and developmental programming for the City of Tempe. During this time she came to recognize a need for research around community organizing with youth ages 11-18.
Lily’s research investigates community-building practices among the Society for Creative Anachronism (a medieval re-enactment and educational organization that exists throughout the world), Participatory Budgeting (a non-profit organization seeking to develop strong democracy in the United States), and Burning Man (an annual artist gathering in Nevada). This comparative research seeks to better understand effective community-building practices to apply while working with youth ages 12-23 for social movements and social entrepeneurship.