In 2009, I stood on frozen ocean and looked out at towering icebergs, slip-sliding penguins, and an unending Weddell Sea (I jumped into that unending sea, but that’s a story for another time). Surrounded by ice and water in the last hours of the decade, I’d never felt so tiny or been more in awe of our planet.
I’ve been chasing that feeling ever since and sharing it with as many people as possible.
I am a co-founder and the co-CEO of Hidden Compass, a women-founded media company ending the era of junk food media by uniting audiences with the humans, causes and possibilities behind award-winning stories.
I’m an award-winning photographer, journalist, and editor who views the world through a lens of exploration and story. I’ve contributed to AFAR, Narrative, Backpacker, BBC Travel, Outdoor Photographer, the Best Women’s Travel Writing, Hidden Compass, and numerous other publications. My work has been recognized in the Best American Travel Writing series multiple times and has appeared in exhibits from San Diego to the Sorbonne.
My strengths lie in being able to see connections among various disciplines and leveraging those connections to tell the story that needs to be told.
As a lawyer, I delighted in bridging the gap between math and the law. As an entrepreneur and publisher, I’m applying the lessons of the farm-to-table movement to journalism in order to create a future for the latter that is nourishing and sustainable.
I graduated from the University of Chicago with three majors — economics, public policy studies, and political science — and one Lazarused newspaper, the Chicago Weekly News (now Chicago Weekly). As a Teach for America corps member in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley, I taught eighth graders about the tangency of math and literacy. As a student at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, I taught high school students about the Constitution and competed on Penn’s national trial team. After graduating from law school, I returned to Texas, where I worked on a Supreme Court case, gleefully included math equations in as many briefs as possible, and represented hundreds of indigent defendants as a federal public defender.
Ultimately, I left the law to sail across the most brutal sea on Earth and explore Antarctica by boat and by foot. Since then, I’ve chased storms through Tornado Alley, hung out of helicopters over California wildfires, searched for polar bears in the Arctic Circle, and celestially navigating the Bermuda Triangle.
A lover of all things cold and dark, I spend much of my life searching for beautiful ice and the darkest skies. And for the last several years, I’ve hunted ink black nights to some of the most remote locations on the planet.
I’m currently at work on my first book, Saving the Night: Shedding Light On The Importance Of Darkness
“As a young writer, there are few experiences more valuable than working with an editor who has the talent, patience and grace to share feedback that does more than simply improve a story — it improves the way you write. I contributed a story to the winter [2017] issue of Hidden Compass, and my experience working with Sivani Babu and her team was exceptional. I am thrilled with the published piece, which was shaped by Babu's editorial prowess, but I'm even happier about how much I learned through the process. Truly, I believe that her edits made me a better writer…”
— JODI CASH
“The Beauty and Violence Beneath our Feet,”
Hidden Compass
