Wildes Ho is an International Political Economy major and Asian Studies minor from Northeast Harbor, Maine. During the 2017-2018 academic year, Wildes studied in several Asian countries as part of Puget Sound's Pacific Rim Study Abroad Program. During the PacRim year, Wildes completed an independent study project on the consequences of the interactions between traditional wet markets and supermarkets in Asia. In her thesis, Tourism and Poverty Alleviation, Wildes argued that although alternative forms of tourism, specifically volunteer tourism and community-based tourism, do not play a direct role in alleviating poverty, they nevertheless offer other positive benefits to destination countries such as Cambodia.