Ashanti has maintained a deep appreciation for that aesthetic union of environment and humans which takes expression through gardens and other curated or stewarded landscapes. His graduate studies at Cal Poly Pomona (Masters of Landscape Architecture) incorporated areas of environmental and eco-systemic design. While an undergrad at Pomona College (BA, Asian Studies), he was an early collaborator in guerilla gardening and supporter of the Pomona College Organic Farm, which has in the year since become a resource for the Environmental Analysis program & its majors.

In the role of Academic Coordinator, Ashanti provides for the administrative, faculty, and student support needs of the Pomona College Dance Department. His introduction to biochar came by way of Mark von Wodtke, professor emerita from Cal Poly Pomona, whom Ashanti supported as co-chair of the Tree Action Group (2016-18) within the umbrella non-profit, Sustainable Claremont. Between 2018 and 2022, he collaboratively designed Rebecca’s Garden, a meditative food forest on the grounds of Christ Church Parish in Ontario, California, that was inaugurated on November 6, 2021.