Kallee Bareket-Shavit
Earth Scholar

Kallee, a Ph.D. student in the Geography Graduate Group, research focuses on measuring social vulnerability across California communities from 2000-2020. Her research will use census data and evaluate historic trends to anticipate those in the future. Specifically, her research will examine rapidly urbanized areas and flood-prone communities.

Kasego Pearl Letshele
Earth Scholar 

Kasego is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. Letshele’s research seeks to reconstruct the hydroclimate in the western US during the last glacial period, using stalagmites from California. The goal is to identify the hydroclimate response in this region during a period of major climate change including a large rise in atmospheric CO2.

Liyu Mekonnen
Earth Scholar

Liyu, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, undertakes research to elucidate the true carbon capture potential of seagrass beds globally and promote the future conservation of these critical marine ecosystems. Seagrass increases ocean alkalinity and naturally contributes to the storage of carbon, sustaining a rich local biodiversity and flood and erosion protection all while reducing the harmful impacts of ocean acidification.

Jadda Miller
Earth Scholar

Jadda is a Ph.D. student in Science Education and Native American Studies. Miller's research involves a collaborative, community-based project, informed by Native Hawaiian Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Western science, that aims to empower Maui high school students taking Field Ecology with knowledge, skills, and agency related to mitigating wildfire impacts and promoting social-ecological systems resilience. 

Stuart Morrison
Earth Scholar

Stuart is a Ph.D. student in Agricultural and Resource Economics. Morrison’s project will find optimal ways to manage electricity grids with high levels of renewables to support the clean energy transition. This would allow renewables to be used to their full potential and advance the transition to renewable-powered electricity grids.

Elisabeth Sellinger
Environmental and Climate Justice Scholar

Elisabeth is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. Sellinger will create a bilingual educational video about seagrass ecosystems. She’ll explore carbon sequestration in seagrass meadows before and after restoration. The video will help bridge knowledge gaps and promote conservation awareness among diverse communities.

Jaeeun Sohng
Earth Scholar

Jaeeun, a Ph.D. student in the Graduate Group in Soils and Biogeochemistry, is pursuing research that will investigate how Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW), combined with organic carbon inputs, affects microbial activity, carbon dynamics, and soil carbon sequestration in agricultural soils.

Kenji Tomari
Environmental and Climate Justice Scholar

Kenji is a Ph.D. student in the Geography Graduate Group. Tomari's research will provide the Maya Q'eqchi' community with the tools to seek digital autonomy. The research will record Maya Q'eqchi' drone stories, experiences, and knowledge. The goal is to train the Maya Q'eqchi' to identify drone types, assess their activity, and broadly understand how accumulated data is used.

Nina Venuti
Earth Scholar

Nina, a Ph.D. candidate in the Graduate Group in Ecology and Department of Plant Sciences seeks to understand the motivations, impacts, and meanings behind community participation in California Prescribed Burn Associations (PBAs). Venuti aims to provide insight into the factors facilitating community-based, collective action for wildfire risk reduction.

Kase Wheatley
Environmental and Climate Justice Scholar

Kase is a Ph.D. student in the Geography Graduate Group. Wheatley’s project will study how regional and statewide land transition efforts can center environmental justice through ecological and social accountability to historically dispossessed and underserved communities.