Announcing the 2025-2026 Institute of the Environment Earth and Environmental Climate Justice Scholars
Environmental and Climate Justice Scholars
Gwyneth Chilcoat
Gwyneth Chilcoat is a PhD student in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences (pre-candidacy). Chilcoat derives insights from fossil records to inform native coastal shellfish restoration policy.
With the support of the Institute of the Environment, Chilcoat will host a symposium to bring together stakeholders in her research and co-interpret data together.
Tom Cromsjo
My research, jointly with Mathew Koester from Economics, investigates how natural disasters have shaped ethnic bias and racial violence in the US over the past few decades and how climate change might be exacerbating those tensions further.
The Environmental and Climate Justice Scholar Award supports this research by enabling me to work full-time on this project during the summer quarter.
Tamar Crump
I am evaluating the effectiveness of parent nutrition education programs and assisting in the implementation of animal husbandry programming in Uganda and Kenya for the improvement of child health. This award will help provide research materials and ensure compensation for participants.
Kyle Anthony Gatdula Dahilig
My research focuses on exploring the mechanisms small island states in the Pacific use within polycentric governance systems to achieve climate adaptation. Receiving the Environmental and Climate Justice Award connects me with the informational outlets to guide my research process and the financial stability to pursue my research where I grew up in and within the greater pacific region.
Ugoada Ikoro
Ugo, an M.S student in International Agricultural Development, is studying climate change as it pertains to resilience strategies and community-building among women farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. Her research seeks to elucidate the spaces that Black women claim in healing and modelling just practices toward climate resilience, food, and land stewardship.
Milagros Molinari
My research will focus on developing and deploying affordable technology to help underserved communities in California detect and respond to the causes and sources of poor air quality. This award supports my research and education goals by providing funding to cover tuition costs.
Becca VanArnam
This research investigates if and how youth-focused participatory science programs can foster science identity among historically marginalized students, advancing environmental education and participation.
This award enables the development and implementation of an advocacy-focused curriculum in collaboration with teachers, supports teacher stipends, and provides resources for youth to publicly share their scientific work in a Student Showcase, amplifying youth voices in environmental decision-making and advancing environmental justice through science education.
Lynette Williams
Lynette studies biotic responses to wetland restoration and wetland restoration design in the San Francisco Estuary. This award will support her work in optimizing multi-benefit restoration designs in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and travel to the Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation Conference.
Earth Scholars
Greg Boudreaux
I use the tools of applied microeconomics to study how households adapt to environmental risk, with a focus on disaster insurance. I will use my Earth Scholars funding to purchase data and supplement my stipend, so I can work exclusively on my dissertation.
Liam Bhajan
Liam's research is focused on utilizing drone and satellite imagery to monitor and evaluate sustainable agricultural techniques such as cover cropping in almond orchards.
This award will help cover costs of data collection missions and provide support for conference and presentations where the project findings will be shared with the interested stakeholders.
Daphne Condon
I am studying the techno-economic potential of agrivoltaics (solar co-located with agriculture) to support farmers and clean energy goals in the California Central Valley.
This award provides financial support to explore farmer perspectives on agrivoltaics, a critical step for translating modeling outcomes into real-world applications
Jocelyn Cziko
My research project examines geochemical signatures in stalagmites to reconstruct past climate variations during periods of climate change, offering insight into today’s climate crisis. This scholarship will support my research by funding travel to collect modern cave calibration samples, enabling sample analysis, and allowing outreach at future conferences
Lillian Goerlitz
This research will address key questions regarding the safety and efficacy of implementing enhanced silicate weathering, one of the most promising geochemical engineering approaches for marine carbon dioxide removal. The Earth Scholar Award will support residency, fieldwork, and laboratory analysis at Bodega Marine Lab, as well as conference travel to present research findings.
Alyssa Flores
This project aims to assess the effects of enhanced rock weathering, with and without compost, on microbial activity, carbon storage, and nutrient cycling across varying soil types in California rangelands. This award supports my research by covering my stipend, allowing me to focus fully on achieving my research goals.
Sarah Hirschey
I investigate the influence of megafires, such as the 2021 Caldor Fire, on hydro-biogeochemical interactions in source watersheds and the implications for downstream drinking water treatment. The Earth Scholar award provides essential support for fieldwork, lab analyses, and external partnership building (i.e., The American River Conservancy, Rancho Murieta Community Services District), while providing the opportunity to learn from a like-minded group of multidisciplinary scholars focused on protecting natural resources.
Sara Ludwick
My research examines how the organizational structures and strategies of California's Prescribed Burn Associations (PBAs) shapes their capacity to implement prescribed burns on private lands. With support from the Earth Scholar Award, I will conduct and analyze interviews with PBA members across the state to uncover how voluntary, community-based decision-making can generate environmental and social benefits.
Ignacio Oliva Peirano
My research investigates how industrial tree plantations affect the provision of ecosystem services and how these impacts are distributed among households, ultimately providing evidence on their suitability as a climate mitigation policy.
This grant will support my research by funding essential field work and contributing to my stipend, allowing me to collect data for my study.
Ania Szlembarska
My project explores how sea-level rise influences the production of neurotoxic methylmercury in coastal wetlands by analyzing changes in water chemistry and microbial communities. Support from the Earth Scholar Award will help fund additional field efforts and outreach to impacted communities and environmental stakeholders.
Ethan Xie
This research project assesses the ecological impacts of more than 100 federally-regulated hydropower projects on flow regimes in stream systems throughout California. Support from this award will help develop robust data tools that can be used to perform extensive statistical analyses and provide more informed water management recommendations that optimally support both aquatic ecosystem health and various societal needs.
Zoe Zenker
To improve projections of precipitation patterns in the western United States, we turn to the paleo climate record, which provides a long-term context for understanding natural climate variability and evaluating model performance under different boundary conditions. This award will give me the opportunity to collect data to reconstruct past hydroclimate in the western U.S. and to communicate the significance of my research to the broader scientific community.
Learn more about the Institute of the Environment Earth and Environmental Justice Scholars at the link: https://environment.ucdavis.edu/programs/faculty-fellows