We're excited to announce that Isabel Montañez, director of the UC Davis Institute of the Environment, recently received the 2025 EDGE in Tech Athena Award for Academic Leadership. The award is from the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society and the Banatao Institute (CITRIS) at the University of California.

The Edge in Tech Athena Awards celebrate individuals who embody, encourage, and promote the inclusion of underrepresented groups in technology. The Academic Leadership Award recognizes senior leaders in academic or national labs who have a demonstrated record of technical accomplishments and have encouraged or mentored young scholars or colleagues.

Montañez, a sedimentary geochemist and paleoclimatologist, is renowned in her field for conducting expansive research to reconstruct global and regional climates to better understand the processes underlying past occurrences of major climate change. Her inclusionary work extends to a vertically integrated mentoring program for undergraduate geoscience students recruited from diverse backgrounds.

Montañez is also a PI on the NSF-funded WinG Collective that is building a UC-wide mentoring and networking program to support early career transformation for the next generation of scientists.

Read more about the award at the link: https://citris.ucdavis.edu/news/2025-edge-tech-athena-award-winners-promote-inclusion-tech-fields.

Learn more about Isabel Montañez and her research into past climate change at the link: https://environment.ucdavis.edu/people/isabel-patricia-montanez-phd