Ventana Ocean Conservation Scholarship

The ocean is a place that has always felt like home. It has always sparked curiosity, comfort, and belonging within me. No matter what I always find myself drawn to it. I care about protecting our oceans because it is foundational for supporting the health of humans and nature. We all have something to gain from persevering and conserving our oceans and beaches. The pollution of our oceans is a social and environmental issue that we must address. For many like myself, there is a sense of topophilia for the ocean. It's a place to make memories and take in the beauty of our earth. It represents family, friends, and joy making it something that should be shared with future generations. Oceans encourage exploration for the unknown and drives us to build deeper connections with the environment which is important for physical and mental health. It also influences innovation and knowledge through discovering more about the systems of our world and the possibility for creating new medicines and technologies that can lead us towards developing a more sustainable way of life. Perhaps most importantly, ocean health is directly related to human health, our societies, and the health of our ecosystems. By protecting our oceans we would be taking a proactive approach towards also supporting the industries that rely on the resources we need from the ocean (materials, food, etc) that in turn support our economies, infrastructures, and well being. Additionally, by protecting our oceans we also protect its wildlife which are equally as important for sustaining human life. Marine animals and the conditions of their habitats is necessary for persevering the biodiversity of our oceans and its health. Marine organisms play a pivotal role in regulating the health our oceans by maintaining its natural order. When something like a keystone species is lost, we risk losing an ecosystem altogether and in quick time this could mean the complete loss of life in our oceans. Loss of life in the oceans would have detrimental impacts on our societies, and could potentially equate to our own demise. Thus, it becomes quite clear that humans are just as dependent on marine life as marine life is on us. Together, we mutually help protect each other. I plan to use my degree towards developing new solutions and methods for tackling the issue of ocean contamination. I'm particularly interested in researching the effects of mirco/nano-plastics on the environment and the health implications they pose for both marine and human life. I hope that in pursuing this kind of research I could assist in conducting environmental impact risks assessments, to be used as reference for advocacy and legislation directed towards ocean protections and regulations in support of preservation. My most ambitious goal would be to discover new technologies for addressing the chemical contamination of our oceans from marine debris, and developing strategies that would help support the natural bioremediation of our oceans.

I am a current senior at the University of California, Santa Cruz studying Environmental Sciences, graduating in the spring, and currently in the process of applying for graduate school. With the ability to take classes from multiple disciplines, I have gravitated heavily towards ocean sciences. I am also completing a minor in Sustainability, where I focus my interests on technologies and methods to take my knowledge in the sciences and apply it towards preserving the environment for future generations. I entered the University of California, Santa Cruz as an independent student moving from my home state of Montana to California completely on my own. With that comes a lot of self-dependency, which has propelled me forward into many new experiences to find my interests and lifetime career goals. For example, over the past few years, I have participated in several internships to help determine what exactly I am interested in within the realm of environmental science, including a current internship with NOAA working on tagging and tracking Coho Salmon. The biggest goal I am looking to address is the sequestration of carbon from the atmosphere, specifically looking at the oceans as our resource. Using the resources we already have to find ways to study the impacts of redirecting carbon from the atmosphere to the ocean could be the biggest solution to the climate issues we are facing today. The second I moved to Santa Cruz I took advantage of the opportunity to connect myself with the ocean, from surfing, to scuba diving, to coastal habitat internships and research. During that time I have found a love for the ocean, but also a realization of how crucial it is to protect our oceans. With the help of that connection and courses such as Biological Oceanography and Marine Environments, I began to both understand and witness the impacts of ocean acidification, increased storm events, and biomagnification of microplastics within the food web. My decision to apply to graduate programs in climate and ocean sciences stems from the hope of obtaining a deeper understanding of the effects that climate change is having on our oceans and how this is further changing our everyday lives on land. I also want to be able to analyze ways in which the ocean is currently being used to progress climate technology, such as in wave energy, kelp farms for carbon sequestration, sparking phytoplankton blooms, and to determine the best solutions to implement, depending on the harms and benefits each may have on marine ecosystems. My recent acceptances into programs such as Columbia University’s Sustainability Science and my current candidacy for Scripps’ Institute of Oceanography Climate Science program are the next steps towards completing my goals of ocean conservation and combating the impacts of climate change as it relates to the ocean.

I will graduate from the UC Irvine Master of Conservation and Restoration Science program in June of 2024. My Bachelor's degree from UC San Diego is in Cognitive Behavioral Neuroscience, but since I was a child I had known that I wanted to study marine science. Receiving a PTSD diagnosis in my second year of undergraduate study encouraged my interest in pursuing research on neuroscience topics to better understand myself and promote my healing. During my senior year, I began to explore how I could combine my love for the ocean with this neuroscience background. It seemed highly implausible and proved to be a struggle in finding those with similar interests. I knew that I wanted my future to exist in the marine conservation world, and I was willing to find any route to get there. I finally found my answer in the field of Conservation Psychology and began to see the possibilities of merging these areas of interest. With the goal of using our understanding of the human brain to create pro-conservation behavior change, I began my pursuit of higher education. I was told by my now professor that she wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a graduate program out there for me, that I'm a pioneer in this field and it's important that it gets developed. She told me that I needed to pave the way, and after years of discouragement and loads of volunteering, I was accepted into the UCI program as a marine track student. This past year in this Master's program has allowed me to learn about topics that I had never even realized existed in the academic field. On top of gaining a solid background in core ecological and conservation principles, as well as performing tons of marine fieldwork and species identification, I have been exposed to the world of Social Ecology and believe that my future work will target socioecological issues surrounding coastal living as well as deep-ocean political issues. The California coastline, for example, has long been a site of conflict, with social and environmental disputes shaping the land use, accessibility, and vulnerability of coastal communities for centuries. Growing up in Southern California and currently residing in San Diego, I have noticed how the coastline is home to diverse communities, including low-income and communities of color, but these minority groups often experience disproportionate exposure to environmental hazards and extreme weather events. The distribution of people and pollution is a result of both historical and contemporary social and political processes that reflect systemic inequities and power dynamics. I will use my degree to gain a more complete understanding of current ecological and social issues and combine this knowledge with my cognitive background and socioecological interests to create effective marine conservation management programs that are easily communicable to the public. Analyzing the policy and history of environmental laws and regulations, while gaining technical knowledge in the marine conservation field, will help me to emphasize interdisciplinary communication to contribute to an effective alliance of leaders in the conservation world. My academic history has already offered me a unique perspective in my classes and exposure to other students’ various backgrounds has strengthened my overall understanding of the different ways that people conceptualize the world. This integrated knowledge will help provide solutions via law and regulation, education, community management, and appeals to personal beliefs and ethics. This degree program fosters collaborative efforts that deliver cohesive answers and is essential in my continued pursuit of examining underlying social values and power dynamics that shape marine-focused environmental patterns.