Grad students Micah Brachman, Emily de Moor, Amy McNally, and Keely Roth have been accepted as 2010 Luce Fellows by the Henry Luce Foundation. According to Christy Henzler, the UCSB Luce Fellowship Coordinator, the new cohort of fellows consists of 26 students from six departments and programs (Anthropology, the Bren School, Geography, Earth Science, Physics, and Ecology, Evolution & Marine Biology). The Luce Environmental Science to Solutions Fellowship Program is designed “to educate Ph.D. students on the full scope of environmental issues, from the identification of important environmental problems to the implementation of solutions.” Fellows each receive $6000 per year over 2 years and may apply the award to “a broad range of activities to enhance their educational experience.”
The diversity of our geography Luce fellows highlights both the interdisciplinary strength of our department and the integration of cutting edge geographic methods. Micah Brachman works on the California transportation network, investigating evacuation and emergency response capabilities with advisor Rick Church. According to Micah, “the transportation system plays a vital role in all four stages of emergency management: preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery. My research is centered on modeling the potential impacts of both man-made and natural disasters.” Keely Roth has been investigating Geographic Information Science and Terrestrial Biophysical Sciences under Dar Robert’s supervision; in her research, Keely uses remote sensing to map plant species across ecosystems, and she is currently studying the links between ground-based and remotely sensed measurements of plant phenology (the timing of life cycle events). Amy McNally (primary adviser Catherine Gautier) studies the role of river basin development and water infrastructure in shaping economic development, ecosystem vitality, and environmental health (e.g., access to clean water and sanitation). Amy addresses these issues through the integration of remotely sensed land use, land cover data, and other emerging indices of water use and availability; simulations guided by economic geography, location, and systems theory; and high resolution climate data for use in rainfall-run off models. Emily de Moor’s work focuses on disease, HIV, and conservation in protected areas in Western Africa.
According to the UCSB Marine Science Institute web site, Luce Fellows will receive training in informatics at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) based at UCSB, they will participate in a two-year Luce Environmental Working Group at NCEAS, and they will receive training in communication of science to policy makers, media, non-governmental organizations, resource managers, and industry. The fellows are encouraged to participate in the University of California’s Washington, D.C. or Sacramento programs and to refine proposed environmental solutions that emerge from the working group’s activities, based on feedback from practitioners, including elected officials and other policy makers.
H. Christopher Luce of the Henry Luce Foundation is quoted as saying: “As part of our nationwide endeavor to enhance environmental education, the Henry Luce Foundation is pleased to support UC Santa Barbara’s novel, interdisciplinary, and hands-on approach to training our nation’s future leaders to tackle some of our world’s pressing environmental challenges.” Kudos to our four such future leaders!
