CRL’s Climate Justice Fellows Program centers a community of care approach in creating opportunities for interdisciplinary exchange, learning, and collaboration among scholars from all five divisions at UCSC.

Program Leadership

Faculty Director, Sikina Jinnah, Professor of Environmental Studies and CRL Associate Director

Director of Programs, Dr. Lisa Swaim

Program Description

Developing effective and just climate change solutions, which do not merely reproduce the existing drivers of climate change and injustice, demands radical interdisciplinarity (King 2019). Radical interdisciplinarity brings diverse fields and epistemologies into community and conversation to jointly define problems and co-create concepts, research questions, and methods that transgress traditional disciplinary divides. 

Radical interdisciplinary research requires time to exchange ideas, while also building community and mutual trust among scholars who may not otherwise have much opportunity to interact. Our Climate Justice Fellows Program (CJFP) creates such opportunities. Through formal and informal gatherings, interdisciplinary scholars are invited to build a trusted and supportive learning community, where they can think creatively about their own research, push the boundaries of their work, and reflect on the transformative elements needed to realize radical interdisciplinary collaborations.

CJFP goals are to:

  • Foster a sense of community and an ethic of care within our shared space
  • Amplify the scholarly excellence of our Fellows via creative pathways
  • Build a shared language for scholars from various disciplines surrounding climate justice
  • Catalyze ideas and opportunities for interdisciplinary research 
  • Develop programmatics that are responsive to Fellows’ needs and interests

Program Specifics

CJFP serves scholars across all five divisions, focusing on those early in their careers and underrepresented in their fields. During the pilot year (AY24-25) of this three-year program, a small cohort of fellows and CRL-affiliated faculty will gather monthly over a meal to present and discuss fellows’ ongoing research. We will intentionally center thoughtful, kind, caring, and constructive conversations and feedback. We hope to foster the types of relationships and interdisciplinary collaborations we want to see within our departments, universities, and beyond. 

CJFP seeks to be adaptable to fellows’ interests and needs. During the pilot year, we will survey fellows about their research needs and respond to those needs in the development of programmatics for years two and three. Fellows will also have the opportunity to shape the future of CJFP by collectively imagining a community event for year two, such as inviting a guest scholar or activist they admire and with whom they wish to connect. In year two of the program, fellows will have access to catalytic grants focused on interdisciplinary climate justice collaborations. The results from these collaborative projects will be presented at campus-wide convening on climate justice research in year three. Fellows will also receive mentoring support for grant writing and merit review.

Current Fellows

Abel Souza (Computer Science and Engineering)

Alli Moreno (Ocean Sciences)

Blessing Kavhu (Environmental Studies)

Brittani Orona (History)

Fuifuilupe (Fui) Niumeitolu (Critical Race and Ethnic Studies)

Javier González-Rocha (Mechanical Engineering)

Jorge Menna Barreto (Art)

Julisa Lopez (Psychology)

Kriti Sharma (Critical Race and Ethnic Studies)

mattie brice (Performance, Play & Design)

Mijin Cha (Environmental Studies)

Racine Rangel (Ecology & Evolutionary Biology)