Meet the 2023 Wrigley Institute Graduate Fellows
The USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies announces the selection of its 2023 cohort of Wrigley Institute Graduate Fellows. This year’s Fellows are Ph.D. students from disciplines across the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts & Sciences. All are tackling questions of the environment and sustainability, whether through traditionally associated fields such as marine biology and chemistry or less common fields such as history and economic policy.
Throughout the spring semester, Fellows will participate in leadership and networking activities designed to help them learn more about professional development topics such as inclusive mentoring, diverse career paths, and communicating their research to the public. Each Fellow will then receive a stipend to help support the continuation of their Ph.D. research through the summer. Fellows will complete their field experiences on USC’s main Los Angeles campus, at the Wrigley Marine Science Center on Catalina Island, and elsewhere.
Learn more about the Wrigley Institute Graduate Fellowship >>
Meet the 2023 Fellows
Teagan Baiotto
Wrigley Institute Fellow
Marine & Environmental Biology
Advisor: Laura Melissa Guzman
Project: “Modeling the role that rapid, adaptive evolution can play in conservation decision making under climate change”
Nancy Bush
Sonosky Fellow
Chemistry
Advisor: Megan Fieser
Project: “Understanding dechlorination of PVC plastic: applications to polymer upcycling”
Inessa Chandra
Bertics Fellow
Marine & Environmental Biology
Advisors: Andy Gracey, Sergey Nuzhdin
Project: “The extrinsic and intrinsic signals of aging in giant kelp”
Vanshika Fotedar
Wrigley Institute Fellow
Economics
Advisor: Paulina Oliva
Project: “Energy policy of states: A welfare analysis of preference”
Justin Gaffney
Bertics Fellow
Marine & Environmental Biology
Advisor: Jim Moffett
Project: “Sensing stress in seaweeds”
Kyla Kelly
Wrigley Institute Fellow
Marine & Environmental Biology
Advisor: Dave Hutchins
Project: “Identifying signs of light stress as a tool to survey marine ecosystem health in two globally important marine cyanobacteria”
Lauren Kelly
Wrigley Institute Fellow
History
Advisor: Bill Deverell
Project: “Troubled Waters: A Post-1930 Environmental History of the Owens Valley”
Charles Lehnen
Wrigley Institute Fellow
Biological Sciences, Anthropology
Advisor: Craig Stanford
Project: “Tortoise Terraforming: Can Introduced Galapagos Tortoises Restore Santa Fe Island’s Ecosystem?”
Gaea Morales
Sonosky Fellow
International Relations
Advisor: Wayne Sandholtz
Project: “Agents of Mass Construction: Cities Bridging Local and Global Environmental Governance”
Adib Mustofa
Wrigley Institute Fellow
Marine & Environmental Biology
Advisor: Carly Kenkel
Project: “Illuminating Genetic Population Structure and Symbiont Composition of Acropora millepora Coral in Indonesia”
Rice Rander
Sonosky Fellow
Chemistry
Advisor: Travis Williams
Project: “Sustainable Hydrogen and Fertilizer from Ethanol”
Obin Sturm
Sonosky Fellow
Earth Sciences
Advisor: Sam Silva
Project: “Data-driven discovery of symmetries and conserved properties in air quality models”
Leah Tieger
Sonosky Fellow
English
Advisor: David St. John
Project: “Rain, Wind, Wildfire Ash: The Santa Susana Field Lab and Community Risk Perceptions”
Ann Tran
Sonosky Fellow
American Studies
Advisor: George Sanchez
Project: “The Ocean Remembers: A Transpacific History of the Fishing Boat”
Rucha Wani
Wrigley Institute Fellow
Earth Sciences
Advisor: Will Berelson
Project: “The Fate of Marine Particles during Carbon Sequestration”
Aviva Wolf-Jacobs
Wrigley Institute Fellow
Spatial Sciences
Advisor: John Wilson
Project: “Scoring the Cooling Potential of Public Parks in Metropolitan Los Angeles: A Geospatial Analysis”
Wrigley Institute Graduate Fellows are generously funded through the USC Dornsife Wrigley Institute Graduate Fellowship, the Victoria J. Bertics Graduate Fellowship Fund, and the Diane Sonosky Montgomery and Jerol Sonosky Graduate Fellowship for Environmental Sustainability Research.