My name is Renata (they/them pronouns) and I am a Killam Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of British Columbia working with the Urban Natures Lab. I am interested in how we can create livable cities in a future with rapid and intensifying environmental change.
Educational and Work Background:
I completed my undergraduate degree in Biology (with a specialization in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology) from the University of Chicago in 2018, with a minor in Environmental and Urban Studies.
After graduating, worked as a Conservation Land Management intern for the U.S. Forest Service at the Dorena Genetic Resource Center in Oregon and as an intern at the non-profit Columbia Land Trust right across the river in Washington State.
I completed my Ph.D. in Ecology at Duke University in the Clark Lab. I received the NSF GRFP and worked with The Nature Conservancy as a NatureNet science fellow. With colleagues at Duke, the city of Durham, the US Forest Service, The Morton Arboretum, and The Nature Conservancy, I studied patterns in tree health in both Chicago, IL and Durham, NC in the U.S. Our work uses archival research, field data, GIS data, and remote sensing to look at tree health across scales.
After finishing my Ph.D., I did a U.S. National Academies Science Policy Fellowship at the Gulf of Mexico Coastal Ocean Observing System (GCOOS) focused on understanding the impacts of marine heatwaves on coastline communities, ecosystems, and communities in the Gulf region. Moving more into a coastal policy space, I had the opportunity to learn from and collaborate with folks in fisheries, energy, emergency management, and city planning.
For full CV, see here
Grounding Vision:
I grew up in various places, both inside the US and in other countries, but have almost always lived in cities. Growing up, I thought of “nature” as being in other places, where you road trip to. Don’t get me wrong, I love spending time in national parks, going on long backpacking trips, and seeing the milky way when you’re far away from city lights. I just hope we can also appreciate the life and diversity (both human and non-human) that exists in urban areas.
We are in the midst of tackling an impending climate crisis, ongoing economic inequality, racial injustice, the carceral state, and colonial exploitation. Reckoning with the failures in our current social and economic system is long overdue, and I hope that we can use this opportunity to reimagine how we, as humans, live with and among the rest of the natural world. I aim to be part of that reimagining by looking at our urban forests, organizing for societal change, and interrogating some of the values embedded in ecological science.
