Benioff Scholars

Divina uses satellite and drone imagery to identify the drivers of shoreline change and assess how they influence coastal vulnerability to support adaptive management and resilience planning in the Bahamas.

Madison leverages environmental DNA to identify coral source and sink reefs in French Polynesia, helping guide coral reef management and conservation.

Cella develops satellite-based tools to evaluate how community-led rangeland governance affects pasture health and climate resilience in northern Kenya.

Lily analyzes how climate-driven hazards change transportation behavior to identify ways to make public transit more resilient and accessible.

Samantha investigates how mixotrophic plankton process carbon and nitrogen to enhance ocean biogeochemical models used for climate and ecosystem forecasting.

Haley applies tissue engineering and microfluidic technologies to develop new tools to accelerate coral growth and support reef restoration.

Wen-Tien develops a spatial model that integrates air pollution and health impacts to guide cleaner and more equitable decarbonization of the steel industry.

Alessandra uses animal-tracking data and causal inference methods to study how air pollution affects urban birds’ behavior and survival, informing targeted conservation strategies.

Lesley expands a cross-border photo-ID and citizen science program to track giant sea bass movement between California and Baja California to support international conservation efforts.

Madeleine studied how changes on coral reefs—especially the spread of macroalgae—affect herbivorous fish to inform fisheries management.

Kinsey leveraged joint dynamic species distribution models to reduce fisheries bycatch in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.

Natalie researched how nitrogen moves through the Channel Islands marine ecosystem and how those dynamics can support kelp forest restoration.

Lívia studied the economic and environmental factors shaping how small-scale cattle farmers engage with deforestation-free supply chains to identify ways to reduce deforestation.

James evaluated whether beaver-driven restoration can help solve environmental challenges in California, particularly in the Sierra Nevada.

Mukta worked on better understanding how marine protected area design features can make them more resilient to marine heatwaves.

Darwin investigated hidden neurotoxins produced by cyanobacteria to improve actionable monitoring in freshwater systems.

Olivia examined how forests recover following high severity fire and drought in the Sierra Nevada

Yutian used population dynamics modeling to estimate the status of U.S. marine mammal populations to fill critical data gaps and inform species management and conservation.