Last September, religious leaders, military personnel and nuclear scientists gathered at the University of New Mexico — just miles from the birthplace of the atomic bomb — to discuss protecting life on Earth from nuclear catastrophe.

Organized by the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies (IACS), an independent research center based at USC Dornsife, the event, which was held in collaboration with the University of New Mexico, drew a uniquely diverse group: senior officials from recent presidential administrations, the head of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, local Indigenous leaders and “downwinders” — people exposed to radioactive fallout from weapons testing. Among the faith leaders attending were Archbishop Emeritus Joseph Mitsuaki Takami of Nagasaki, who lost family members during the 1945 atomic bombing of Japan; Cardinal Robert McElroy, the Archbishop of Washington; and Archbishop John Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

“Our motivation was to reignite dialogue between serious thinkers about nuclear strategy and the ethics of nuclear weapons,” says Richard Wood, IACS president, who was raised in the constant shadow of nuclear threat. Born in Los Alamos, New Mexico, home to the Manhattan Project, his father and brother worked at the National Laboratory.

The urgency was palpable at the forum. “People engaged in a new way,” says Wood. “Some argued that deterrence is the right strategy, while others took the official position of the Catholic Church: that we urgently need multilateral, verifiable disarmament.” With global tensions rising and nuclear arsenals expanding, the stakes for this dialogue have never been higher.

The nuclear strategy forum is just one example of how USC Dornsife scholars are working across disciplines to preserve life. Whether it’s helping to prevent a nuclear apocalypse or restoring endangered ecosystems, they’re identifying and combating some of our planet’s most pressing threats with innovative science, practical policy and hands-on action.

Race Against Extinction

For some species, the apocalypse has already arrived.

Seven years ago, marine biologist Carly Kenkel began transplanting hundreds of farmed coral specimens to reef habitats off the Florida Keys to study how they grow in natural conditions. But during the unprecedented Caribbean heat wave of summer 2023, she rushed to Florida — only to find 98% of her coral, and much of the surrounding reef, had died.

“A lot of sites were just devastated,” says Kenkel, Wilford and Daris Zinsmeyer Early Career Chair in Marine Studies. “And in the Caribbean, whenever a reef is lost, it doesn’t come back. This system has lost its natural capacity to heal itself.”

In the wake of the catastrophe, many experts deemed Caribbean corals beyond saving, but Kenkel disagreed. Although the reefs can no longer recover naturally, she believed scientists could help by using pioneering techniques. “If we want to save the Caribbean reefs, our only hope is human intervention.”

One of those novel methods is best described as IVF for coral: Scientists would freeze coral eggs and sperm for future use while banking living specimens in aquariums. This buys time while the world works to slow climate change. “It’s a last-resort insurance policy,” says Kenkel, associate professor of biological sciences. “But the biology is tricky. Spawning happens only once a year, so it’s a race against time.”

Kenkel and a team of coral scientists and conservation experts are pushing for an international biobank network to store coral genetic material and rapid-response teams to temporarily relocate coral during extreme heat events.

But coordinating action is no small feat. The Caribbean’s coral reefs extend across more than 30 separate territories, each with its own regulations and priorities.

“From the coral’s perspective, it’s one interconnected system. But from the human geopolitical viewpoint, it’s much more complex,” says Kenkel. Nevertheless, she’s optimistic, citing a successful coral breeding program on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef as proof that intervention can work.

The Kenkel Lab is also researching why some corals can handle warmer waters better than others. Coral is a meta organism — a partnership between the coral animal and the algae that feed it. By introducing more heat-tolerant algae, scientists can help corals adapt. “It’s already happening naturally,” Kenkel says, “but humans can speed up the process. It’s the easiest lever to pull.”

The Power of the Ocean

Selectively breeding marine life isn’t just good for biodiversity, it could also help fight climate change, restore polluted coastlines, support agriculture and open up a wealth of new business opportunities.

The waters off California’s coast were once home to flourishing kelp forests. These fast-growing brown algae sheltered a teeming variety of marine creatures while absorbing megatons of carbon from the atmosphere every year. Kelp is also useful above sea level — its extract helps crops become more drought resistant, and the algae is used in everything from frozen foods to toothpaste and pharmaceuticals.

But kelp is sensitive to heat. When water temperatures exceed 70 degrees, it begins to die. Over the last decade, marine heatwaves have wiped out more than 90% of the kelp forests along a 200-mile stretch of the Northern California coast.

Biologist Sergey Nuzhdin has a rescue plan. In 2022, he founded Kelp Ark, a nonprofit kelp nursery and seed bank. The goal of this partnership between USC Dornsife and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is to selectively breed kelp that can survive warmer waters and absorb more carbon from the atmosphere.

“If you planted wild kelp to absorb one gigaton of carbon, you would need roughly a million square kilometers,” says Nuzhdin, professor of biological sciences. “But with kelp bred for higher carbon absorption, we estimate we would need only a fifth of that.”

Nuzhdin envisions large-scale kelp farms off the coast of Los Angeles. Just five miles from Santa Monica, the Hyperion sewage treatment plant — one of the largest in the world — discharges treated wastewater into the ocean around the clock. The excess nitrogen fuels algae blooms, sickens marine life and pollutes L.A.’s beaches.

“If you put a kelp farm out there, it would suck up a substantial portion of that excess nitrogen from the wastewater,” says Nuzhdin. “It would clean the water, make the beaches far more pleasant, help California agriculture — and turn a profit.”

This year, though, Nuzhdin has an even more urgent task. In January, his team of Kelp Ark divers surveyed the murky waters off Pacific Palisades, looking for wildfire damage to kelp forests. What they found was an apocalyptic scene: Ash and debris had wreaked as much havoc on the underwater forest as they had on land.

Nuzhdin’s race to stockpile genetic material from kelp and create more resilient varieties is on.

Fighting Fire with Nature

L.A.’s wildfires were fueled by a powerful accelerant: the city’s hollowed-out ecosystem, says biologist and anthropologist Craig Stanford. In his new book, Unnatural Habitat: The Native and Exotic Wildlife of Los Angeles, he explores how fire-resistant native plants have been replaced by highly flammable non-native species.

“The single worst culprit in spreading L.A.’s January fires were the city’s non-native palms,” he says. “They catch fire easily, flames shoot up like torches, then jump to the next tree.”

Stanford, professor of biological sciences and anthropology, lives just 300 yards from the Altadena power line suspected of sparking the Eaton Fire that devastated the historic L.A. County community. Miraculously, his neighborhood was one of the few in Altadena that was spared. “That was pure luck; the embers flew over our block in the strong winds and landed elsewhere,” he says. But luck isn’t a strategy. To limit future damage, Stanford recommends planting native trees such as oaks and sycamores, which can block airborne embers and resist ignition.

“In January, embers hit the crown of these trees, but didn’t ignite them,” he says. “That’s strong evidence that native trees are essential. Exotic trees should be replaced with natives.”

He is encouraged by L.A.’s growing native plant movement. More homeowners are replacing lawns with sages, salvias and California lilacs — plants that not only resist fire but feed native bees. “If just one or two households per block in America made the switch,” says Stanford, “we would create a mosaic that would be the largest national park in America. And it’s slowly happening in L.A., which is great news.”

Stanford’s conservation work doesn’t stop in Southern California. He also helps fight the lucrative illegal trade in turtles and tortoises — Earth’s most endangered animal group. As chair of the Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, he works with law enforcement around the world to investigate and shut down traffickers.

“Because turtles and tortoises live so long, they’re considered valuable investments in parts of Asia,” he says. “Some fetch up to $100,000. That kind of high demand is wiping them out.”

Still, Stanford remains optimistic. As a board member of the Turtle Conservancy — one of the largest nonprofit landowners in Mexico — he’s involved in the creation of wildlife sanctuaries where USC Dornsife students can conduct field research. And he’s seen sea turtles make an impressive comeback.

Twenty years ago, conservation groups helped end the sea turtle egg trade in some regions by hiring former poachers to work in ecotourism, introducing visitors to the wild animals they once hunted for cash. “Now, sea turtle populations in some areas are booming,” he says. “Whether it’s habitat protection, captive breeding or working with law enforcement, there are almost always solutions.”

But even when conservationists manage to save a threatened species from the brink of extinction, Stanford says, researchers can’t just pack up and go home. Ongoing monitoring is essential.

The Road to Conservation

In the 1990s, the island fox — a cat-sized animal found only on California’s Channel Islands — experienced a catastrophic decline and was on the brink of extinction. But by 2016, thanks to a famously successful captive-breeding program, the species was removed from the endangered list.

“It was one of the greatest conservation success stories ever and the fastest mammal recovery in the history of the Endangered Species Act,” says biologist Suzanne Edmands.

But Edmands recently discovered a silent threat. After analyzing genetic samples from before and after the population crash, the professor of biological sciences found that the genetic diversity of the foxes had dropped dramatically.

“Despite all the celebrations about the population rebound, the genetics are even worse than they were before,” she says. “That makes them highly vulnerable to disease and environmental change.”

Edmands hopes her findings will lead to more rigorous monitoring of island foxes — and serve as a reminder that numbers alone don’t tell the full story of recovery.

A Future Worth Protecting

Most people agree it’s worth saving island foxes, coral reefs, sea turtles and kelp forests. But implementing nuclear disarmament? That’s a harder sell. Many believe well-stocked nuclear arsenals are essential to global stability.

Still, the forum organized by IACS last fall offered a glimmer of possibility. Wood, the institute leader, says the gathering brought people together with starkly opposing views, yet a shared concern for humanity’s future.

“There was deep disagreement in the room,” he recalls. “It’s a difficult moment in American culture for constructive public dialogue.” But something shifted. Catholic thinkers, nuclear strategists and other intellectuals engaged respectfully and seriously with each other on one of the world’s most existential threats.

“Sometimes,” Wood says, “preserving life starts not with a breakthrough or a new discovery, but with listening, thinking and talking in good faith. I think that’s the first step forward.”