The USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies announces the selection of its 2024 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 Earth sciences and chemistry or less common fields such as literature and anthropology.

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 around the world.

Learn more about the Wrigley Institute Graduate Fellowship >>

 

Meet the 2024 Fellows

 

Zak Breckenridge

Wrigley Institute Fellow

English

Advisor: Devin Griffiths

Project: Pedagogies of Wonder: Ecology, Aesthetics, and Modern Conservation

 

 

 

 

Yan Yin “Jenny” Cheung

Wrigley Institute Fellow

Marine and Environmental Biology

Advisor: Laura Melissa Guzman

Project: Connecting ecological theory to observational biodiversity data: How does ecosystem stability change across space and time?

 

 

 

 

Maggie Davis

Wrigley Institute Fellow

Sociology

Advisor: Andrew Lakoff

Project: Tracing Contours of Risk: Environment and Economy in Appalachia’s Natural Gas Extraction Landscape

 

 

 

 

Jacob Denova

Wrigley Institute Fellow

Marine and Environmental Biology

Advisor: Suzanne Edmands

Project: Does exposure to sublethal heat and salinity stress increase thermal tolerance in a dynamic environment?

 

 

 

 

Daria Di Blasi

Wrigley Institute Fellow

Marine and Environmental Biology

Advisor: Jed Fuhrman

Project: Exploring the Marine RNA Virosphere and its Potential Role in Carbon Flux

 

 

 

 

Aidan Diamond

Wrigley Institute Fellow

Advisor: Natania Meeker

Project: “For a Better Future”: Narrative and Hope at the End of the World

 

 

 

 

 

Maya Gomez

Wrigley Institute Fellow

Marine and Environmental Biology

Advisor: Carly Kenkel

Project: Disentangling determinants of growth, calcification and branching in a stony coral

 

 

 

 

Jaden Morales

Wrigley Institute Fellow

American Studies and Ethnicity

Advisor: Juan De Lara

Project: Techno-Ecologies of Debt, Disaster, and Dispossession in Puerto Rico

 

 

 

 

Clarissa Olivar

Wrigley Institute Fellow

Chemistry

Advisor: Travis J. Williams

Project: Converting Wind Turbine Waste into Pharmaceutically Relevant Molecules

 

 

 

 

Juliann Panehal

Wrigley Institute Fellow

Earth Sciences

Advisors: Jan Amend, Roman Barco

Project: Oil Spill Impacts on Marine Microbial Ecosystems in Southern California

 

 

 

 

Juliana Pinillos

Wrigley Institute Fellow

Economics

Advisor: Paulina Oliva

Project: The Impact of Slum Upgrading on Natural Disasters’ Vulnerability

 

 

 

 

Amber Santoro

Wrigley Institute Fellow

History

Advisor: Bill Deverell

Project: Environmental Racism, Displacement and Transportation in L.A.

 

 

 

 

Maxwell Shiller

Wrigley Institute Fellow

Classics

Advisor: Christelle Fischer-Bovet

Project: The Rhodian Epicenter: Tracing Relationships between the Rhodian Earthquake (c. 227 BCE) and Hellenistic History

 

 

 

 

Rachel So

Wrigley Institute Fellow

Earth Sciences

Advisor: Sarah Feakins

Project: Temperature and hydroclimate change in Utah over glacial cycles of the last 200,000 years

 

 

 

 

Yeshvi Tomar

Wrigley Institute Fellow

Chemistry

Advisor: Surya Prakash

Project: Improving upon iron electrodes for rechargeable alkaline batteries

 

 

 

 

Guanyizhuo Yao

Wrigley Institute Fellow

Anthropology

Advisor: Nancy Lutkehaus

Project: Tar Pits and Time: Unveiling Los Angeles from the Depths of the Pleistocene to the Anthropocene

 

 

 

 

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.