Building Hope: 2025 at the Wrigley Institute
As 2025 comes to a close, the USC Wrigley Institute is looking back – and ahead – with hope. Although climate change continued to intensify, our community of students, scholars, and staff pushed forward, developing new insights and solutions to climate impacts and preparing for careers as environmental leaders. We’re deeply grateful for the opportunity to deepen our impact across the environmental and sustainability landscape through interdisciplinary research, unique educational opportunities, and community engagement.
In 2025, our work spanned carbon management, plastics, wildfire recovery, environmental storytelling, and more, highlighting the importance of cross-disciplinary collaboration in exploring solutions that can change the world for the better. Looking back at the year, these milestones offer a snapshot of how our combined efforts are shaping a sustainable future for people and planet.
Celebrating decades of environmental research
This year marks 30 years since the beginning of the Wrigley Institute and 60 years of the Philip K. Wrigley Marine Science Center (WMSC), the institute’s satellite campus on Catalina Island.
In 1965, thanks to the generosity of the Wrigley family, the University of Southern California established a 14-acre marine science outpost at Big Fisherman Cove, located 22 miles off the Los Angeles coast. Today, thanks to the work of Wrigley Institute staff and collaborators, Big Fisherman Cove is part of California’s marine protected area (MPA) network. This network was added in 2025 to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Green List of Protected and Conserved Areas – a distinction that recognizes successful examples of biodiversity conservation. The cove continues to anchor WMSC’s educational and research programs, including the Wrigley Institute’s Catalina Residential College, USC faculty and Ph.D. research, and projects run by investigators from around the country.
In 1995, the Wrigley family offered another foundational gift to create the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies. This gift established a program for environmental education, research, and public engagement on USC’s main University Park campus. In the years since, the institute has grown to encompass USC’s Environmental Studies academic program, USC Sea Grant, and a host of new internships, research activities, signature events, and other initiatives. The institute officially changed its name to the Wrigley Institute for Environment and Sustainability in 2023, to reflect this expanded mission.
Supporting wildfire recovery in Los Angeles
Following the record-breaking January wildfires in Los Angeles, many Wrigley Institute affiliates signed on to aid in community recovery. In January, the institute released a Guide to the January 2025 Wildfires, sharing faculty expertise about L.A. wildfire history, prevention, and recovery. Throughout the year, staff and researchers continued to offer hope for communities affected by the fires, offering free soil testing for affected properties, aiding in the rescue of endangered species, exploring how to save kelp forests from contamination, and offering expertise for insurance solutions.
Seeding interdisciplinary innovation
This year, the Wrigley Institute reached a major milestone: $1 million in lifetime grants from our Faculty Innovation Awards program. This initiative provides USC faculty with seed funding for innovative, solutions-focused research projects that address complex environmental challenges. Previous supported research includes coral restoration, solutions for water shortages, biodiversity in Los Angeles, and much more. The 2025-2027 cohort of awardees is the institute’s largest yet, spanning a wide range of disciplines and USC schools. This year, several projects align with our Cross-Cutting Initiatives, with four awardees supported through the Climate and Carbon Management Initiative and one supported through the Future of Plastics Initiative.
Watch: 2024 Faculty Innovation Award winner Paulina Oliva, an economics professor, explains her work on solutions for urban water shortages.
New postdoctoral cohort explores solutions for climate and carbon management
In addition to funding faculty research, this year the Wrigley Institute welcomed six new postdoctoral researchers to our Climate and Carbon Management Initiative, a program seeded by Ballmer Group to tackle the root cause of climate change: excess carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. These postdocs are exploring carbon-related issues on multiple fronts – from enhancing our planet’s natural carbon-capture and -storage processes to monitoring greenhouse gas-eating microbes, investigating how carbon capture affects public health, and deepening our understanding of public attitudes toward carbon solutions.
Watch: Climate and Carbon postdoc Mohammed Hashim explains his research into ocean alkalinity enhancement, a method for increasing the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon from the atmosphere.
Wrigley Institute experiential learning goes international
While Wrigley Institute-supported researchers are developing hopeful new solutions now, we’re also training a new generation of leaders to build a better tomorrow. And this year, some of those students were part of our first-ever international course.
During the spring 2025 semester, Wrigley Institute Director Joe Árvai taught It’s Not Easy Being Green: Decision-making for Sustainable Action, a psychology course bridging Los Angeles and Zürich, Switzerland. In addition to completing sustainability case studies on L.A.-based organizations, the students took a spring break trip to Zürich for a behind-the-scenes look at sustainable decision-making in comparable European firms. They visited organizations representing industries such as public transportation, wildlife conservation, and sustainable fashion, exploring how geographic, cultural, political, and economic factors influence action. The course and spring break trip will run again in spring 2026.
Environmental storytelling takes center stage
In line with a focus on connecting people with the planet, the Wrigley Institute continues to hold signature annual events and programs that inspire positive change. This year, the institute welcomed our fourth cohort of Storymakers Fellows. Based at WMSC, Storymakers is a week-long intensive that trains established researchers in the art of environmental storytelling, helping them bring their academic research to the public through media such as nonfiction books, novels, podcasts, and live performances. In addition, this year’s Delta Murphy Lecture featured acclaimed artist and children’s book author Oliver Jeffers, highlighting storytelling that emphasizes hope and possibility in the face of today’s environmental challenges.
Reflecting on the year, the Wrigley Institute celebrates continued growth, collaboration, and impact. These milestones are made possible through the dedication of researchers, students, staff, and collaborators, as well through the generosity of donors and other supporters who stand with us in our commitment to the planet.
As we welcome 2026, we continue to extend our invitation to all. Get involved with the Wrigley Institute by attending an event, taking an environmental studies class, applying for a research grant, or providing support to our interdisciplinary work. Together, we continue to make a tangible difference for our planet and our communities.