Team
We are faculty, researchers, students, and staff with a deep commitment to climate justice.
We collaborate within a larger ecosystem of academics, climate justice organizations, Indigenous leaders, leaders from low income communities and communities of color, policymakers, philanthropists, and private sector actors aligned with climate justice.
Faculty Directors
Tracey Osborne
Tracey is the founding director of the UC-wide Center for Climate Justice. She is also Associate Professor and Presidential Chair in the Management of Complex Systems Department at the University of California, Merced. Tracey is an engaged scholar whose research focuses on the social and political economic dimensions of climate change mitigation in tropical forests, Indigenous climate action, the politics of climate finance, global environmental governance, and climate equity and justice. She has worked on these issues globally with extensive field experience in Mexico and the Amazon. She received her PhD from the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley.
Javiera Barandiaran
Javiera is a Co-Director of the Center for Climate Justice. She is also Associate Professor in Global Studies at UCSB and directs the Center for Restorative Environmental Work (CREW). Her work explores the politics and practices that follow when scientists are called to act in environmental decisions, like those over whether to build or expand new industries, energy facilities, or mines, and the consequences for public trust, accountability, and environmental justice, including for new paradigms like Rights of Nature. Javiera’s research has focused on these issues in Chile, with additional fieldwork experiences in Argentina, Bolivia, and California. She received her PhD in Environmental Science, Policy and Management and a Masters in Public Policy at UC Berkeley.
Julie Sze
Julie is a Co-Director of the Center for Climate Justice and a Professor of American Studies at UC Davis. She was also the founding director of the Environmental Justice Project at UC Davis. She has written 3 books, most recently Environmental Justice in a Moment of Danger, edited Sustainability and Social Justice and written over 70 articles and book chapters on environmental justice, the environmental humanities, geography, and public policy. She collaborates with environmental scientists, engineers, social scientists and community-based organizers in California and New York.
Staff
Deb L. Morrison
Deb L. Morrison is a climate justice learning and empowerment designer, advocate, advisor, and organizer. She is serving as a Coordinator for the UC Center for Climate Justice to foster the collaborative creation and sharing of climate justice learning resources with and across the UC system, in California more broadly, through national networks in the US, and in international climate and sustainability learning networks. Deb is working to expand the strategic reach of the CCJ guided by the co-Directors. More about her past work and public profile can be found at www.debmorrison.me
Remy Franklin
Remy is a UC Santa Cruz lecturer and personal development coach with a research and advocacy background in energy justice and climate politics. He manages climate justice curriculum development and dissemination projects to maximize the Center's educational impact. Working closely with cross-UC faculty and staff collaborators, Remy leads the Center's team to design new online and large-format versions of the course alongside instructor resources to help educators at the UC and beyond teach climate justice to a broad audience.
Sarah DuRoff
Sarah is a UC Davis graduate and is currently serving as the Program Coordinator for the UC Center for Climate Justice. In her role, she demonstrates her strong commitment to addressing the deeply systemic social, racial, and economic inequities at the heart of the climate crisis. She works on projects that support a convergence research agenda, bring transformative education to a new generation of climate justice change-makers, and engage the broader public by nurturing a growing ecosystem of individuals at the University of California and beyond.
UC Research Collaborators
Beth Rose Middleton
Dr. Beth Rose Middleton Manning (Afro-Caribbean, Eastern European) is a Professor of Native American Studies at UC Davis. Beth Rose’s research centers on Native environmental policy and Native activism for site protection using conservation tools. Her broader research interests include intergenerational trauma and healing, rural environmental justice, Indigenous analysis of climate change, Afro-indigeneity, and qualitative GIS.
Clare Cannon
Clare Cannon is Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Ecology at the University of California, Davis and a Research Fellow in the Department of Social Work at the University of the Free State, South Africa. She is an Arab diaspora settler in North America, who researches intersections of social inequality, health disparities, climate risks, and environmental injustices in urban, rural, and disaster contexts. She received her PhD in Sociology from the City, Culture, & Community program at Tulane University.
Dan Kammen
Dan Kammen is the Chair of the Energy and Resources Group and faculty Director of the Center for Environmental Policy in the Goldman School of Public Policy. His research is focused on energy access, climate and energy justice, and decarbonization of local to global energy systems. He maintains active collaborations on energy and racial justice in the United States, with Native American nations, and overseas on gender, social, and racial justice in East Africa, in Southeast Asia, and in China.
Jade Sasser
Jade Sasser is an Associate Professor of Gender & Sexuality Studies at UC Riverside. Her research and teaching explore the role of gender in the framing of large scale environmental problems, such as climate change, and their solutions. Her current projects are focused on household technology and energy justice in the global South; the intersections of gender and climate justice in the U.S.; and how race and climate emotions shape reproductive and other behaviors.
John Foran
John Foran teaches sociology and environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he networks in the global climate justice movement and the creation of systemic alternatives beyond capitalism. His work can be found at NXterra, IICAT, and the Eco Vista Climate Justice Press, and his activism takes place with Eco Vista, Transition US, the Ecoversities Alliance, and the Global Tapestry of Alternatives. He is working on a text – soon to be a minor video production – called the coming cosmic ecosocialist transformation [jk, sort of]
Matthew St.Clair
Matthew St.Clair is the first Chief Sustainability Officer for the University of California’s Office of the President, leading sustainability efforts across the 10-campus UC system since 2004. Mr. St.Clair was a founding member of the Board of Directors for the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of Strategic Energy Innovations, an environmental nonprofit building leaders to drive sustainability solutions. He is a LEED Fellow and a Certified Energy Manager.
Graduate Students
Marcelo Rocha da Silva
Marcelo Rocha da Silva is a PhD student in Management of Complex Systems at the University of California, Merced. He also holds a Master of Arts in Latin American Studies and a Graduate Certificate in Tropical Conservation and Development from the University of Florida. His research interests are systems thinking, political ecology, environmental and climate justice, and settler colonial studies applied to jurisdictional (state-centered) approaches for REDD+ in the Amazon region.
Makenzy Gilbert
Makenzy is a PhD Student in the Cognitive and Information Sciences Department at the University of California Merced. Her research interests include data science, visualization, and community engagement and connection. She is currently working on the interactive network system map of UC-wide faculty involvement in social climate justice areas.
Lupe Franco
Lupe Franco (she/her/ella) is a PhD candidate in the Geography Graduate Group at UC Davis. Academically, she finds passion in working at the nexus of environmental justice, climate justice, community-based research, and critical geography. Her dissertation project examines the gaps in California's ability to simultaneously address two of the largest challenges today: climate change and homelessness. Recognizing that climate change disproportionately affects communities with pre-existing challenges, she cares about engaging and centering underrepresented populations, such as the unhoused, in efforts that inform equitable climate change policy that can meet the needs of the people.
Undergraduate Students
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Irene Gonzalez
Irene Gonzalez is a 4th year undergraduate student majoring in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies with a minor in Chicano Studies who is currently a part of the Native and Indigenous Student Coalition at UC Merced. Her research focuses on the intersections of Indigenous Knowledge Systems and climate change resiliency. As a Carbon Neutrality Initiative (CNI) fellow, she is currently working on a network map of various environmental/ community organizations that are committed to climate change action based on Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI).
Misha Gerami
Misha is an undergraduate Human Biology major who was in one of the first classes of the Climate Justice course at UC Merced. She hopes to share awareness regarding Climate Justice related issues and give back to those communities who are impacted the most. She sees knowledge as power to make change.
Christelle Baria
Christelle is an undergraduate Human Biology Major who took the Climate Justice course at UC Merced. As an intern, Christelle helped develop the Center’s media and impact strategy. She knows firsthand how climate justice education can open our eyes to the diverse impacts of climate change and is eager to contribute to solutions.
Advik Sunil
Advik Sunil is a 2nd year undergraduate student majoring in Molecular and Cell Biology. His research is focused on synthesizing heterogeneous catalysts to solve important problems in energy usage and environmental chemistry. Additionally, he is actively involved in healthcare and community outreach by creating engaging medical education videos for pediatric patients and their families that are aimed towards the underserved communities in the Central Valley. He is focused on advancing environmental literacy and healthcare in the Central Valley.
High School Students
Myroslava Fisun
Myroslava Fisun is a high school student and climate activist who is currently a hub coordinator for the Sunrise Movement, where she oversees climate justice efforts in the Bay Area. She has spoken at multiple statewide conferences on the role of youth in the climate justice movement, as well as advocating for environmental legislation for the UN Convention on Biodiversity. She works with the Youth Climate Action Team, where she helped design and present new middle school curriculum on subtopics of climate change. She is also a member of the EarthEcho Youth Leadership Council, chairs her city's Climate Action Committee, and engages students worldwide in the crucial fight for climate justice.