Student, Faculty and Staff Features

Maria is a trilingual international student interested in studying the intersection between language and psychology. Her interests in environmental sustainability sparked as she saw the differences between countries’ perspectives towards going green. Working for AIR was her first step into the environmental field and learning more about the climate crisis through her role has made her realize that there’s still hope for people to restore the planet’s health. She’s learned that there are many things we can do to protect our planet both collectively and individually.

Isabella Feldmann is a 2022-2023 Earth Grant student who interns at the Sonoran Institute. She explains that Earth Grant has amazing professional development opportunities in the environmental field that allows students to broaden their experiences in the industry! She’s also writing a thesis studying how marine microorganisms out of the Amazon River Plume use organic phosphorus versus manmade inorganic phosphorus as an energy source.

Meet a UArizona senior majoring in Economics at the Eller College of Management and minoring in Sustainable Built Environments. As a member of Students for Sustainability, she loves sharing the projects the group is working on across the UArizona campus.

Chris specializes in playing the oboe and the English horn which he uses to create music that synthesizes the world between music, art, science, and the environment. In the last couple of years he has composed two pieces of environmental sound art/music. His most recent piece carries people through the emotions felt as reading Earth’s Wild Music written by Kathleen Dean Moore.

Ellie is a passionate UArizona student who connects other students on campus to various environmental opportunities through the Find Your Environment platform. Find Your Environment is a resource students can use to find the perfect green opportunity for them such as events, clubs, educational programs, courses, and more.

Jacob is studying Natural Resources with an emphasis in Global Change Ecology and Management. He is an Intern Advisor for the Arizona NASA Space Grant Undergraduate Research Internship Program and a Liverman Scholar. He is researching soil respiration in the Sonoran Desert to investigate how different monsoonal precipitation patterns will affect soil carbon storage.

Q: What’s better than one program that supports diverse students in developing as environmental professionals?

A: THREE programs that support diverse students in their development as environmental professionals, gathered together on a late fall afternoon in Tucson, having a picnic!

Lexis is a sustainable student who is very involved across campus. Lexis is the co-chair of the educational outreach committee for SFS, the lead Spring Environmental Summit planner, the Earth Grant Program Assistant, a Bio/Diversity Project intern, and a Doris Duke Conservation Scholar.

Maya's favorite environment-related experience is the summer she lived in Colorado and interned at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory. She conducted her own research project and hiked in the mountains every day! Maya specialized in stream ecology and aquatic insect research to study how they related to food webs in alpine streams.

We're thrilled to have one of last year's student cohort members, Lexis Meza, join our educational team this year as the Earth Grant Program Assistant. As Program Assistant, Lexis is co-facilitating leadership development workshops, managing our social media, and supporting outreach activities. We thought we’d sit down with Lexis and ask her a few questions, as an introduction to the Earth Grant community.