Celebrating Five Years of Fruitful Partnership - Dr. Mónica Ramírez-Andreotta’s Lab
Hello, my name is Illiana Samorano. I started working as a community-engaged research assistant in the Ramírez-Andreotta Integrated Environmental Science and Health Risk Laboratory as a sophomore in the 2023-2024 Earth Grant cohort.
Over two years ago, I submitted my video and short essay questions via Qualtrics just 15 minutes before the Earth Grant application deadline. The Ramírez-Andreotta Lab was my top choice for internship placement, but at the time, I did not even expect to get an interview. That last-minute submission became one of the most formative experiences of my undergraduate career.
This year’s 2025-2026 Earth Grant cohort marks the fifth year of partnership with the Ramírez-Andreotta Lab, which has hosted Earth Grant interns since Earth Grant’s genesis within the Arizona Institute for Resilience (AIR) in 2021.
Since then, the partnership has co-trained 10 undergraduate students as community-centered scientists. These students have gone on to pursue diverse paths as leaders in the environmental and health sciences after their year-long internships and can speak to the synergy and overlapping values between the lab and AIR programming.
“Programs like Earth Grant provide a layered experience, with students seeing in the lab, in the classroom, and through outside professional development how to do work with a justice lens, find pride in what they do, and effectively communicate,”
- Dr. Ramírez-Andreotta
The partnership began when Leona Davis, the previous Earth Grant coordinator, was searching for organizations and U of A research programs that fit Earth Grant's mission to provide leadership development for students interested in the environment and resilience. The Ramírez-Andreotta Lab made for a great fit with its commitment to community-based participatory research approaches to environmental monitoring, exposure science, and environmental health literacy.
As a Ramírez-Andreotta Lab alumna herself, Davis approached Dr. Ramírez-Anderotta about opening the lab to Earth Grant interns.
“I have always been really grateful to be a part of Earth Grant and strongly believe in its mission, objectives, and overarching principles,” Dr. Ramírez-Andreotta said.
Earth Grant provides an organized yet flexible structure for students, considering all the different internships people could have. Jessica Estrada, the current program coordinator, provides great guides, check-in points, and questions to reflect on and ask. The Earth Grant experience is about having freedom within boundaries and creating a mutually beneficial, reciprocal relationship, just as we hope to have with the research we conduct. It is co-designed just like our research, which is very cool!
Oftentimes, Earth Grant interns work directly with graduate students on their projects, receiving training on the many ways the lab does science. Interns carry out various tasks, including processing soil, plant, and dust samples for chemical analysis, analyzing scientific articles for literature reviews, and facilitating informal science education programming with rural Arizona youth.
“I adore them all,” Carol Newbauer, the Ramírez-Andreotta Lab community engagement coordinator, said. “Everyone I have had the good fortune of working with through Earth Grant comes from unique backgrounds and experiences. They are very passionate, curious, helpful, super organized, and ready to just plug in wherever, whenever they can.”
Currently, we have three “generations” of Earth Grant interns in the lab: Abigail Zettlemoyer and Emily Salgado (2024-25), Gwyneth Perea (2025-26), and me (2023-24). After completing my year-long internship, I stayed in the lab and worked closely with Abby and Emily, who I consider dear friends and colleagues. This year, it has been a pleasure to collaborate and learn from our newest and current Earth Grant intern, Gwyn!
The possibility for Earth Grant students to stay as research assistants after their internship has created an amazing undergraduate research assistant pool. “We now have this Earth Grant legacy in our lab space, which is really valuable and unique," Newbauer said. “It provides camaraderie among the interns - past and present - and makes for a more community-family feel.”
Mentorship is also an important aspect of students’ experiences in the lab. “I could tell everyone here in the lab was prepared to help interns navigate how to do research for the first time, whether it was Dr. Ramírez, lab managers William Borkan, Carol Newbauer, or the grad students,” Abigail Zettlemoyer said.
This focus on mentorship within the lab’s structure led to Abigail Zettlemoyer and me becoming co-authors on Dr. Kunal Palawat’s manuscript following our internships with Earth Grant. I helped facilitate youth environmental health literacy trainings, and Abigail assisted with quantitative and qualitative analysis of post-training results.
Personally, I am honored to have received direct mentorship from many researchers in the Ramírez-Andreotta Lab, including Dr. God’sgift Nkechi Chukwuonye, Andreanna Roros, Lois Polashenski, Alma Anides Morales, Zain Alqattan, Dr. Kunal Palawat, and Melissa Jaquez.
Central to all lab work is a commitment to communicating and translating relevant data and health interventions to affected community members. Working in a mixed-methods, multidisciplinary lab like this cultivates a well-rounded research skill set in community engagement, data science, and wet laboratory standard operating procedures.
On top of that, each cohort of Earth Grant students participates in weekly professional development activities, guest presentations, and discussions that provide additional training on other facets of what it means to be a change-maker and work in environmental protection.
“Programs like Earth Grant provide a layered experience, with students seeing in the lab, in the classroom, and through outside professional development how to do work with a justice lens, find pride in what they do, and effectively communicate,” Dr. Ramírez-Andreotta said.
For Abigail Zettlemoyer, this experience merged professional development with being excited about the future and where it is leading you.
"Earth Grant helped me focus on what I wanted to do, how to navigate that in the lab, and plan for my future,” Zettlemoyer said.
Through training and fieldwork with graduate students, lab staff, and our weekly Earth Grant cohort classes, I developed my story as a researcher and community member. I am writing this post now as a senior who has just been accepted into the master’s program in environmental science, with Dr. Mónica Ramírez-Andreotta listed as my primary advisor.
I would not be where I am today without the Earth Grant program. The mentorship and professional development I have received from the lab and the Earth Grant program complemented and amplified each other. Every week in the Earth Grant class, it was an opportunity to connect with like-minded peers and learn how to cultivate resilience in our professional and personal lives.
By writing this post, I wanted to honor the long-standing partnership between our lab and AIR. Our lab is overjoyed to celebrate five years of fruitful partnership with the Earth Grant program, and we look forward to growing together for years to come.