Between 2014 and 2016, an unprecedented marine heat wave known as “The Blob” spread across the Pacific coast and pushed ocean temperatures off the coast of Northern California several degrees above normal. Along the rocky coastline of the Sonoma Coast, vast underwater forests of bull kelp that support fish, invertebrates, and marine mammals began to disappear. Within just a few years, more than 90% of the region’s bull kelp canopy had collapsed.
I grew up in the small foothills town of Jamestown, California, and now live in Sacramento with my husband and two daughters. My career spans research and policy contexts and has taken me from Los Angeles to India, northern New York to Sacramento. I have a BA from Scripps College in Claremont, CA, and an MA and PhD from UCLA.
This EPM alum graduated from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo with a B.S. in Environmental Earth Sciences before completing the EPM program in 2025 with a specialization in Sustainable Food Systems. They now work as a Senior Environmental Scientist Specialist at CalRecycle, serving as a lead technical and policy expert on extended producer responsibility. They credit EPM with strengthening their project management, collaboration, and policy skills while preparing them for career growth within the State of California.
What if one of the most widespread pollutants on Earth was already in your body? You may have consumed microplastics today without realizing it. They could have been in your bottled water, floating through the air, or shed from the clothes on your back. Once considered a distant ocean pollution issue, microplastics are now found in Antarctic ice, deep ocean trenches, mountain peaks, and even in human blood and brain tissue.
With the Sacramento County Office of Planning and Environmental Review, Junna leveraged advanced geospatial modeling techniques to determine the extent, distribution, and quality of urban tree cover in Sacramento County’s Environmental Justice (EJ) Communities to inform the County’s upcoming Urban Forest Management Plan.
by Kiri Basher, Kulsum Hussain, Marisa Rodriguez, and Faith Sunga
Graduate school is a balancing act. Between coursework, internships, commuting, and personal commitments, finding time to recharge can feel like a challenge. Yet for many students in the Environmental Policy and Management (EPM) program, balance isn't about doing everything perfectly; it's about creating routines that make busy weeks more manageable.
We spoke with four incoming second-year EPM students, Marisa Rodriguez, Kiri Basher, Kulsum Hussain, and Faith Sunga, about how they navigate graduate school while gaining valuable professional experience. Although each student has a unique career path, their experiences reveal common themes of organization, self-care, and finding small ways to recharge.
This project partnered with the Governor's Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation (LCI) to evaluate California's Fifth Climate Change Assessment, identifying opportunities to improve collaboration, communication, and support for author teams to strengthen future statewide climate planning.
In collaboration with Rooted Futures Lab, our team worked to illuminate DC zoning & permitting in 12 states: Georgia, Virginia, Michigan, Arizona, Oregon, California, Louisiana, Colorado, Nevada, New York, New Mexico, and Texas. We dove into the complex world of local governance and spoke to practitioners, lawyers, and journalists to understand how local and state processes work, what journalists are seeing on the ground, and where our research can shine the most light for communities, advocates, and researchers.
Every June, the UC Davis Environmental Policy and Management (EPM) community gathers to celebrate its graduates and the remarkable network that supports them. This year, the ceremony honored 31 outstanding graduates. Including a record four continuing on to PhD programs, alongside dedicated faculty, mentors, and instructors who drive the program’s success. From exceptional student leadership to impactful career mentorship, discover the inspiring stories behind this year’s five distinguished award winners who went above and beyond to shape the EPM community. Congratulations to the Class of 2026!
Marcella Hernandez is an upcoming second-year EPM student who has been working as the EPM outreach and administration student assistant. Marcella specializes in Sustainable Agriculture and Environmental Justice, with a pending addition in Environmental Data Science, and strives to be a well-rounded professional. She grew up in California's Central Valley, where she began her academic journey at Bakersfield College, earning an Associate of Science in Agricultural Business and Liberal Arts, before moving on to UC Davis, where she completed a Bachelor of Science in Agricultural and Environmental Education with a focus on Plant and Soil Sciences.
With a deep, multifaceted background in education and agriculture, Marcella is looking to pivot her career, using her growing policy expertise to directly combat the severe environmental burdens, such as poor air and water quality and food deserts, faced by many communities in the Central Valley. Currently working to expand these skills through a powerhouse summer workload. This includes serving as a Graduate Student Researcher, collaborating with Clean Water Action and the Dolores Huerta Foundation on water allocation governance; acting as a Zero Waste Coordinator for the UC Davis Sustainability Office; and championing student engagement as the Grassroots Advocacy Coordinator for the Campus Center for the Environment. Her knack for creative outreach shines through her past role as the Social Media and Outreach Coordinator for the Association of Environmental Professionals at UC Davis, and she is excited to bring that energy to EPM!
