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!
Discover the newly launched UC Davis EPM Alumni Association! Built to keep our community connected, this network offers students and alumni dedicated spaces for mentorship, professional development, and collaborative career growth. Meet the founding team and learn how you can get involved.
Towards the end of May, our UC Davis Environmental Policy and Management policy clinic group, in collaboration with California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigation (CalCOFI) and California Sea Grant, traveled to San Diego, CA. We headed to the 2026 CalCOFI Conference on ‘A Decade of Remarkable Change: Heatwaves, HABs, Hypoxia, and Other Ocean Changes off the California Coast.’ This trip allowed us to share the culmination of our research on practical recommendations for marine climate resilience and refugia in California. We heard and discussed the intense impacts of climate change on California’s marine ecosystems, showcasing the need for policy and management action. We engaged with researchers working towards goals aligned with our recommendations, further inspiring us to continue protecting California’s waters.
In April 2026, we - a group of UC Davis students from the Environmental Policy and Management (EPM) Graduate Group, in partnership with American Rivers, headed to Washington, D.C.. This trip was the culmination of six months of research, with the intention to share our findings with congressional staff during “Water Week” - a week dedicated to water policy advocacy in D.C.
