CARSON SCHOLARS

CARSON SCHOLAR GLORIA JIMENEZ (MIDDLE) CONDUCTS FIELDWORK IN THE GALÁPAGOS. PHOTO CREDIT: JULIA COLE.

Carson Scholars: Promise for an Environmentally Vibrant and Just Future

In honor of the vision created by Silent Spring author Rachel Carson, the Carson Scholars Program supports graduate student research and trains scholars to discuss their environmental studies in a way the public finds compelling. The program continues to build a network of students and faculty who push the bounds of knowledge and understanding of our natural environment. The program is funded by IE, Biosphere 2, the UA Renewable Energy Network, and private donations. In addition, this year, four students were appointed Carson-Haury Scholars through the generosity of the Agnese Nelms Haury estate. Three of those scholars and one Carson alumnus are highlighted on the following pages.

WWW.CARSON.ARIZONA.EDU

CAMPUS & COMMUNITY Carson-Haury Scholars

Tommy Jones

School of Natural Resources and the Environment Tommy Jones’ vision for Native American communities is bright, lit by solar and wind energy. His research addresses the gap between need and potential for renewable energy in Indian Country, home to vast natural resources that can be both sustainable and renewable. His aim, he says, is to help Native Americans develop technology for renewables and improve understanding between them and non-Native American communities on environmental topics. As a 2014 summer intern with Sandia National Laboratories, he found that lack of financing and funding, tribal government institutional capacity, and power purchase agreements, among other factors, are obstacles to development on tribal lands, while federal programs and initiatives are important to success. “My goal with the Carson-Haury Scholars Program is to take the valuable information I am gathering and ensure that all Native Nations that want to develop renewable energy will know how to meet their needs,” said Jones, the first Native American student to receive a Carson Scholarship. “I’ll also be able to continue to communicate my research to a broad audience, especially to audiences outside of Native Nations, to promote greater awareness and legislation that facilitates renewable energy development on tribal lands.” In September 2014, he wrote a guest blog for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs website, detailing his research at Sandia. In November, he presented his research in person to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. That same month he was selected as a U.S. delegate to present his work at the International Union for Conservation of Nature World Parks Congress in Sydney, Australia, the world’s largest global forum on protected areas. His experience Down Under, he said, was due in part to the funding and training he received as a Carson-Haury Scholarship recipient. “The support that I get from this group is unparalleled. They’ve pushed me in so many different directions that are positive for my work,” Jones said.

Gloria Jimenez

Department of Geosciences It takes more than a nasty moray eel bite to deter Gloria Jimenez. She was placing a data recorder for her research in the Galápagos Islands when a toothy eel severed a tendon in her right thumb, but her team still surfaced with a core sample from a 300-year-old coral. Looking into the past, the six-and-a-half foot specimen will help Jimenez better understand how a climate phenomenon known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) will respond to climate change. Coral grows in layers with different concentrations of heavy or light stable isotopes, depending on the water temperature when the layers formed. Like a dendrochronologist who reads tree rings, Jimenez can analyze the layers to determine how water temperature, and thus ENSO, has changed over the past centuries. She hopes that learning more about ENSO dynamics will help researchers predict what’s going to happen in the future—important information for the Southwest, where rainfall can be influenced by ENSO patterns.

Back on dry land, Jimenez wrote a narrative piece on her research that she hopes to publish as an op-ed. “It turned into something much bigger than I expected: It’s

a meditation on why I am a scientist, and particularly a climate scientist, despite the difficulties inherent in that,” she said. “It’s by no means a typical op-ed— another way in which being a Carson-Haury Scholar is expanding my horizons and pushing me to do new and interesting things.” Since becoming a Carson-Haury Scholar, Jimenez has won several awards, including an Environmental Professionals of Arizona Scholarship and a UA Galileo Circle Scholarship. She also was selected to participate in the Expert Witness Training Academy at the William Mitchell College of Law, where climate scientists are trained to present their work in legal settings.

America Lutz Ley

Arid Lands Resources Sciences Roughly 90 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border, a constellation of small villages appears in the Sonoran Desert. The livelihoods of almost 14,000 people there depend on the San Miguel River Basin for raising livestock and growing crops; to them, land, water, and cattle are intrinsically and historically connected to their way of life. But climatic changes leading to reduced water availability in the last few decades have disrupted that socio-ecological system. Enter America Lutz Ley, a native of Hermosillo, Sonora, who is identifying social and policy factors that can help the rural communities adapt to climate challenges and educate themselves about climate impacts in the absence of economic and government support. “For more than a century, these communities have evolved in the midst of aridity and the dynamics of the trans-boundary U.S.-Mexico region. They have provided food for the local and regional markets; they have survived through combinations of traditional and modern techniques,” Lutz Ley said. “However, with increasing temperatures and less water availability, it is still unknown if their knowledge and actions will be enough for adaptation. My work is about looking for capacity and looking for opportunities in the middle of social-environmental adversity.” With support from the Fulbright-Garcia Robles Program and the Mexican National Council of Science and Technology, Lutz Ley is interviewing local small-scale ranchers and farmers, public officials, and other stakeholders to explore their perceptions on social and environmental change and what enhances their adaptive capacity. “These communities are unique because of their position in the socioeconomic and geographic spaces, but we can learn valuable lessons regarding other arid watersheds,” said Lutz Ley, who is majoring in arid lands resource sciences with a minor in global change. “Around 50 percent of the world’s lands are classified as arid, and we know these places will face important challenges as a result of global climate change.” Through the Carson-Haury program, she said, she has learned how to translate scientific knowledge and jargon on water adaptation into a common language shared with those she is interviewing to help improve decision making at the local level. “Through the Carson-Haury program, you are trained to learn how to engage people through effective communication and how to connect your own academic activities with everyday lives of people,” she said. “I think it’s pretty amazing!”

Through the Carson-Haury program, you are trained to learn how to engage people through effective communication and how to connect your own academic activities with everyday lives of people. I think it’s pretty amazing!”

America Lutz Ley, Carson-Haury Scholar

WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK OUR GENEROUS RACHEL CARSON CIRCLE MEMBERS:

LEADERS CIRCLE

DONATIONS OF $5,000 OR MORE

Diana and David Freshwater Pamela Grissom

RACHEL CARSON CIRCLE AND PROGRAM SUPPORTERS

Ellinor and Roger Angel Carolyn Bass Anna Maria and Giuseppe Biagini David Crown Gina Murphy-Darling and James Darling Charlotte Hanson Thomas W. Keating Diana Liverman Catherene Morton Molly Stranahan and Tom Curtin Pamela Sutherland Zuckerman Community Outreach Foundation

If you would like information about joining the Rachel Carson Circle, please contact contact Jeffrey Fischer-Smith, IE’s director of development, at JFISCHERSMITH@EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU or 520-626 3231.

The Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice seeks to use Mrs. Haury’s legacy to significantly change the world for the better. The program’s investment in the CarsonHaury Scholars Program will support the establishment of a network of world-class scholars committed to interdisciplinary research and science communication, both critical to solving the environmental and social challenges today. We expect this investment will yield world-changing benefits throughout the scholars’ careers.”