Environmental Science, Policy, and Management

Berkeley Connect links undergraduate students with experienced mentors in ESPM. These mentors lead small groups of 10-20 students in regular meetings; they also meet with students One-on-one to provide guidance and advice. The core of the Berkeley Connect program is a one-credit, pass-fail course that is designed to create a community of students with similar intellectual interests. There is no homework associated with Berkeley Connect: no exams, no papers, no quizzes Instead, small group meetings focus on sharing ideas and learning new skills within the ESPM majors as a way to foster friendships and provide a supportive intellectual community for Berkeley undergraduates. The only requirement for joining Berkeley Connect in ESPM is that you have an interest in the field of study. You do not have to be in one of ESPM’s majors (CRS, ES, FNR, MEB or S&E) to participate! Undeclared freshmen and sophomores are welcome, along with entering junior transfers and juniors and seniors who have declared the major.

Every semester, Berkeley Connect sponsors a wide range of activities and events for participating students.  They include:

• small-group meetings led by your mentor;
• One-on-one meetings with your mentor;
• special events, including informal lectures by professors and guest speakers, and panels on career options, graduate school admissions, and other topics;
• and visits to Berkeley resources.

At the heart of Berkeley Connect is the relationship between you and your mentor. The Berkeley Connect mentors are advanced graduate students or recent PhDs in ESPM, who are chosen both for their demonstrated commitment to undergraduates and for their scholarly achievement. They are dedicated to providing the kind of close-knit community and one-on-one attention that can be hard to find at a large university.

Faculty

Laureano Gherardi is a global ecosystem ecologist who combines manipulative experiments with ecological data synthesis at multiple temporal and spatial scales to advance our understanding of how interacting Global Change stressors such as climate change, land use change, and nutrient deposition affect the functioning of grassland ecosystems. Specifically, he is interested in the effects of resource availability variance on belowground processes that determine overall ecosystem responses. Gherardi carries out his research with justice, diversity and inclusion issues in mind and hopes land managers and decision-makers will apply his findings to achieve a sustainable future for high-value grassland ecosystems. Gherardi earned his master’s and PhD in Biology at Arizona State University. Before joining the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management (ESPM) as an assistant professor, he gained experience working in ecosystems ranging from the Patagonian Steppe in southern Argentina to the Great Plains in the USA to globally coordinated experiments and ecological synthesis groups.

Berkeley Connect Mentors

Pranjal Dwivedi is a PhD candidate in ESPM.

Where did you grow up?

Lucknow, India

Where did you go to college and what was your major?

Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad.  Environmental Engineering

How would you describe your research in a sentence or two?

I study whether wetlands can be feasible climate change solutions in the future and absorb more carbon from the atmosphere.

Mindy Price is a PhD candidate in ESPM.

Where did you grow up?

The US (a few different states!)

Where did you go to college and what was your major?

Emory University, Sociology

How would you describe your research in a sentence or two?

I am a political ecologist and rural sociologist studying agrarian change in northern Canada, with a specific focus on climate-driven subarctic/arctic agriculture. My previous work examined gender inequities in livestock systems in East Africa and local food systems in the southeastern US.

Coleman Rainey is a PhD candidate in ESPM.

Where did you grow up?

South Pasadena, California

Where did you go to college and what was your major?

Columbia University, Major: Physics, Minor: Religious Studies

How would you describe your research in a sentence or two?

My work explores soil as a medium for collective transformation by focusing on Callifornia farms and land-based organizations that celebrate the unbroken relationship between people and the soil. It seeks the ecological and social thresholds that must be crossed to heal our landscapes, bodies, and cultures from extractive and violent modes of world-making, inspired by the emergent, unseen processes found in the soil.

Rachael Ryan is a PhD candidate in ESPM.

Where did you grow up?

Brampton, Ontario, Canada

Where did you go to college and what was your major?

McGill University (Montreal, Quebec), Biology

How would you describe your research in a sentence or two?

I study ecology, diversity and population dynamics of endangered salmon in California.

Semester Activities