Alexandra Phillips

Alexandra Atlee Phillips is an Assistant Teaching Professor at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her teaching and research focuses on environmental communication to students, scientists, policymakers, and the public. Alex is particularly focused on how diverse audiences develop their STEM identities, or their sense of belonging, in scientific fields. She joined the Bren School after a AAAS STPF Fellowship in Climate Science, where she wrote environmental policy for U.S. Senator Alex Padilla. Prior to her year in Congress, Alex ran communications for the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) at UCSB. She was also a postdoc at UCSB and the Large Lakes Observatory at University of Minnesota, Duluth where she investigated carbon sequestration in Lake Superior. She holds a PhD from Caltech in geochemistry, where she studied sulfur and carbon cycling in lakes and oceans. She did her Bachelor’s in Biology at UCSB in the College of Creative Studies.