MEDS 2022
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Bio
Clarissa is an ISA Certified Arborist with a focus on urban forestry nonprofit management in Los Angeles. She studied Urban and Environmental Policy at Occidental College and is currently a master’s candidate of Environmental Data Science at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at UC Santa Barbara. As a child, she heard stories of her grandparents’ struggle to save a beloved Ginkgo tree; this was the seed of her interest in the connection between people and place. She began her urban forestry career at a nonprofit in 2016, training volunteers to plan and execute tree planting and care projects within their own communities. In 2017 she shifted to managing the environmental services department of another nonprofit, where she focused on staff development and unit budgets, wrote successful state grants, and partnered with the city and other local nonprofits. She hopes to use her data science degree to bring more analysis and technical support to the field of urban forestry. She also aspires to work collaboratively to create equitable connections between people and the developed and wild environments.