MESM 2021
Bio
Yani Pohl is a native Angelino who cultivated her love of nature while backpacking the Eastern Sierras as a child. Her love of the outdoors took her from the urban jungle to the redwoods of UC Santa Cruz where she earned a B.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Science in 2013. As a master's student at the Bren School, Yani is specializing in conservation planning with a focus on environmental communications. Her research seeks to identify methods for adaptive habitat restoration in environments that are under pressure from high human land-use. Yani's goal is to guide organizations and businesses through the process of designing effective restoration plans that balance ecological conservation with private interests. While researching amphibian extinctions as an undergraduate, she decided to focus her career on creating projects that would replace destroyed habitats. After graduation, Yani worked with Turtle Island Restoration Network installing streamside restoration projects to increase endangered coho salmon breeding habitat. Transitioning to the private industry as a consultant for Environmental Intelligence LLC, she helped developers reduce the impact of construction during the building phase of sustainable infrastructure projects.