PhD in Environmental Science and Management graduates become leaders in their fields, advancing their academic disciplines and becoming dynamic change-makers in the corporate, public, and non-profit sectors. Their dissertation work combines theory with application, often producing new strategies, insights, and plans to solve environmental problems.
The archive on this page dates back to 2015. To inquire about a dissertation project prior to 2015, please contact admissions@bren.ucsb.edu.
Degrees Conferred 2024
Gabriela Alberola: Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience Building: Political Biases, Funding Gaps, and Empirical Insights into Mitigation Strategies
Louis Graup: Investigating Riparian Resilience to the Climate Crisis through a Critical Zone Lens
Julia Lawson: Effective Conservation and Management of Boundary-Spanning Fish and Fisheries
Weiwei Li: Assessing the Impacts of Engineered Nanomaterials (ENMs) on Crop Plant Growth Using a Targeted Proteomics Approach
Ignacia Rivera: Understanding Cooperation and Coping Behaviors of Small-scale Fishers to Enhance Management
Rachel Torres: Beyond the Drought: Modeling eco-hydrologic dynamics between urban tree resilience and water conservation in a Mediterranean climate
Haozhe Yang: Socioeconomic challenges and opportunities in the low-carbon transition of the energy system
Degrees Conferred 2023
Violaine Desgens-Martin: Assessing Ecological Risks of Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products in Central and Southern California Aquatic Environments using Modeling
Albert Garcia: Evaluating Impacts of Forests and Forest Policy: Methods and Applications using Satellite Data
Jacob Gellman: Essays in the Economics of Wildfire
Christopher Heckman: On the Importance of Roots to Eco-hydrology: The Effect of Plant Accessible Water Storage Capacity on Evapotranspiration
Timnit Kefela: (Micro)plastics in Solid Environmental Matrices
Seonghoon Kim: Collective Reputations and Business Sustainability
Nicol Parker: Rapid and Spatially Explicit Assessment of Contaminants of Emerging Concern in Data Limited Watersheds
Phoebe Racine: Science, Worldview, and Seafood
Vincent Thivierge: Evaluating the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Environmental Policies for Global and Local Air Pollutants
Erin Winslow: Post-disturbance Dynamics of Branching Corals and Their Predators
Stephen Whitaker: Assessing Decline and Recovery of Rocky Intertidal Foundation Species Using Long-Term Data
Degrees Conferred 2022
William Burke: Modeling the Interconnected Effects of Fuel Treatments on Forests, Water, and Fire
Marina Feraud: N treatment in stormwater biofilters: Relationships between sequestered pollutants, environmental conditions, and N cycling soil bacteria
Qian Gao: Novel disinfection system with recyclable magnetic nanoparticles and metal ions: Evaluation with bacteria, algae, and virus
Niklas Griessbaum: Towards the Twilight of File-Centricity
Patrick Hunnicutt: Comparative Analyses of Environmental Deprivation and Political Mobilization
Jason Maier: Essays on Consumer Behavior and the Environment
Casey O'Hara: Cataloguing and mapping cumulative human impacts on marine biological and functional diversity to inform conservation management
Yang Qiu: Economic and Environmental Implications of Low-Carbon Transition in the Energy System: Case Studies on Lighting Technologies, Electricity System, and Direct Air Capture
K Rahul Sharma: Non-Financial Incentives for Pro-Social and Pro-Environmental Behaviour
Juan Carlos Villaseñor Derbez: Essays on Environmental Markets and Marine Conservation
Degrees Conferred 2021
Jiajia Zheng: Assessment of Decarbonizing Rapidly-Growing Technological Systems with a Life-Cycle Perspective
Jessica Couture: Sustainable Aquaculture for a Resource Limited Future
Samuel Collie: Social Efficiency of Natural Resource Management
Alice Lépissier: A Methodological Toolkit to Understand Complex Policy Problems: Applications to Climate Change and Illicit Finance
Jade Sainz: Incorporating Climate Variability and Change into Marine Spatial Planning for Aquaculture in the Southern California Bight
Degrees Conferred 2020
Alexa Fredston-Hermann: Causes and Consequences of Species Range Edge Shifts in a Warming Ocean
Elizabeth Hiroyasu: The Social and Ecological Dimensions of Vertebrate Management: Reintroductions and Invasions
Molly Wilson: Understanding Fish and Fisher Behavior in Coral Reef Ecosystems
Degrees Conferred 2019
W. Tyler Brandt: A Solution to One of Mountain Hydrology's Principal Mysteries: The Spatial Distribution of Snowfall
Sean Fitzgerald: Enhancing Small-Scale Fisheries Management through Data-Limited Assessment and Collaboration
Molly Lassiter: Essays in Ecological Economics
Owen Liu: Confronting Complexity in Marine Population Dynamics and Management
Joseph Palazzo: Methodological Developments in Consequential Life Cycle Assessment
Runsheng Song: Machine Learning for Addressing Data Deficiencies in Life Cycle Assessment
Timbo Stillinger: Observing Snow from Space: Snow/Cloud Discrimination & Opportunities in Water Supply Forecasting
Mengya Tao: Spatial Heterogeneity in Modeling Environmental and Human Health Impacts of Chemicals
Laura Urbisci: Uncertainty Analysis in Fisheries Science: An Interdisciplinary Approach
Caroline Vignardi: Ecological implications of copper-based nanoparticles in aquatic complex matrices: Fate, behavior, and toxicity assessment
Ying Wang: Engineered Carbonaceous Nanomaterials in Legume Agroecosystems: Potential Effects and Fates
Degrees Conferred 2018
Andrew Ayres: The Common Pool, Extraction Restrictions, and the Costs of Collective Action: Three Essays on the Economics of Groundwater Management
Patrick Callery: The Role of Information and Incentives in Voluntary Corporate Provision of Public Goods
Dan Ovando: Of Fish and Fishermen: Using Human Behavior to Improve Marine Resource Management
Jessica Perkins: Improving the Usefulness of Environmental Information for Decision Making in Organizations
Yuwei Qin: Characterizing Uncertainties in Life Cycle Assessment
Daniel Viana: Management and Design of Marine Reserves and Rights-Based Management Systems in Small-Scale Fisheries
Degrees Conferred 2017
Erendira Aceves: Designing spatially explicit property rights for moving fish
Xioli Chen: Factors affecting the streamflow and in-stream nitrate concentration in semi-arid areas: sub-surface flow-generation, vertical distribution of soil nitrate and drainage properties, and the connectivity of impervious areas
Alex DeGolia: Choosing Green: Explaining motivations across different environmental behaviors
Matthew Fienup: Unintended Consequences of Environmental Policies: The Case of Urban Growth Controls
Rebecca Gentry: Marine Aquaculture Development: Spatial Management, Conservation Opportunities, and Production Potential
Ian McCullough: Exposure and sensitivity of ponderosa pine to climate change in mountainous western North American landscapes
Matthew Meyers: Fluvial Processes Affecting the Texture of a Gravel Bed with an Emphasis on Salmon Spawning Habitat
Oliver Soong: Vegetation Establishment Following Floodplain Restoration in Mediterranean-climate California
Sarah Valencia: Integrating Marine Reserves into Data-Poor Fisheries Management: Challenges and Opportunities
Degrees Conferred 2016
Darcy Bradley: Improving the management of marine top predators: population characteristics, behavior, and extinction risk
Kendra Garner: Fate, transport, exposure and environmental implications of engineered nanomaterials
Julia Glenday: Assessing hydrologic impacts of watershed degradation and restoration at different landscape positions in a semi-arid, mountainous water-supply catchment
Yuxiong Huang: Novel magnetic nanoparticle adsorbents for organic and inorganic contaminants
Bryan Leonard: The role of transactions costs in shaping the emergence and persistence of property rights regimes and their subsequent implications for sustainable resource use and environmental markets
Kyongho Son: The importance of sub-watershed variability on predicting ecohydrologic response to inter-annual climate variability and climate warming in the Sierra Nevada watersheds
Sara Sutherland: The economics of political participation and distribution in fisheries management
Degrees Conferred 2015
Adeyemi Adeleye: Influence of microorganisms and extracellular polymeric substances on the fate of engineered nanomaterials in natural aquatic systems
Joe Bergesen: Technological change in the life cycle assessment of rapidly expanding greenhouse gas mitigation technologies: case studies on thin-film photovoltaics and LED lighting
Jon Conway: Fate, transport, and implications of engineered nanomaterials in the terrestrial environment
Laura Dee: Managing ecosystem services in the face of uncertainty: what is the role of biodiversity?
Eric Fournier: The life cycle energy-water usage efficiency of artificial groundwater recharge via the reuse of treated wastewater
Steve Miller: Adaptations to changes in environmental conditions and policies
Lindsey Peavey: Uncovering the ecology of a cryptic oceanic consumer: the olive ridley sea turtle
Yi Yang: Life cycle assessment of agricultural systems with an emphasis on marginal changes, technological advances, and regional characteristics