Tiffany is a graduating senior in the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability (IoES) at UCLA, majoring in environmental science and minoring in conservation biology. Her passion for the environment first started when she visited the Amazon Rainforest in middle school. Currently, she is a project assistant at Three Squares Inc., a sustainable event planning and consulting firm. She has also managed and worked on various research projects at UCLA including the IoES Senior Practicum and the Sustainability Action Research.
Emmanuel Lopez
Lindsey Perry
Lindsey is a second-year Master’s student in the Materials Science and Engineering department in the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. She also received her B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from UCLA in 2015. As a member of the UCLA Archaeomaterials Group, her Master’s thesis research focuses on studying the materials and production technology of Late Postclassic Mixtec polychrome ceramic vessels. As she prepared to graduate, Lindsey found her passion in protecting the environment and promoting sustainability, leading her to complete the IoES Leaders in Sustainability Graduate Certificate. Lindsey will begin her post-grad career in environmental consulting, where she hopes to use her engineering and science background to help California businesses meet their environmental and economic goals.
Jordan Coe
Jordan studied environmental science student with a minor in environmental engineering. She grew up in the Bay Area and moved to Los Angeles to attend college at UCLA. A course with Dr. Mark Gold has inspired her to pursue a career in water resources management, and her experience so far includes an internship with the State Water Board Division of Drinking Water and a research position for the UCLA IOES Department, looking into water resiliency technologies. After graduation, Jordan hoped to begin a position with an engineering focus to develop her technical experience, and sees herself involved in public policy sector for improved water management for all people. In her spare time, you’ll find Jordan rolling with the UCLA Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Club, working on environmental projects with UCLA’s ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) chapter, or playing in UCLA’s Symphonic Band.
Jordan currently holds a position of Design Engineer at BLK Engineers.
Isaac Brown
Isaac Brown is a second year doctoral student specializing in urban ecology and biodiversity. His problems course includes developing an indicator framework for Urban Ecosystem Health in the UCLA Los Angeles County Environmental Report Card. For the course, urban ecosystem health is defined as a measure of the impacts, benefits, and sustainability of urban ecosystems, emphasizing ecosystem services, natural features, and native biodiversity. Indicators are being collected and synthesized from available datasets with special consideration for the Ecosystem Health Objectives of the UCLA Sustainable L.A. Grand Challenge. This is the first attempt to develop comprehensive indicators of ecosystem health in L.A. County’s built environment.
Similar to watersheds, urban ecosystems are envisioned as an overarching framework for integrated assessment and management of multiple environmental disciplines. We conceive urban ecosystems as integrated air, earth/water, landcover/land use and social features that are inherently comprehensive interconnected systems. This framework has the potential to bring together somewhat siloed environmental disciplines such as hydrology, geology, biology, land use and atmospheric science, which often have an eye on cross-disciplinary interconnections, but lack a unifying framework where interrelationships can be formally addressed. Capitalizing on cross-disciplinary relationships is a key opportunity for achieving the highest levels of urban ecosystem enhancement.
Isaac is also a nationally recognized professional landscape architect and ecologist specializing in analysis, planning, and design of ecological landscapes, green infrastructure and urban design. Isaac has applied an ecosystem services approach to landscape sustainability in diverse consulting projects worldwide ranging from parks and neighborhood-scale landscapes to city-wide green infrastructure and regional planning. Isaac has earned national awards from the American Society of Landscape Architects and holds Master’s and Bachelor’s Degrees from the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment. Isaac provides consulting services as Isaac Brown Ecology Studio.
Honors
ASLA National Honor Award in Analysis and Planning for “The Regeneration – Yongsan Park”
ASLA National Honor Award in Analysis and Planning for “Integrating Habitats – Growing Together”
Russell A. Pelton Prize
Demonstrating outstanding knowledge, interest, and sensitivity to use of plants in Landscape Architecture. 2005, University of Michigan
John Carow Award
For exceptional field skills in ecology. 2000, University of Michigan
M. Sanjayan
M. Sanjayan is a conservation scientist and chief executive officer of Conservation International,an organization working primarily in the Global South to secure nature for humanity.
Sanjayan was named Chief Executive Officer in 2017. He has led two landmark capital campaigns totaling $2.7 billion; the development of critical scientific tools, including the irrecoverable carbon atlas; public-private coalition-building for massive forest restoration efforts across the globe; and the launch of a pioneering blue carbon project in Colombia, as well as the multilateral Blue Nature Alliance, which aims to protect 18 million sq. km of ocean over five years. Previously, Sanjayan served as lead scientist for The Nature Conservancy.
Born in Sri Lanka and raised in West Africa, Sanjayan brings a unique perspective to his work, which has attracted media coverage from The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and Outside Magazine. He has testified before the U.S. House of Representatives and appeared on The Today Show, The Late Show with David Letterman, CBS This Morning, and Fareed Zakaria GPS. He has also hosted more than a dozen award-winning documentaries from PBS, BBC, National Geographic, Discovery, Showtime, and Vox Media. His latest series, Changing Planet, debuted on PBS in 2022. This unprecedented reporting effort shines a light on how climate change is affecting six of Earth’s bellwether biomes — and how Indigenous and local communities are meeting these challenges with inspiring ingenuity; a new episode will air every Earth Day for the next seven years.
Sanjayan holds a master’s degree from the University of Oregon and a Ph.D. in conservation biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz. His peer-reviewed scientific work has appeared in Science, Nature, and Conservation Biology. He has been a visiting researcher at UCLA, distinguished professor of practice at Arizona State University, and a fellow at the Aspen Institute. Sanjayan also serves as a Trustee for The Earthshot Prize and a Climate Advisor for the Clinton Global Initiative.
Sanjayan lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife and daughter. He enjoys spending time fly fishing in Montana, or birding, cycling and diving around the world.