Niki Gajjar is a Cota-Robles Fellow and PhD student at the UCLA Institute of Environment and Sustainability. Her research interests are related to how urban rivers are shaped by, and in turn shape, social constructions of nature and water, environmental histories that are intertwined with geographies of race and class, and the ongoing ecological consequences of urban pollution. Drawing from urban political ecology, environmental history, and anthropology, she is interested in understanding how infrastructure, policy, and cultural relationships with water become embedded within the ecological conditions of urban watersheds.
Before joining IoES, Niki spent years working in the private sector supporting corporate sustainability initiatives, focused on nature, biodiversity, and community engagement. She completed an externship with the National Geographic Society and the Nature Conservancy and received funding to develop an environmental education initiative centered on Atlanta’s South River. She earned her B.S in Ecology from the University of Georgia.