UCLA Ph.D. candidate Lorena De la Puente Burlando selected for Critical Minerals Research Lab — Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA

The UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability is proud to share that Ph.D. candidate Lorena De la Puente Burlando has been accepted into the 2025–2026 Critical Minerals Research Lab, a national program hosted by the Washington, D.C.–based think tank Resources for the Future.

The lab supports a small, competitively selected cohort of Ph.D. students across disciplines who are conducting research on critical minerals and the clean energy transition. Through collaborative research projects and public-facing presentations, the program helps participants develop and refine policy-relevant research that bridges sociological, technical and economic dimensions of mineral supply chains.

De la Puente Burlando’s research focuses on lithium extraction in Imperial County, California and Puno, Peru, with an emphasis on how speculation influences institutional development during their respective licensing processes.

Over the academic year, she will contribute to interdisciplinary lab sessions, co-author a collaborative publication and present her findings at a national virtual workshop attended by policy experts, government officials, funders and other stakeholders.

The lab is led by researchers from Resources for the Future, Stanford University, the Colorado School of Mines and Carnegie Mellon University.

Learn more about the Critical Minerals Research Lab here.