Climate Resilience Fellowship

CDLS is working with community partners in Los Angeles and across California to cultivate a geoscience learning and research ecosystem. Work with these community partners are symbioses that encourage relationship building and mutual learning as well as working together on STEM and STEM-adjacent projects in our communities that push for justice in our communities.

CDLS Climate Resilience Early-Career Fellows (CRF's) will work with Community Fellows from community partners to define and execute collaborative research projects related to environmental justice and/or environmental stewardship, with a minimum one-year commitment. Being a CDLS Early-Career Fellow via a Climate Resilience Fellowship project has similar commitments to being a CDLS Early-Career Fellow; however, this track has an immense emphasis on building healthy relationships with the community partners.

With community-engaged research, the needs are evolving, and are defined by our partners and led by the community as part of the partnership, and listening is part of the process, so flexibility is key. Part of the fellowship is ethical engagement with partners. That means that we endeavor to engage in ethical co-creation and knowledge co-production as part of the fellowship, and do not have prescribed projects.

Examples of past projects include: GIS for Community Health (Esperanza Community Housing), Coastal Stewardship and Environmental Genomics (Amah Mutsun Land Trust), Water quality at Kuruvunga Springs (Gabrielino-Tongva Springs Foundation), inclusive and hands-on ocean science curricular and co-curricular enrichment (East Los Angeles College).