On April 25th, 2025, the CEPB was incredibly proud of five undergraduate students who were able to convert months of hard work and research into poster presentations at the UC Davis Undergraduate Research Scholarship and Creative Activities Conference. Our students have been working on these projects across the last few quarters in partnership with graduate students completing Masters, Doctorates, and Post-Doc Fellowships. 

Hear from two of our students on their work and experience presenting! 

Anya Rao, 3rd year Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning Major: For the past year and a half, I have been working with Shriya on researching the needs of Organic Growers in California using a needs-based assessment conducted by the University of California, Organic Agricultural Institute. We are trying to understand the challenges organic growers face across different farm scales, cropping systems, and regions of California. In this project, we are trying to address the question: “What are the top research and system-level priorities of organic farmers?”. I was able to qualitatively code growers' responses into a multi-level hierarchy and interpret the data to identify what growers’ top research and system-level needs are! This research is crucial for directing funding to address the most pressing organic agricultural needs and to guide the future of agricultural policy! My favorite part of the project was working with a postdoctoral student and gaining experience on how to conduct research. I am so grateful that my mentor was able to help guide me through any questions or concerns throughout the entire process. Seeing all my hard work at the end of the day culminated in a poster made this experience so great! After finishing up my work with Shriya, I have transitioned into working with Sara Ludwick on her project, extracting the decision-making networks of entities involved in renewable energy development on federal lands.  After finishing my undergraduate degree, I hope to pursue higher education with a PhD or JD.

Emily Denio, 4th year Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning Major: My research is focused on the structure of the climate adaptation governance network in the California Delta. The goals of this research are to identify key adaptation players, compare network structure across different land use contexts, and inform strategic partnerships among climate adaptation practitioners. To analyze the governance network, I used data from the 2024 online Delta climate adaptation survey to model collaborative networks in rural, urban, and mixed land use contexts. I have enjoyed the opportunity to participate in research and gain hands-on experience in all stages of the research process. I have especially enjoyed learning how to use R to analyze and visualize data. Moving forward, I will continue this research and develop this project into my senior thesis. I anticipate completing the thesis at the end of this school year (June 2025) and I am excited to keep working with the lab until then!

The hard work completed by these students is a testament to their dedication and commitment to continuing research within our field. If you are interested in getting involved with our undergraduate research program, please visit the Undergraduate page on this website!