Yifan (Flora) He is an environmental social scientist and doctoral student at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara. She studies rural land governance in the Global South using a combination of political science theory, causal inference methods, and geospatial tools. Current projects include the relationship between rural out-migration and land governance in South America, and the social and environmental impacts of collective tenure regimes in Brazil.

Prior to UCSB, she worked as a social scientist at Conservation International. She holds a Bachelor of Social Sciences from the University of Hong Kong in 2015 and a Master of Science in conservation ecology and environmental informatics from the University of Michigan in 2017.

Grants, Awards and Distinctions:
Schmidt Family Foundation Research Accelerator Award. $8,000.

James D. Kline Fund for International Studies. $5,000.

Michael J. Connell Memorial Fund Research Award. 2022-2024. Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara. Assessing socioeconomic and environmental impacts of land use restrictions in Indigenous lands in Brazil. PI. $15,000.

Environmental Justice Research Fund. 2022. Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara. $1,000.

Individualized Professional Skills Grant. 2022.  University of California, Santa Barbara. $1,000.

I am a Ph.D. student in the Department of Economics at UC Santa Barbara. I hold a BA and a MA in Economics from the São Paulo School of Economics - Fundação Getúlio Vargas. I am originally from São Paulo, Brazil. My primary research interests are Environmental Economics, Demographics and Macroeconomics. My current research focuses on the macroeconomic and demographic effects of environmental shocks, in particular volcanic eruptions. Previously to my Ph.D I have worked in the asset management and insurance industries.

Jimena Rico-Straffon is a Ph.D. student in Economics at UC Santa Barbara. She holds a Master of Public Policy from Duke University and a B.A. in Economics from Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM). Her professional experience includes conducting research on inequality, deforestation, monetary policy, and environmental policy at Mexico's central bank, the World Wildlife Fund US, and Mexico's National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change. Her research interests include natural resource economics, development, gender and racial inequality, and intergenerational social mobility. Her current research focuses on forest policy, as well as on the role of skin color on teenagers’ aspirations and investments in education.

Grants, Awards and Distinctions:

Deacon Fellowship, UCSB Economics Department

UC MEXUS- CONACYT Doctoral Fellowship (2019-2024)

UC Berkeley and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Diversity Fellowship for participating in the Berkeley/Sloan Summer School in Energy and Environmental Economics, $1,000

CAF Development Bank of Latin America, Research Grant on Sustainable Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, co-PI, $6,000

Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Assistant, UCSB Economics (2023) 

Ruth Morales is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Economics at UC Santa Barbara. Before starting at UCSB, she earned both a B.A. and M.A. in economics from San Diego State University. Her primary research interests are in labor economics and public economics. She is especially interested in investigating outcomes related to education, crime, and immigration policies. Her current lines of research focus on the demographic effects of the Bracero Program and on the impact of college-level remedial education reform in the community college system.

Adam Burston is a Ph.D. student in the Sociology Dept. with an emphasis in Information, Technology, and Society. His work lies at the intersection of gender, race, and social movement studies. His dissertation research focuses on the strategies that conservative and right-wing activists employ to form multi-racial coalitions, mobilize in digital and physical spaces, and enact social change. He is also assisting Drs. Sarah Thébaud and Brenda Major on research that addresses the impact of normative gender stereotypes in America. Before Adam came to UCSB he was a research associate with Carnegie Mellon’s Dept. of Engineering and Public Policy and a volunteer crisis counselor with Pittsburgh Action Against Rape (PAAR).