Applications for the 2023 Cohort have Closed.
“Coming here puts an image of the things you learned in books in your head. It makes sense of what is going on in the classroom.” – UC Santa Cruz Magazine Feature, “The outdoors opens doors—to success”
The UC Santa Cruz Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program seeks to grow diverse leadership to strengthen conservation.
“I came into Stanford with an Environmental Justice background, and while that was crucial for developing my passion for the environment, it also caused me to limit myself to Environmental Engineering careers. I thought building technologies was the only way to protect the environment, and, that thinking kept me from truly embracing nature.
I am so thankful to have been selected as a Doris Duke Conservation Scholar, which introduced me to the field of conservation ecology. Now, I am stoked to be working outdoors, studying the many organisms that allow our ecosystems to thrive, and working to ensure that all students, regardless of their backgrounds, feel like the outdoors are their space and recognize the fact that many POC, like them, hold ancestral ties to these lands. We aren’t just here for the Environmental Justice work, we’re also here to study the science and celebrate nature’s beauty.”
–Manisha Rattu, UCSC Doris Duke Scholar, class of 2016
UC Santa Cruz Land Acknowledgement
The land from which we base our work is the unceded territory of the Awaswas-speaking Uypi Tribe. The Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, comprised of the descendants of indigenous people taken to missions Santa Cruz and San Juan Bautista during Spanish colonization of the Central Coast, is today working hard to restore traditional stewardship practices on these lands and heal from historical trauma.
Statement in Support of Black Lives Matter
An open letter from UCSC DDCSP Founder and Faculty Director Dr. Erika Zavaleta
