Participants: ECV | SALTON SEA | IMPERIAL VALLEY FIELD CAMPUS

COLLABORATING RESEARCHERS & EXPERTS 

RYAN SINCLAR, LOMA LINDA UNIVERSITY 
Dr. Ryan G. Sinclair is an Associate Professor of Environmental Microbiology in the Loma Linda University School of Public Health. He has current projects that evaluate human exposure to pathogens in surface water, on fomites, in drinking water, in wastewater and in tobacco water pipes. He works to keep these topics relevant and meaningful to several community partners that represent underserved populations in local and global regions. He maintains active community science initiatives in the Eastern Coachella Valley and Inland Valleys of Southern California. Dr. Sinclair worked as a post-doc in the National Research Council Associateship program, then research scientist at the University of Arizona Water Village. He has a PhD in water quality from Tulane University, a Masters of Public Health from Loma Linda University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Zoology from Brigham Young University. He also has a secondary faculty appointment in the LLU School of Medicine Department of Earth and Biological Sciences and he serves as a consultant on exposure science to the San Bernardino County department of Public Health.

AYDEE PALOMINO, ALIANZA COACHELLA VALLEY 
Aydee Palomino, born in East LA, is a resident of La Quinta. Aydee graduated from La Quinta High School and went on to study at the W. A. Franke School of Business at Northern Arizona University where she got her Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. Aydee is passionate about the environment. She hopes that the work she contributes at Alianza will use education and systems change to lessen the load often put on disadvantaged communities and animal and plant life. Aydee enjoys connecting with different people from the community, other organizations, academic institutions, and government entities that have a stake in tackling the climate crisis and, more specifically, its effects on the Salton Sea. She draws inspiration from the community and her peers. Aydee previously worked in the private sector. She started in hospitality marketing and sales and then went into business administration at Lamar Advertising Company. However, her vision was to always work for the community and elevate voices in spaces where they weren’t before. Outside of work, Aydee enjoys hiking, going to a good restaurant, concerts, and a good drink. Her perfect day would be going to the beach with some wine and listening to a good playlist of songs or enjoying a book (if by herself). She is always up for watching a good documentary or comedy series, and from time to time can be found randomly dancing. 

MARY VALDEMAR, SAN BERNANDINO VALLEY COLLEGE & SAN BERNARDINO COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT 
Mary Valdemar has been an advocate in the Inland region for over 20 years. Her passion for advocacy started as a struggling student, single mother, Chicana feminist and environmental advocate at SBVC & has continued throughout her over 15 year career there. She currently serves the campus through several organizations focused on diversity, inclusion, equity and labor. She is the Co-Chair of the Ethnic Studies Inland Empire Coalition; Co-Founder/Lead Organizer for ChICCCAA the only grassroots service cooperative in the IE, Village and Child Co-Op. She is as a delegate for the Inland Empire Labor Council, the AB617 steering committee and the Policy 47 committee for environmental justice fighting for clean air, land and water with ASM Reyes. She has a strong commitment to innovating, developing and implementing alternative solutions to our communities’ struggles with a perspective rooted in Indigenous practices, dismantling systems that perpetuate oppression and creating autonomous thriving communities that honor all beings, including Mother Earth. 

JOSE FLORES, COMITE CIVICO DEL VALLE 
Jose Flores is a Comite Civico del Valle civics and environmental advisor, and former social studies educator for 25 years at Brawley Union High School. He served as California Department of Education Instructional Quality Commissioner from 2014–18, and on California’s K–12 Civic Learning Task Force and Environmental Literacy Task Force. He is a UC–CSU ECCLPS advisor, California School Leadership Academy advisor, and a CDE transition team member serving State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond. He is the recipient of the 2018 California School Board Award, the 2017 California Council for Social Studies Award, the 2017 California Golden Bell Award, a 2016 National Presidential Innovative Educator Award, the 2015 ACETA Teacher Award, the 2014 ACSA Teacher of the Year Award, the California Civic Learning Award of Excellence, and State Assembly, State Senate, and US Congressional Instructional Recognition Awards. Jose grew up in Brawley as a migrant student working with siblings and parents in the fields since the 1970’s. He taught U.S. History & Government for 27 years. Throughout these decades Comite Civico del Valle was the primary partner that mentored his [state/national award winning] students that excelled in Civic/Environmental Literacy. Jose was also a member of the Ca. K-12 statewide effort producing CDE Blueprints in Civics Education and Environmental Literacy. The last 4 years of his teaching career he was an Instructional Quality Commissioner for the California Department of Education focusing on integrating Civic/Environmental Literacy & Justice in our states’ K-12 blueprints, frameworks and standards. He is also currently part of CAELI which stands for California Environmental Literacy Initiative. Jose’s role at Comite Civico is research and advocacy. 

MPNA-GREEN MEMBERS:

JOSE REA
He is the Executive Director of the Madison Park Neighborhood Association (MPNA) GREEN (Getting Residents Engaged in Empowering Neighborhoods) Programs at James Madison Elementary in Santa Ana. Jose has served on numerous boards and initiatives in Santa Ana, CA.An immigrant from San Martin Hidalgo, Jalisco, México, Mr. Rea arrived in California at the age of 17. He received a high school diploma from Roosevelt Adult School in Los Angeles and an A.A. degree from East Los Angeles College. Jose, a Santa Ana resident, attended UC Irvine to complete his undergraduate education in Environmental Analysis with minors in Epidemiology & Public Health and Psychology & Social Behavior. He received a Master’s degree in Demographics & Applied Social Analysis also from UCI. Mr. Rea worked in the Minority Science Research Programs for underrepresented students at UCI School of Biological Sciences for 14 years. And in 2002 he accepted a position at UCI School of Medicine to develop and implement a new program: PRIME-LC (Program in Medical Education for the Latino Community), As one of the founding directors, Mr. Rea was also a key contributor to the expansion of the PRIME-LC concept throughout the University of California Medical Schools. In 2016 Mr. Rea retired from UCI while holding an academic position in the Department of Family Medicine. Currently Jose is using his 28-years of experience in higher education administration in the non-profit sector.

ECOGOVLAB & UCI RESEARCHERS

ADAN MARTINEZ ORDAZ 
Adan Martinez Ordaz is a PhD Student in the Department of Anthropology at University of California, Irvine. He holds a B.A in Anthropology with a Minor in Chicano/a/x studies from University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). His research interests include: Immigration, Citizenship, Illegality, Online Communities, Cybersecurity, Informal Networks, Artificial Intelligence, Surveillance.

JAMES ADAMS
James Adams is a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California Irvine (UCI). His research and teaching focus on current debates in energy and environmental ethics, experimental ethnography, and the politics of knowledge production. Adams’s research examines the multi-scalar dynamics of sociotechnical change and considers their implications for developing more just and effective modes of environmental and energy governance. His publications include Knowledge infrastructure and research agendas for quotidian Anthropocenes, Petroghosts and Just Transitions, and What is Energy Literacy? .Adams’s dissertation  project, The Transition is Out of Joint: On Petro-Capitalism and Renewable Energy Transition in Austin, Texas, shows how sedimented histories of racial exclusion and petro-capitalist development continue to haunt Austin’s renewable energy transition. 

AIDEN BROWNE
Aiden Browne is an undergraduate student majoring in Anthropology and Political Science at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). His research topics include environmental injustice, governance, and ethnography. Browne’s research has examined the roles of different California  government agencies in environmental governance, and  the purposes and methods of community-engaged research. Browne’s  current research examines the many  levels of government that play a role in environmental governance in the City of Santa Ana and California more broadly. His research also examines governance of specific types of hazards, such as permitted facilities and facilities with Risk Management Plans (RMPs) for worst-case off-site chemical releases. 

KIM FORTUN
Kim Fortun is a professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California Irvine.. Her research and teaching focus on environmental injustice and governance, experimental ethnography, and the poetics and politics of knowledge infrastructure. Fortun’s  research has examined how people in different geographic and organizational contexts understand environmental problems, uneven distributions of environmental health hazards, developments in the environmental health sciences, and factors that contribute to disaster vulnerability.  Fortun’s publications include  Advocacy After Bhopal Environmentalism, Disaster, New Global Orders (2001), “Ethnography in Late Industrialism” (2012) and “Cultural Analysis in/of the Anthropocene” (2021). 

MIKE FORTUN
Mike Fortun is a professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California Irvine (UCI). His research and teaching focus on the histories, cultures and practices of different sciences, including the life sciences, environmental health sciences, psychoanalysis, and the interpretative social sciences. Fortun’s research has examined how scientists build and use research data infrastructure, how scientists present themselves and their projects, and how scientists collaborate with communities trying to address environmental harms. Fortun’s publications include Muddling Through: Pursuing Science and Truths in the 21st Century (1998) (co-authored with physicist Herb Bernstein), Promising Genomics: Iceland and Decode Genetics in a World of Speculation (2008), and Minding Genomics: Impossible Science and the Double Binds of Care (forthcoming).

PRERNA SRIGYAN
Prerna Srigyan is a PhD student  in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine. Her research focuses on education to science and governance pathways, and on diverse environmental and social justice pedagogies. In previous research, Srigyan studied air pollution governance in Delhi, publishing (with Rohit Negi), Atmospheres of Collaboration: Air Pollution Science, Politics, and Ecopreneurship in Delhi (2021).  The  book examines the  advocacy, entrepreneurial innovations and administrative struggles that pushed air governance forward, in process building new links between science and urban citizenship. Srigyan's current research also includes the development of 11th and 12th grade climate change and environmental justice curriculum for San Mateo County; and a collaboration with  environmental justice educators to build teaching and learning capacity across borders, linking K-12 schools, universities, community-based organizations, and government agencies.

NADINE TANIO 
Nadine Tanio is a postdoctoral researcher  in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California Irvine.  Her research focuses on K-16 education, science studies, epistemic justice and transformational pedagogy. Working at the intersection of participatory research and visual ethnography, Tanio has long been interested in innovating the boundaries of educational media,  Before returning to academica, Tanio was an  independent television producer for PBS and the Science Channel. Tanio’s current research includes a collaborative (with Fred Ariel Hernandez),  longitudinal ethnographic study examining how K-12 schools in the San Gabriel Valley (SGV) of Southern California are responding to complex and compounded crises associated with the  COVID-19 pandemic, racism and persistent  educational, health, environmental, and economic disparities. Tanio is also involved in the Beyond Environmental Injustice Research and Teaching Collective and co-leads (with  Jade Vu Henry)  Three Iris, a documentary film and research collaboratorythat creates and curates feminist stories about science, technology, and society. 

MARGARET TEBBE
Margaret Tebbe is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at the University of California Irvine. Her research and teaching focus on K-12 schools as sites of environmental injustice,  and on the potential role of both schools and students in the environmental justice movement.Tebbe has build GIS storymaps drawing out environmental injustice at schools in Santa Ana and Azusa, California. She’s also written a policy brief detailing how school facilities are often dangerous and  reproduce inequity.  Tebbe’s current research includes the use of GIS technologies and school district records to characterize environmental risks and hazards in and around K-12 schools in Southern California ( Los Angeles, Azusa, and Santa Ana); the development of 11th and 12th grade climate change and environmental justice curriculum for San Mateo County; and a collaboration with  environmental justice educators to build teaching and learning capacity across borders, linking K-12 schools, universities, community-based organizations, and government agencies. 

KATIE VO
Katie Vo is an undergraduate student majoring in Environmental Science and Policy with a minor in Civic and Community Engagement at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). Her research supports the development of environmental justice curriculum for high schools in the state of California. Outside of academics, she also rows for the UCI women’s crew team. In the future, Vo plans to apply her experience in undergraduate research to work in the federal government to advance climate legislation with an emphasis on environmental justice.

VISITING RESEARCHERS BEYOND UC IRVINE

FRANCISCO AGUILERA

SUPPORTING TEAM

ALEJANDRA PESQUEIRA

GLEN EBESU